My phone buzzes on the table.
I pick it up.
Richard.
Parole officer confirmed: geographic restriction is active. Ashford is in violation. Filing emergency motion tomorrow morning. Warrant likely by end of week.
I turn the phone so both of them can see.
Cole exhales.
I set the phone down.
Dante settles beside me on the couch, his hand finding my knee. My hand moves from the space where his head was back to Cole's hair.
The house goes quiet around us.
Tomorrow, Richard files the emergency motion. Addison's security covers the rink. The regional final fills the arena with four thousand people, the press box fills with journalists, and I sit in the seat I've earned and do my job while the legal system does its.
Two tracks converging on the same Friday.
The warrant and the championship.
The man who broke my ribs and the men who are trying to win a game that takes them to the Frozen Four.
By Friday night, David Ashford could be back in custody. By Friday night, Briarcliff could be playing for a national championship. By Friday night, the breathing count could drop to three.
Chapter 27
Dante
We win the regional final Friday night.
Four-three in overtime. Cole's wrister from the slot with eleven seconds left, the puck threading through traffic and snapping into the net. I score twice. Cole scores twice. Four thousand people scream hard enough to rattle the glass.
Addison cries in the hallway after, where he thinks nobody can see him. Looking for Maya through the press-box glass, I find him in the corridor beyond it instead, one hand braced against the wall, head down, shoulders pulling tight before he gets himself under control.
Maya is in the press box, in the seat she earned, the one where Ashford getting within fifty feet of her would have put him inside my sightline. Campus security is doubled for the game.Adrian's briefing holds the line. Ashford's face is flagged at every entrance. Every flagged entrance stays clear.
The arboretum path doesn't have a checkpoint.
I think about that while the horn sounds and Cole crashes into me on the ice and four thousand people scream like the world has narrowed to hockey, overtime, victory, sweat, blood, ice.
Richard's emergency motion doesn't produce a warrant Friday. The DA's office says they need the full hearing to act. Maya chooses the legal route over my family's way, and the legal route moves one stamped document at a time.
Monday morning, Ashford is still in Briarcliff.
The daytime plan is working. Richard files the protective order Monday. Gio's parole research gives it teeth: geographic restriction violation, documented escalation, the campus visit Clara's Title IX report corroborates. Campus security has the photo, the name, the vehicle, the plate. The paperwork is moving. The plan Maya chose is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
Tuesday, Richard calls. The DA's office is reviewing. The parole officer has been notified. Hearing scheduled for next Wednesday. The timeline is reasonable. Appropriate. Civilized people make calendar entries for a man who broke his daughter's ribs and showed up at her workplace with a business card and a smile.
Maya's father is still in Briarcliff.
The thought follows me to practice, where I put three pucks through the net so hard Adrian skates over and asks if I'm trying to kill the goalie. During film session, it sits behind my teeth while Addison breaks down our power play for the Frozen Four and my jaw locks tighter with every replay. At dinner, Cole and Maya sit on either side of me and Maya laughs at something Cole says.
The laugh is real.
Even now, she can still laugh, still lean into Cole's shoulder, still pass me the salt while her father moves through the same town, down streets nobody is watching. Then she crosses campus the next day and maps every walkway before she puts her foot on it.
