Chapter 7
KIERAN
I knew because Nico's phone buzzed three times in rapid succession while he was standing at the counter making tea. I was in the hallway, still pulling on a shirt, and I heard the buzzing and then the silence that followed, the specific quality of quiet that happens when someone stops breathing.
By the time I reached the kitchen, he'd already read it.
He was standing with his phone in one hand and his mug in the other, his face perfectly still.
Not blank the way he'd been when Bishop hit him—this was something deeper.
This was the expression of a man watching his own execution and deciding not to flinch.
I didn't ask. I walked to the counter and picked up his phone.
The Snake Sheds His Skin. Did Chicago Make a Mistake?
By Jerry Brue
The article loaded in sections, photos first. Nico in his Minnesota jersey, stick raised after a goal, his face twisted into something that could be read as celebration or aggression depending on what you wanted to see.
Nico shoving a Boston defenseman into the boards, the action frozen at the moment of maximum violence.
Nico's face mid-shout at a referee, mouth open, veins visible in his neck.
Every image selected to build a specific narrative.
The text was methodical. Brue wrote the way a prosecutor builds a case, not with evidence but with implication.
Borderline hits. Questionable associations.
Anonymous sources describe volatile mood swings.
The word "alleged" appeared eleven times in eight paragraphs, a legal shield that let Brue say whatever he wanted without saying anything at all.
One paragraph stopped me:
Sources close to the league confirm that an investigation into Varis's alleged gambling connections remains active.
While no formal charges have been filed, the persistence of the inquiry suggests deeper ties than initially reported.
Multiple players from his time in Minnesota have described a pattern of reckless behavior and questionable associations.
"He was always on edge," one anonymous former teammate stated.
"Like he was waiting for something to blow up. "
I set the phone down.
Nico hadn't moved. His tea was going cold in his hand. His jaw was locked, that survival-blank look, the one that cost him something to maintain.
"I have to get ready for practice," he said and walked out.
His mug sat on the counter, full. I poured it down the sink.
The parking lot at the Storm facility was crawling with reporters.
I saw them the moment I turned off the street, three vans near the entrance, cameramen adjusting equipment, and journalists clutching tablets and phones.
Jerry Brue stood at the center of the group, collar turned up against the November wind, his expression focused and patient. A man waiting for his target.
"Fuck," Nico breathed from the passenger seat.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I can drop you at the back entrance."
"No." His voice came out rough. "That's running."
"That's strategic."
"Same thing."
He was already reaching for the door handle. I watched his shoulders square and his jaw set, his expression smoothing into that blank wall he wore like armor. He was going to walk into that crowd alone, absorb whatever they threw at him, and pretend it didn't land.
He shouldn't have to.
The thought arrived without permission, and I didn't have time to argue with it.
Nico was out of the car and ten feet ahead of me before I'd grabbed my bag. They swarmed immediately, microphones thrust forward, cameras tracking his every step, questions overlapping like waves.
"Nico! Can you comment on the league investigation?"
"Is it true you had connections to an illegal gambling ring?"
"Do you regret the way you handled things in Minnesota?"
I watched Nico keep walking. Shoulders back, chin up, eyes fixed on the facility entrance. Twenty yards away. His jaw was white at the hinge.
"Your former teammates have described you as volatile and reckless. How do you respond?"
"Are you concerned this will affect your standing with the Storm?"
Fifteen yards. The questions kept coming, each one aimed at the cracks.
"The article mentioned questionable associations. Can you clarify—"
Ten yards.
Brue stepped directly into his path.
"One question, Nico." His voice was calm. Almost gentle. The gentleness of a surgeon cutting without anesthetic. "Do you regret ruining your career?"
Nico stopped.
Around them, cameras focused, microphones tilted closer. Every journalist in the lot waited for the crack.
It came. Not anger, not defiance, just pain. Raw and immediate, the kind that lives in the spaces between breaths. It moved across Nico's face before he could catch it, a flash of pure hurt that Brue saw and cataloged with the satisfaction of a man who'd landed exactly the hit he'd intended.
"No comment," Nico managed. The words were hollow.
He started to push past Brue, to cover the last ten yards, to reach the building—
"He's our teammate. Back off."
My voice, louder and steadier than I'd expected, cutting through the noise like a whistle.
Nico's head turned.
I was beside him. I'd crossed the parking lot without deciding to, my bag over my shoulder. My body had made the decision before my brain caught up.
The reporters pivoted. Cameras swung toward me. Brue's eyebrows rose a fraction.
"Kieran Walsh," he said. "Are you confirming that the Storm organization supports Nico Varis despite the ongoing investigation?"
"I'm confirming that he's our teammate," I said. "And you're harassing him in a parking lot instead of doing actual journalism. So back off."
Silence. Half a second of it, the held breath of a crowd that hadn't expected the goalie to leave his crease.
Then the questions redirected. "Are you aware of the allegations?" "Does the team have concerns about his conduct?" "What's your personal relationship with Varis?"
I ignored all of it. I stepped closer to Nico, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched.
"Come on," I said quietly.
We walked together toward the building. The crowd parted reluctantly, cameras still rolling.
I counted the yards. Eight. Five. Three.
The glass doors opened and the noise cut off like a switch, replaced by the familiar echoes of the facility, the hum of industrial lighting, the distant scrape of skates on concrete.
Nico stopped walking.
I stopped too. I turned and found him staring at me with an expression I hadn't seen before, something cracked open and exposed, too raw to categorize.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
"Yeah. I did."
"They're going to come after you now. Associate you with—"
"I know."
"Kieran—"
"I know what I'm doing, Nico."
But the way he was looking at me suggested I might not. That I didn't understand the thing I'd just stepped into, the way this kind of scrutiny metastasized and spread, how it infected everything it touched.
"Why?" he asked. The word came out scraped.
I looked at him, the bruised eyes, the locked jaw, the man who'd been carrying this alone for a year because no one had been willing to stand next to him while the cameras rolled.
"Because I believe you," I said.
I stood up for him in a parking lot, on camera, with Jerry Brue thirty feet away and a dozen lenses recording every second.
Nico's throat worked. He swallowed hard, his eyes too bright.
Before either of us could say more, footsteps echoed down the corridor. Luca rounded the corner, gym bag slung over one shoulder, his expression showing me he was filing everything away.
His gaze swept over us, the proximity, the charged silence, the way neither of us had moved apart.
"Saw the circus outside," he said. "Everyone good?"
"Fine," I said.
Luca looked at Nico. Then back at me. The look lasted half a second too long, the captain's assessment, the one that absorbed everything and stored it for future use.
I walked toward the locker room and tried not to think about the fact that I'd just publicly declared Nico Varis my teammate on camera, in front of a dozen reporters. The look on Nico's face when I'd done it was going to live behind my ribs for a very long time.