Chapter 5 Everything has a price
Everything has a price
Severin
Present time
I draw my first morning breath exactly fifteen seconds before the alarm is set to go off.
I’ve stopped gasping, sweating, or having one of those racing heart moment as there was when one experienced a nightmare a long time ago.
Because you stop gasping and sweating, and nothing else can surprise your heart in a mere dream—no matter how real it was—when your reality is much more colorful than anything your imagination can come up with.
Even though my dreams are not your typical nightmares.
No, it wouldn’t be that easy for me to just see some made up shit that’ll never happen. My nightmares are full of the past.
Every lovely, fucked-up second of it.
The only problem, sleep is elusive to me on the best of days.
It was never about rest and refueling for me.
Quite frankly, I’m not even sure how that even feels, but I can manage some shut-eye.
Enough to function. That is, if I don’t get nightmares.
I haven’t experienced one in years now, and having seen those images in front of my eyes once again is putting me on the edge I’d like to stay off.
True to my counting, my phone goes off and I shut the alarm off, swinging my legs off the bed and taking my slate silk sheets down with me.
My best—and only—friend Exton never misses his chance to tease me about them, quoting how I couldn’t show my silver spoon upbringing any more than I am with those.
The fucker might be right, but hell if I’ll ever tell him that.
It’s not like I asked for it.
Drawing another breath, this one’s much different from the one that woke me, I slide the curtains open, staring at the slow-falling snow beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass of my penthouse.
The winter is still in full swing here in Boston, despite the early spring hitting the calendars but that’s never bothered me. Cold is not something to fear when you come from Russia and basically have one day out of three-hundred and sixty-five where there’s not a cloud in the sky.
One. While winter lasts nearly half of the year.
It’s been years since I lived there, but it never quite leaves your soul. Especially not when your last name is Minaev. It’s almost as famous as the president’s, seeing as it’s our family that holds the reins of the oil trade and manufacturing of basically anything made in Russia.
No, not “our.” His. My father’s. It will never be mine, no matter how much he pleaded or threatened me. Not that he’s tried in the past five years.
But I am the sole heir left to inherit Minaev Corp. The only one he didn’t succeed in putting into the ground. Well, the only one we know of, because given my father’s track record, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were more.
Fuck, why am I even thinking about it now…
I exhale loudly. That’s what happens when you spend the whole night combing through the past, you end up bringing it to the surface—and I don’t need that shit today. I’ve got practice to get to.
I make my way to the bathroom, turning the cold shower water on until it cools every inch of my body.
Until it washes away the remnants of the nightmare I had.
Avoiding the mirror as I go through my morning routine, but just before I leave the shower I catch my own reflection in the glass door.
The one I reserve for the confinement of my own house.
The real face behind the mask I wear on the daily.
The black bleeds through the gold in my eyes more, exposing the storms brewing behind them when no one’s looking. The corners of my mouth don’t even try to fill in the few smile lines around my lips. The ones everyone takes for genuine.
The tattoos covering my neck—the story of which nobody knows, buying the bullshit I created long ago.
Sometimes, I have the urge to drive my fist through this reflection. To shatter it. To see blood dripping down every broken piece. Maybe then I’d feel something more than this silent rage that sleeps inside me like a beast, baiting his time.
Five years is a long time to forgive and forget. But I’m neither the forgiving nor forgetting type. I’m the kind who will keep on living, stashing all those feelings away into a box in the back of my mind, but won’t step on the same beaten path twice.
Because everything has a price. And everyone must pay.
I’ve learned it the hard way when I made my choices. The ones that haunt me in those nightmares.
“Let’s get this party started,” Coach Hill hollers from the bench, followed by the shrill sound of a whistle for all those who possess the hearing abilities of an earthworm. Meaning, virtually none.
But unlike earthworms, who have their other senses to rely on, the same can’t be said about a few of my teammates.
“Zlatan! This is not a basketball court, put the puck down and come here,” Coach adds as the two class clowns pretend to shoot the hoops on skates.
Very much not impressed, especially since they’re holding up my time, and I still need to make it to Iris Lake today.
“Zlatan, Fooley, get over here,” I say in a calm voice, one they hear right away.
“Fuck, how do you do that?” our first line center, Anze Goram, asks under his breath.
The guy rarely talks to anyone, and when he does it’s barely audible.
Goram is new to the team, getting traded from Arizona at the start of the season, but not new to the hockey world.
His last name is almost as well-known as my own. Albeit for a vastly different reason.
The guy is lethal on ice, and based on the demons I catch in his eyes when he thinks no one is looking, he’s lethal off it as well. Hell, after the shit he went through it comes as no surprise.
“Do what?”
“Get them under control like that? Those two are underage opossums on steroids, running around, causing havoc, yet one word from you and they obey.” Anze shakes his head.
“I’ve had more than enough practice with Quinn,” I tell him, avoiding the names of who played more instrumental roles in my life.
Goram grunts in response as if it makes all the sense in the world.
And to those who don’t know real monsters, it should.
Exton Quinn, my previously mentioned best friend, is the magician of a defenseman for our team, Boston Outlaws—or he was up until a month ago when he lost it on the ice.
Again. Because he’s also an idiot with a temper of a raging bull, the patience of a live grenade, stubbornness of a mule, and generally an asshole with a fight-trigger more sensitive than a newborn’s skin.
A few weeks ago, he beat the shit out of Yanis Zima from the Ice Devils right in the middle of the second period when the idiot cross-checked him. Granted, Zima is an entitled asshole and had it coming for a long fucking time.
Frankly, if Exton hadn’t, I’d have lost my mask soon enough and punched the guy myself, only I’m not sure I’d have been able to stop like Exton did. I have too much rage buried in that one box, and sometimes it rattles too much.
I don’t like it when it rattles.
So, I avoid it as much as I can, but Exton ended up with a heavy suspension for the fight right on the cusp of playoffs. And additionally, Coach Hill tasked him with babysitting an injured figure skater until she can get back on the ice herself.
Fucking idiot.
I guess, he trains my patience just as good as others. But at least he’s harmless. Well, to everyone he doesn’t want to kill.
“Give me four rounds with acceleration and stop on a whistle. Front-facing then back-facing drills and the rest of the usual warm-ups. Minaev, Eagle, rounds and stretches.” Coach blows his whistle, pulling my mind back into our practice.
The rest of the team starts their grueling workout on the ice while I slip into my own zone, alongside Josh Eagle, our second goalie, making my mind slip into that blissful state of peace.
A state I only managed to find while in the net.
Hockey has been my escape since I was a kid, because even at age seven, I needed it.
It became even more vital to me five years ago, when the very last thread in me finally snapped.
To many, hockey is about brutality, unreasonable risk, luck, or even empty-headedness but the truth couldn’t be any more different.
It’s not brutality, it’s control, it’s power, it’s retribution and justice. And sometimes, it’s plain old fun.
It’s not unreasonable risk, it’s honor, it’s protection, it’s selflessness.
It’s not luck, it’s strategy, it’s dedication, it’s skill and concentration. It’s hours upon hours on that damn ice day after day. And least of all is it empty headedness.
But for me, it’s all of the above and so much more. It’s the only place where I’m not Severin Minaev, the son of Igor Minaev.
When I’m in that net, the mask slips and all that’s left is the power-hungry control freak with trust issues and obsessive tendencies.
It wasn’t random that I ended up as a goalie. Goalies are a special kind breed of players, and more often than not we’re made, not born, into it. Hell, if there is one thing I am grateful for to my father, it is just that.
I could never fill any other role on the ice, because no matter how close we are on the team, I’d never trust a single soul out there not to screw me over.
Here, in the net, I have the ultimate control of the puck—of the whole game.
It sings a tune only I’m able to decipher, hear its song in the air, feel its rush as it flies through time and space.
I need the hairs on my arms to raise when it’s near.
I need to be aware of it with every inch of my body.
Ice feels you better than any lie detector ever could. It doesn’t accept fools, crooks, and liars. It’s pure and hungry for talent and greatness, even if it’s confined in a body of an asshole.
But those who try to play around, slip, and fall before their blade touches the cold, slippery surface, planting their sorry asses on the unforgiving ice along with a few bruises as keepsakes.