Chapter nine
Turnover - Losing possession of the puck to the opposition.
Theron
I saw them through the locker room door before I stepped out—Dante’s family clustered in the corridor, his mother’s hand still in Max’s, his nephew staring up at Taz like he’d discovered magic was real.
The team had been talking about yesterday’s lunch before warm-up, trading stories about Dante’s mother’s cooking with the enthusiasm of men who’d been fed well and wanted everyone to know about it.
I’d been in meetings. Strategy sessions with the assistants, reviewing footage of Antoine Devereaux’s brand of manufactured chaos, trying to figure out how to counter a player who’d spent fifteen years learning how to make penalties happen to other people.
I’d missed the lunch. I’d missed watching Dante with his family, missed the ease he apparently had when he wasn’t performing the careful, controlled version of himself he brought to the rink.
My dragon had opinions about that absence. Specific, persistent opinions that I’d been managing for two days with decreasing success.
I stepped into the corridor and made my face do what it needed to do—professional warmth, the version of myself that met families and signed autographs and represented the franchise with appropriate gravitas.
The version that didn’t catalogue the exact distance between where I was standing and where Dante was standing, or the way his shoulders had come down fractionally when Max had praised him to his nephew.
“Mrs. Russo,” I said, extending my hand as I approached. “Theron Kincaid. I’m sorry we couldn’t deliver a better game for you tonight.”
She took my hand with both of hers, the same way she’d held Max’s, and her grip was warm and firm and demonstrated decades evaluating whether people were good for their children.
“Coach Kincaid,” she said, and her eyes went to my face with that same assessing manner. “Dante speaks very highly of you. Thank you for taking care of him after—” She gestured at his bruised face. “After that terrible thing.”
“He’s a tough kid,” I said, and meant it. “He’ll be back on the ice soon.”
“Not too soon,” she said, delivering a non-negotiable position. “Those bruises need time.”
“I agree completely.”
Something in her expression softened. She released my hand and turned to gesture at the two men standing slightly behind her. “These are Dante’s brothers, Marco and Nicky.”
Marco was older than Dante by maybe five years, broader through the shoulders, with the same dark eyes and a manner that suggested he’d spent a lifetime being responsible for younger siblings. His handshake was firm, assessing, the grip of a man taking measure.
“Coach,” he said. “Appreciate what you’ve done for Dante. The last few months have been—” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Difficult. It’s good to see him with a team that has his back.”
“He’s earned it,” I said, and watched something in Marco’s face relax fractionally.
Nicky was younger, closer to Dante’s age, with the same lean build and contained energy that suggested he didn’t sit still easily. His handshake was briefer, his attention already moving past me to catalogue the rest of the team still filtering out of the locker room.
“This is incredible,” Nicky said. “The whole thing. The suite, meeting everyone. Dante never—” He stopped, glanced at his brother. “We’re really grateful.”
“This team takes care of family,” I said, making it clear, which was true and also easier than examining why I’d personally approved the VIP upgrade when Max had requested it, or why I’d made sure the suite had the best sightlines in the building.
Mrs. Russo had moved on to introduce her daughter-in-law and grandson to Cole, who was handling the attention with the grace of someone who’d grown up in the public eye.
Phoenix stood slightly to the side of him, watchful and quiet, and I caught the way Cole’s hand found Phoenix’s lower back for just a moment—brief, grounding, the kind of casual intimacy that was good to see.
Good for them. They’d earned their happiness after everything they’d survived.
My eyes found Dante without meaning to. He was standing with Keegan and Taz, his nephew between them, and something about his posture had eased in a way I hadn’t seen in two months.
He looked—not happy, exactly, because we’d just lost and were down 2-0 in the series—but present.
Grounded. Like having his family here had given him permission to occupy space differently.
My dragon stirred with approval, and I told it firmly to be quiet.
“Coach Kincaid?” Mrs. Russo was back, and she had someone with her. “This is Odin Clark. He’s a big hockey fan and Dante told us we could bring guests.”
The man who stepped forward was unremarkable in the way that made my instincts wake up and pay attention.
Average height, average build, dark hair going gray at the temples, an easy smile that reached his eyes.
Well-dressed but not ostentatiously so. The kind of appearance that made you forget him thirty seconds after he left the room.
Except I wouldn’t forget him.
“Mr. Clark,” I said, extending my hand and keeping my face carefully neutral. “Welcome. Are you enjoying the game?”
“Very much,” he said, and his handshake was exactly what it should be—firm, professional, unmemorable. “Though I’m sorry about the result. That call on Keegan was questionable.”
“These things happen,” I said, which was what you said when you couldn’t say what you actually thought about officiating.
His smile widened fractionally. “Indeed they do. You’ve built something impressive here, Coach. Considering the circumstances.”
“We do our best,” I said, and made myself release his hand at the socially appropriate moment rather than the moment my dragon wanted me to, which was immediately and with prejudice.
Because I knew exactly who or what Odin Clark was.
Not his current employment, not whatever benign cover he was operating under that had made Nicky Russo comfortable enough to bring him to a family event.
But I knew the scent underneath the cologne and the careful presentation—dragon, old blood, and the bitter tang of metal.
I knew the pattern of his energy, the way it moved wrong, like a record with a skip in it.
He wasn’t a forge dragon like me, but he had been born from a similar line.
I also knew he couldn’t shift. The council called them human-born, and most dragons couldn’t sense them.
I wouldn’t be able to either if the scent of metal in his blood didn’t respond to mine.
I had no idea if he knew what I was, it depended how strong his blood was.
But I also knew, with the sick certainty of two hundred years of experience, that men like Odin Clark—dragons who couldn’t shift, who’d either been born that way or been damaged or illegally bound or broken by circumstances I could only guess at—fell into one of two categories.
They either became advocates for preventing that damage in others, or they became obsessed with understanding exactly how it had happened to them.
The first kind built sanctuaries. The second kind built anger and bitterness.
I had no evidence for which category Odin Clark fell into. But my instincts, honed over two centuries of protecting my kind, were screaming that he was very much the second type.
“How do you know the family?” I asked, keeping my tone conversational, and even though Dante’s mom had already said.
“Nick Russo works for my firm,” Odin said easily.
“In the accounts department. Very talented young man. When he mentioned his brother played for the Dragons, well—” He spread his hands in a gesture of friendly enthusiasm.
“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I’ve followed your career with interest, Coach Kincaid.
The rebuild you’ve managed here is impressive. ”
“Thank you,” I said, and cataloged the way he’d said your career with just slightly too much emphasis, like he knew things about my career that weren’t in the public record.
My dragon was no longer stirring. It was awake, alert, and deeply unhappy about the threat standing in front of me wearing a pleasant smile and a nice jacket.
“I should get back to the family,” Odin said, reading something in my face that I hadn’t meant to show. “Thank you for your time, Coach. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
That sounded like a promise, or a threat.
I watched him return to Nicky’s side, watched the way he moved through the corridor with that unremarkable quality that was itself remarkable, and made a decision.
I needed to talk to Ignatius Steel. Soon. Because if Odin Clark was in Chicago, in Nicky Russo’s life, with access to Dante’s family—that wasn’t a coincidence. That was a move on a board I was only beginning to understand, and I needed more information before the next piece fell.
But first, I had a locker room full of players who’d just lost a crucial playoff game and needed to believe we could still win this series. And I had Dante Russo standing twenty feet away, his face still bruised, his family around him, looking more settled than I’d seen him in two months.
I made myself focus on the second thing and file the first thing away for later.
“All right,” I said, raising my voice enough to carry. “I know you all want to visit, but we’ve got a flight tomorrow morning at eight. Early night, everyone. Mrs. Russo, thank you for coming. We’ll try to give you a better show in game three.”
She smiled at me with that certain warmth that mothers had when they’d decided you were acceptable. “I’m sure you will, Coach. Take care of my boy.”
“Always,” I said, and meant it in ways I absolutely could not examine right now.