Chapter 12
The silence in Damian’s office is thick enough to choke on.
I sit in one of the stiff chairs across from his desk, making the furniture feel even smaller than it already is, arms crossed tightly over my chest as I stare at the floor.
Cole has been gone for a week and a half.
No texts. No calls. No sarcastic TikToks or chaotic locker room energy that usually fills every space he occupies.
He is not home. He is not answering his phone.
He has gone completely dark on all of us—Elias, Damian, even Zara who has left multiple increasingly sharp voicemails about the media firestorm still raging.
I have never seen him do this before. Cole Vance does not disappear.
He performs. He fills the room. He makes sure everyone knows he is there, loud and bright and impossible to ignore.
The fact that he is doing it now sits like lead in my stomach.
Alex has come to the arena twice already, looking nervous and confused, asking if anyone has heard from him.
The poor guy does not even seem to know what happened that night against the Wranglers.
He just knows Cole is gone, and that makes the guilt twisting behind my ribs even worse.
Because I know exactly why this is happening. I know it is my fault.
“Fucking child,” Damian growls from behind his desk, the words low and rough as he reaches for his phone with more force than necessary. His eyes are sharp with frustration, his shoulders locked tight the way they get when one of us pushes him too far.
I shift in my seat, uncrossing my arms. “Who the hell are you calling?”
“His sister,” Damian says flatly, already dialing without looking up.
The phone rings on speaker, the sound cutting through the heavy quiet of the office.
Elias leans against the wall near the door, arms folded, his eyes flicking between us with that mix of worry and captain-mode tension he has been carrying since Cole stormed out.
It rings a few times before she picks up.
“Hello?” Lena’s voice comes through, cautious but not surprised. I recognize it from the few times she has visited—sharp, protective, the same fire her brother carries but with none of the performance.
“Lena. Hi. This is Damian Kade, your brother’s coach,” Damian says.
“Oh… hi.” There is a beat of silence, and even through the phone I can hear the resignation in her tone. She knows exactly why we are calling. “Listen… I tried. He refuses to go back to Ravensburg right now.”
Damian’s jaw ticks visibly, the scar on his lip pulling tight.
When his glare swings toward me—his gaze pinning me like I am personally responsible for every problem on this team—I do not look away.
Yeah. Yeah, I know. This is my fault. I am the reason Cole punched me on the ice.
I am the reason he is out there somewhere shutting everyone out.
The weight of it presses down on my chest until it is hard to breathe.
All those years of keeping my distance, of trying to protect him from the parts of me that feel too much like my father, and I have only succeeded in breaking him anyway.
I watch as Elias steps closer to the desk and reaches for the phone. “Lena. Hi. It’s Elias,” he says, softer than Damian but still carrying that captain edge.
“Oh, hi Eli!” She brightens immediately on the other end, warm and familiar in a way that makes something twist in my chest. She has always liked Elias. Everyone does.
I raise an eyebrow at him. Elias just shrugs, like it is no big deal that Lena answers to his name faster than the head coach’s. Typical.
“Is he okay?” Elias asks, leaning in closer to the phone.
There is a long pause on Lena’s end. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter, heavier.
“Not really. He is barely eating, though that part might be my fault.” We all frown at the same time, confused, but she continues before anyone can ask.
“Barely sleeping. I think he threw his phone into a garbage can on the street the other day.”
The words settle over the office like frost. Barely eating. Barely sleeping. Throwing away his phone. This is not Cole. The ache in my chest sharpens into something closer to panic. I did this. My silence, my fear, my inability to be what he needs—it has pushed him too far.
The call ends shortly after that. Lena promises to keep trying but makes it clear her brother is stubborn as hell and does not want to come back right now. Damian hangs up and immediately turns that terrifying glare back on me. “You’re going to go get my fucking winger back, Petrov.”
“Kade…” I start to protest, shifting in my chair.
Damian stands up abruptly, fuming. Even though we are nearly the same height—him at 6’5”, me at 6’6”—he somehow looks a lot bigger right now. It is the pissed-off aura rolling off him like heat from a furnace, the way his bad leg does not stop him from towering with pure authority.
“No… you listen to me, Vik,” he growls, stepping closer. “I get it, okay? You’re scared. But you are not your father and whatever the hell you think you’d do to Cole, trust me, it’s nothing compared to what you’re doing to him right now.”
Elias’ eyes bug out beside me as he looks between us.
He did not know. Of course he did not. I have never talked about my father with the team, never explained why I keep Cole at arm’s length even when every part of me wants to pull him closer.
The realization that my shame is now public knowledge makes my stomach turn.
“Vik…” Elias starts, soft but insistent, already moving like he wants to push for answers.
“Don’t,” I say, cutting Elias off before he can push any further.
My voice comes out low and rough, heavier than I intend, but I cannot deal with his questions right now.
Not with Damian already glaring holes through me and the weight of everything pressing down on my shoulders like a bad check into the boards.
Elias lifts both hands in immediate surrender.
“Sorry, Vik,” he mutters, backing off the subject completely.
Then, because he is still Elias, he makes a dramatic zipper motion across his lips and throws away an imaginary key, silently promising that whatever he just learned stays between us.
I give him a small nod of thanks. At least one person in this room knows how to read a room.
Damian does not waste time on sympathy. He grabs a pen and scribbles something on a piece of paper with sharp, angry strokes before slamming it down on the desk right in front of me. The address stares up at me in bold black ink.
“Go get him,” Damian orders. “I don’t care how you do it, Vik, but we’ve already played two games without him and my winger doesn’t fucking hide.”
I stare at the address, my fingers curling slowly into fists on my thighs.
Part of me wants to argue. Part of me wants to stay right here in this safe, controlled silence I have built around myself for years.
But the bigger part—the part that has been slowly unraveling since Vancouver, since the shower, since Russia—knows Damian is right.
I reach forward and take the paper, folding it once with careful hands. The silence in the office stretches again, thick and expectant. Elias is watching me closely. Damian’s stare does not waver, daring me to refuse.
“I’ll go tonight,” I say, folding the paper with the address and sliding it into the pocket of my hoodie. The words feel heavy on my tongue, but there is no point in delaying this any longer. Cole has been gone long enough. I have been running long enough.
Damian gives a short nod of approval, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. Then, because he is Damian Kade and apparently done pretending we have any boundaries left in this office, he asks, “Good. Now… how’s your mother?”
I groan, dragging a hand down my face as fresh irritation flares in my chest. Of course he is spilling my personal life all over the fucking desk like it is team strategy. “Seriously, Kade?”
“What?” Damian huffs, leaning back in his chair with zero remorse. “He’s my husband, Petrov… he knows.”
Elias just grins like the chaotic little shit he is, jumping up from where he was leaning against the wall.
“Oh, by the way, I have something for her,” he says brightly, already digging through one of Damian’s desk drawers without permission.
He pulls out a neatly wrapped box and slides it across the desk toward me.
Inside are cookies shaped like tiny hockey sticks, decorated with red and black icing—Reapers colors, of course.
I stare at the cookies, then lift my gaze to Elias, one eyebrow raised in silent question. He just beams back at me, completely unrepentant.
“She’s… adjusting,” I say. “Picked up knitting.”
The words hang there, strangely domestic in the middle of all this tension.
My mother is safe now, far away from my father, living in the small house Damian arranged for her.
She is trying to build something new. I am glad for it.
But right now, all I can think about is the other person I have hurt by trying to protect them from myself.
“Good. The house is under her name, I made sure of it. Is it to her liking?” Damian asks, his tone shifting into something almost casual, like we are not in the middle of a serious conversation about my personal life and my completely fucked situation with Cole.
I shift in the chair again, feeling exposed in a way I hate.
This is exactly why I keep things to myself.
“Yes. The house is great. She loves it.” I pause, then add quickly, “Can I go now?” The conversation is turning way too personal for my liking, and I can feel the walls I have spent years building starting to crack under their combined attention.
Damian leans back in his chair, studying me for a moment before his mouth twitches into a smirk. “Yes, but don’t come back without my winger, Vik.”
I narrow my eyes at him, the irritation clear on my face.
The man is an asshole when he wants to be, especially when he knows he has the upper hand.
Damian just smirks wider, completely unbothered, like he enjoys watching me squirm.
Elias is still grinning in the corner, clearly entertained by the whole exchange.
I push to my feet without another word, grabbing the box of cookies Elias got for my mother and heading for the door. The address in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Tonight I am going to find Cole. Tonight this silence between us ends—one way or another.
The drive is quiet, three long hours stretching out in front of me like a punishment I probably deserve.
The address Damian gave me sits plugged into my GPS, the calm female voice occasionally breaking the silence to tell me to turn or merge.
For the first half hour I kept glancing at the paper like it might change, half-convinced there had been some mistake.
Lena’s apartment is above a tattoo shop.
She is a tattoo artist—sharp-tongued and fiercely protective of her brother, just like the ink she puts into people’s skin.
I wonder for a brief second if Damian got the address wrong, but then I remember who he is.
Damian Kade does not get addresses wrong.
He knows everything about everyone on this team, whether we want him to or not.
The highway gives way to city streets as the sun slowly sinks behind the buildings, painting the sky in deep oranges and purples before fading into night.
By the time I pull up in front of the shop, darkness has settled completely.
The tattoo parlor is closed, metal gate pulled down over the glass front, but the apartment above it has lights on.
I kill the engine and sit there in the driver’s seat for a long moment, hands still gripping the wheel, staring up at the window right above the shop.
And there he is. Cole is sitting on the wide window sill, legs drawn up, one arm resting on his knee.
The window is cracked open, letting cool night air in.
A cigarette burns between his fingers, the faint glow of the tip visible every time he takes a drag.
In his other hand is a glass with something amber inside—whiskey, probably.
His curls are messy, falling into his face, and he is wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweats that sit low on his hips.
The tattoos along his ribs and forearms stand out against his skin under the warm interior light.
Even from down here I can see the scowl etched deep into his expression, that familiar shit-eating grin completely absent.
He looks exhausted. Angry. Hollow in a way that makes my chest tighten painfully.
This is my doing.
I sit there in the dark car, unable to look away, watching the man I have been quietly in love with for years smoke like he is trying to burn something out of himself.
The sight of him like this twists something deep inside me.
I should get out. I should go upstairs and face what I have broken.
But for another long minute I just sit, gripping the steering wheel harder, trying to gather the words I have avoided saying.
I kill the headlights, push open the car door, and step out into the cool night air. My boots are heavy on the pavement as I cross the street and find the side entrance to the apartments above the tattoo shop. The stairs are narrow and dimly lit. Every step feels like it costs me something.
At the top, I stop in front of the door.
My hand hovers for a second before I knock—three firm, deliberate raps that echo in the quiet hallway.
I wait, my heart beating too loud in my ears.
Seconds stretch. Then I hear movement inside—footsteps, the faint clink of glass being set down. The door swings open.
Cole stands there in the doorway, one hand still on the knob.
For a single heartbeat he freezes when his eyes land on me.
Brown eyes widen slightly in surprise, then narrow into a sharp, furious glare that hits harder than any punch he could throw.
The air between us goes electric with everything unsaid.
The little shit does not even give me a chance to speak.
He slams the door in my face.
The sound cracks through the hallway like a slap shot off the boards.
I stand there staring at the closed door, the sting of it settling deep in my ribs.
I can hear him breathing on the other side, angry and unsteady.
My hand twitches at my side, wanting to knock again, wanting to push the door open and say everything I have been too afraid to admit.
But I stay still, waiting, the weight of every mistake I have made pressing down on me in the quiet.