The interviewer leaned forward. "Let's start with the investigation. What can you tell us about what happened?"
Petrov's expression shifted into something I recognized—the concerned frown, the slight head shake, the performance of a man burdened by unfortunate circumstances. He'd practiced this. He'd stood in front of a mirror and rehearsed the angle of his eyebrows.
"Look, I made mistakes. I take responsibility for that. But the situation has been mischaracterized. The scope of my involvement has been exaggerated, and some of the people who've been implicated, particularly my former teammate Nico Varis, have been unfairly caught up in something they had nothing to do with."
My vision tunneled. The locker room dissolved around me, the clatter of sticks, the murmur of voices, the smell of equipment and sweat. All of it gone. Just the screen and Petrov's face. And the words coming out of his mouth like perfectly shaped pieces of a puzzle designed to look like the truth.
"You're saying Varis wasn't involved?" the interviewer pressed.
"I'm saying Nico is a good kid who got caught in the crossfire." Petrov looked directly at the camera. His eyes were sincere. His jaw was firm. He was the picture of a man wrestling with his conscience. "I feel terrible about what happened to him. He was my linemate, my friend. I never intended for any of this to affect his career."
Friend.The word detonated behind my sternum.
He'd used my betting accounts as camouflage for his operation. He'd designed the timing of his transactions to mirror mine, embedding his illegal activity into my legal activity the way a parasite burrows into a host. He'd done this whilecarpooling with me to the rink, while sitting beside me at team dinners, while showing me videos of his daughter's first steps, the same daughter whose college fund was probably financed by the money he'd made off the scheme that destroyed my career.
And now he was on national television calling mea good kidand acting concerned like a man in a one-act play, while thirty million viewers watched him do it and believed every word.
"Nico?" Theo's voice came from somewhere beside me.
I didn't answer. I was staring at the screen, watching Petrov describe his "deep regret" over the "collateral damage," watching him shake his head sadly when the interviewer asked about the human cost. He was good—very, very good. The kind of deception that came from understanding exactly how to arrange your face so that people saw what you wanted them to see.
I'd been arranged, too. A prop in his performance. First on the ice, then in the investigation.
Now on national television.
"Turn it off," I said. My voice came out low and flat.
Nobody moved. The locker room had gone quiet, guys standing by their stalls, eyes on the screen then glancing at me.
Theo reached up and pressed the power button. The screen went dark. Petrov's face disappeared.
I finished lacing my skates and stood up. I grabbed my stick and my gloves and walked toward the tunnel. The team's attention pressed against my back, twenty-two men watching the man who'd just been discussed on national television as "collateral damage" walk away without a word.
I made it to the tunnel. I made it to the bench. I sat down in the empty arena, the ice stretching out before me, smooth and untouched, and put my face in my gloves and screamed.
It wasn't loud. The padding absorbed most of the sound. But the vibration of it went through my jaw, my teeth, my skull—the rage of a man who'd spent fourteen months being quiet and hadjust watched his betrayer rewrite the story on television with a sympathetic frown and a well-rehearsed apology.
Kieran found me in the apartment that evening.
I'd left the facility after morning skate without telling anyone. I drove Kieran's car home. He could get a ride with Abbott.
I went to the kitchen and stood at the counter with my hands flat on the marble, my eyes closed, trying to reassemble the parts of myself that Petrov's interview had disassembled.
I heard the key in the lock at 4:30. Kieran's footsteps paused in the entryway before he redirected his stride toward the kitchen instead of the bedroom.
He appeared in the doorway. He took in the scene—me at the counter, coat still on, hands still flat, eyes open now but focused on nothing. He didn't ask what happened. He'd seen the interview. Everyone had seen the interview. By now, the hockey world was divided into people who believed Petrov's performance and people who saw through it.
Kieran crossed the kitchen and put his arms around me from behind.
Goalies don't usually hug. The equipment makes it impractical. You spend your career in thirty pounds of padding that turns you into an armored turtle, and even out of gear, the muscle memory of that shell persists. Kieran's embraces were rare and deliberate, each one a decision rather than a reflex.
This wasn't a hug. It was containment. His arms locked around my chest, his chin settled on my shoulder, and his body pressed against my back, solid and immovable. The goalie stance translated into human contact.Nothing gets through.
"I'm so tired," I said. The words came out as a whisper. "I'm so tired of this."
"I know."
"He sat in that chair and lied to thirty million people and called me hisfriendand pretended he didn't—" My voice broke. Not tears. Rage. The white-hot kind that burns clean and leaves ash. "He talked about his daughter. On national television, he mentioned his daughter, and every person watching thoughtwhat a devoted father, what a good man,and none of them know that he funded his gambling operation while showing me videos of her first steps in the parking lot after practice."
