“If someone said that about my wife,” he said, voice like gravel ground through steel, “I’d have put him through the boards, too.”
I froze. No reprimand. No fine warning. Just a statement. A truth.
He looked at each of us in turn—Axel with a split lip, Toshi icing his shoulder, Rhys dabbing at a bloodied nose. “You showed grit out there,” he said, voice low and even. “You didn’t just skate—you stood the hell up. That was more than defense. That was respect. For each other. For this team.” He paused, letting the words settle, eyes sharp but not angry. “And when it came down to it? You had each other’s backs. That’s what matters.”
Coach paced once, slow, hands on his hips.
“You earned that win—but more than that, you earned each other’s loyalty. And that’s something no scoreboard can measure.” He stopped near the benches, glanced down at Rhys, then out at the rest of us. “Proud of every damn one of you. But don’t think this is over. They’ll come harder next time. Let ‘em. We don’t back down. Not when it’s one of ours.”
He nodded once—just once—but it carried more weight than a ten-minute speech. That nod told me I wasn’t crazy for what I did. That protecting Kennedy wasn’t a weakness. It was loyalty. It was love.
Coach turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway. Didn’t even look back when he said it: “You know what’s at stake here, Maddox. Protect what’s yours.”
And then he walked out, boots echoing down the hall like a damn battle march.
I sat there, towel clenched in my fist, throat tight. Protect what’s yours. The words carved themselves into my spine. I glanced around.
Toshi cracked his knuckles like he was still amped. Axel had a beer in one hand and a busted lip, still grinning from the post-game chaos. Drew was helping Rhys clean up, muttering something like “Next time, swing first.”
We’d won the game, yeah. But this? This was more than points on a board.
This was ours now.
A team that bled together.
A team that didn’t let anyone touch their own.
I stood and met their eyes one by one. “He crossed a line.”
“Damn right,” Axel said. “And you drew one.”
The room didn’t explode into cheers. It just burned with that quiet, vicious loyalty—the kind that didn’t fade after the final buzzer.
We’d won the game.
Now we’d win the war.
The tie felt too tight, like it was choking me. I adjusted it anyway, staring at my reflection while my jaw worked overtime. My knuckles were still scraped raw, and the adrenaline hadn’t fully worn off. But there wasn’t room for emotion now. Not here. Not in front of the sharks waiting with cameras and mics.
The moment I stepped into the press room, the noise hit like a punch—flashes, voices, all of it blending into a wall of static I didn’t care to decode. I walked straight to the podium, planted my hands, and let silence do the heavy lifting. They quieted eventually. They always do.
“What happened on the ice tonight, Nick?” one of them called out.
I didn’t blink. “That wasn’t just a game out there,” I said, voice level but loaded. “That was a team with no class taking cheap shots because they couldn’t win clean. And when you cross that line—when you go after someone I care about—you get what’s coming.”
Cameras clicked. The room bristled. I let the silence stretch.
“Are you referring to Kennedy?” someone asked, like they thought I might dodge it.
“I'm referring to my wife,” I said flatly. I let it hang for a second—long enough for them to feel it. Then, “She’s mine. You touch her, you deal with me. And everyone saw what that looks like tonight.”
No one had a follow-up. Just wide eyes, pens scribbling, and mics picking up heartbeats.
I stepped back from the podium, turned on my heel, and walked out without another word. Let the headlines write themselves. I had someone waiting—and she was the only thing I gave a damn about now.
I spotted her the second I stepped outside—standing by the car in my jersey, soda stains on her sleeves, strands of hair sticking to her cheek from the wind. And still, somehow, she looked perfect. Like my calm after the storm. Like mine.
My heart was still jackhammering in my chest from everything that went down inside, but seeing her grounded me. At least until I opened the car door, and the scent hit me.
