ALEKSANDR
Tristan strodeinto the locker room, and the entire team fell silent. Through the glass partition of my office, I watched twenty pairs of eyes track his movement, the hostility so thick, I could taste it through the recycled arena air.
I looked up from the game notes I hadn’t been reading, hating myself for how desperately I craved news of her.
Tristan’s eyebrows swept up with surprise when he took in the team’s expectant faces, and then he grinned—the first genuine smile I’d seen from him since that disastrous game. “She’s okay. Home. Says thank you.”
Slava Bogu. Thank god.
I wasn’t the only one relieved. Around the room, shoulders dropped and fists unclenched. For the first time since that disastrous loss against the Hawks, I saw a glimmer of hope that we might salvage this season, that we might salvageanythingfrom the wreckage I’d created.
The boys went back to their pre-game rituals, the familiar sounds of laces being pulled tight and equipment being adjusted filling the space. The relief was fragile. Theystill avoided looking directly at Tristan, maintaining deliberate distance as they moved around him.
Cole sat alone on the bench, fully dressed, staring into his hands. He hadn’t looked up when Tristan walked in or when the team celebrated Eva’s recovery. Cole hadn’t looked me in the eye, hadn’t said a damn thing to me outside of grunts of acknowledgment during practice, since Eva had told him what I’d done to her.
It felt like losing a son.
Except men didn’t fuck vulnerable, redheaded angels in hotel rooms with theirsons, did they?
The thought stole my breath away. Cole, who I’d mentored since he was a teenager. Cole, who’d trusted me with his sobriety, his dreams, his fears about disappointing his father. Cole, who’d looked at me with hero worship until he learned what kind of monster I really was.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You did this, and you can deal with the consequences.
It felt like when I’d abandoned Dmitri, refusing to pay the price for my revenge sixteen years ago. The fluorescent locker room lights felt too bright, the sounds too sharp, like my skin had been peeled away and everything was hitting raw nerve.
Fuck.
To my surprise, Tristan sat down beside Cole and wrapped an arm around his back, murmuring softly in his ear. I couldn’t hear what he murmured, but Cole finally looked up, and Christ, he looked like death warmed over. His eyes were bloodshot, his face gaunt, and my stomach dropped at how his hands tremored.
Heartbreak weighed on my chest. Cole’s sobriety had become another casualty of my need for revenge. He pressed his lips together and nodded at whatever Tristansaid, then bent to lace his skates. Tristan quickly changed beside him, their shoulders touching, and for the first time in days, they looked like teammates again.
A second wave of relief swept through me, though it did nothing to ease the crushing weight in my chest. That friendship, at least, I hadn’t completely destroyed. An hour later, it was clear that whatever fragile hope I’d held was misplaced.
We were getting slaughtered.
The Riverside Wolves were up 4-1 halfway through the second period, and my boys were playing like they’d never seen a puck before. Worse than the score was watching Cole and Tristan embrace their pariah status, throwing themselves into every fight, absorbing punishment that should have been shared across the entire team.
Chyort voz'mi, the NHL had moved away from true enforcers, and collegiate sports even more so, but these two were violence personified, brutal and bleeding and horrifyingly reckless.
Cole’s lip was split, blood staining his mouthguard. Tristan had taken an elbow to the temple that left him wobbly on his skates. They took cheap shots that should have had their teammates jumping in to defend them. Then, Cole skated in front of a Wolf who clearly intended to take out one of the rookies and slammed him into the boards. One of the opposing team members mouthed something at him. Cole laughed then punched him in the face.
“Worth it,” Cole snarled, his expression fierce as he skated into the penalty box.
His face went blank. Jedediah Carter stood behind the penalty box plexiglass, perfectly groomed in an expensive overcoat, smiling at his son like Cole’s self-destruction was everything he’d ever fucking wanted. Carter caught my eyeand nodded once, then began making his way around the rink toward the tunnel.
Toward me.
Color me surprised, because Carter never attended hockey games, and when he did attend other athletic events, he did so from the cushy box seats of the program’s biggest donors.
Not that Carter donated a penny to hockey.
Not when he wanted his son out so fucking badly.
The buzzer sounded. Intermission. Carter gestured to me, and I swore softly. I met him in the hallway as the team clomped by to the locker room, where my assistants would review plays and try to salvage this game, if that was even possible.
Cole saw me first. His step faltered when he spotted me standing beside his father, and raw betrayal mixed with grief on his face before he masked it. He stared at me for a long moment before continuing past, blood still dripping from his nose onto the tunnel floor.
The rest of the team gave Cole a wide berth, but their eyes found me and Carter as they filed past, leaving us alone in the hallway. They weren’t stupid. They knew I’d been fighting Carter’s influence for years—they just didn’t know it had been a losing battle since I was a fucking rookie in the NHL.
