Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Hat Trick - When a player scores three goals in one game.
Phoenix
When I woke, Cole was dressed in soft joggers and one of Ignatius’s too-big hoodies that made him look younger and painfully breakable. The sleeves swallowed his hands. He gave me a small smile. Shy. Almost nervous. “Morning.”
“Hey.” I tried to smile back. It felt stiff. “Sleep okay?”
He nodded. “Better than…any night I can remember.” That hit somewhere tender and aching. Before I could respond, Ignatius’s voice boomed from the kitchen:
“COLE. GET IN HERE BEFORE I COME DRAG YOU.”
Cole startled. I snorted despite myself. “He sounds cheerful.”
“He sounds dangerous,” Cole murmured, but he followed me after I dressed.
The kitchen smelled like eggs and toast and the fancy coffee Ignatius brewed that was probably filtered through gold.
He stood at the island, holding his tablet like it was a sacred artifact.
When he saw Cole, he didn’t bother with a greeting.
He slammed the tablet down dramatically.
“You,” he announced, “are being sent to Toronto.”
Cole blinked. “…What?”
Ignatius dragged both hands down his face. “Why do I even try to be theatrical? Fine. Let’s try again.” He cleared his throat. “Cole Armstrong—You have been selected as the Western Division's Last Man In.”
Silence.
Cole stared. I stared. Even the kitchen appliances seemed to stare.
Then Cole whispered, “You’re joking.” I opened my mouth to ask what the hell they were talking about, but Ignatius continued.
“Why would I joke about this? Do I look like a man who jokes about anything except tax loopholes? You’re in, Cole. The fans voted you in.”
Cole stood frozen. Like he needed someone to rerun the words through a different speaker.
“All-Star,” he echoed. “But—I missed a game. I disappeared. My stats—”
Ignatius cut him off with a slicing motion.
“Your stats are exceptional. Your fan base is feral. And half the league saw the hit you took and the way you bounced back from it. Humans love a comeback narrative. Dragons love one even more. The fans voted you in. The league confirmed it this morning.” Cole swayed.
“Sit,” I blurted, catching his elbow just as he listed slightly toward the fridge. “Jesus, Cole, sit down.” What the hell was a last man in?
I decided to ask because it seemed like a big deal. Ignatius didn’t even give me time to sit down before he launched into it.
“Phoenix,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose like I was already exhausting him, “let me make this very simple, because Cole is too modest to vocalize any of this.”
I blinked. “Okay…?”
“Cole has been voted the Last Man In,” he said with unnecessary fanfare.
I stared at him. “Which means…what exactly? Because everyone keeps shouting it like it’s the second coming.”
Ignatius sighed, the long-suffering kind that implied I was both hopeless and adorable. “The All-Star rosters get mostly chosen early in January. But every division gets one extra spot—a fan-voted wild card. The fans decide the final player. That’s what Last Man In means.”
“So…he was the last one picked?” I asked, wincing a little.
Ignatius glared at me like I’d confessed to a crime.
“No, you tragic boy. It means he won the popularity war. It means the fans looked at hundreds of players in the Western Division and said, ‘Give us Cole Armstrong.’ It means they fought for him. Ten votes a day, per person, for a whole week. And he won by a landslide.”
I felt my chest warm in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Really?”
“Really,” Ignatius said, gentling slightly. “The Last Man In isn’t a pity vote. It’s the fan favorite. It’s the player they want to see shine on the biggest stage.”
I swallowed. “Okay. And the All-Star competition part? What's that?”
Ignatius’s expression brightened in the way that meant he was about to lecture. “The All-Star Weekend is a circus on ice. There are skill contests—fastest skater, hardest shot, trick shootouts, accuracy challenges, you name it. It’s entertainment. Flash. Showing off.”
“Cole doesn’t…show off.”
“Yes,” Ignatius said dryly. “Which makes him accidentally impressive. Cameras love him.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “And then there’s a game?”
“A three-on-three mini-tournament between divisions,” Ignatius explained. “Fast, chaotic, thrilling. No one hits each other because getting injured at All-Star Weekend is embarrassing, but everyone wants to look good doing it.”
“And Cole is…just going to do that? After everything?”
Ignatius looked at me then—really looked—and his voice softened.
“He deserves to be celebrated,” he said.
Ignatius softened—actually softened—and set a coffee in front of Cole.
“You deserve this,” he said. “And before you start doubting that, let me remind you that the All-Star selection is the highest honor in the mid-season calendar. Only the best get chosen. This isn’t pity. It’s recognition.”
Cole stared down at the steam rising from the cup like it might show him the future.
“I can’t believe…” He swallowed. “The fans voted for me?”
“All of them,” Ignatius said.
"You need TikTok,' I said immediately, my mind running through possibilities. "Do you have Insta?"
Ignatius looked at me before Cole did. "What was your last job?"
I flushed. "Not marketing if that's what you were going to ask."
"No," Ignatius said agreeably. "It was rental management, but I wondered if they made you do more."
I flushed. He knew. Of course he did. Was this where I got thrown out?
"Rental management?" Cole asked. "Like you're a landlord?" He looked at me with simple curiosity, but I knew that expression would soon be disgust. No one else had ever believed me.
“How about you start from the beginning,” Ignatius asked.
I swallowed hard. “Right.” But why bother when no one ever believed me?
“I worked in tenant relations for a real estate group. Managing complaints, notices, rent processing. I liked the job. I was good at it.” I paused.
“Most of the tenants were working-class families. Single parents. Immigrants. People who couldn’t fight back against the system if something went wrong. ”
I hesitated, breath snagging in my chest. “The owner’s nephew started…
changing things,” I said. “He’d move notice dates backward in the system so it looked like tenants had been warned about arrears when they hadn’t.
He’d ‘lose’ payment records. And then he started fast-tracking evictions on buildings he wanted cleared out. ”
Cole’s jaw clenched beside me. “For redevelopment.”
“For profit,” I agreed. “He didn’t care that those people had nowhere to go. He didn’t care that some of them were already struggling. He just…wanted them gone.”
Ignatius’s voice dropped into that dangerous, quiet register dragons used when I imagined they were one breath away from fire. “And where do you come into this?”
I dragged a shaky hand through my hair. “I reported it. Three times. My supervisor told me to stop ‘misinterpreting procedural discretion’—whatever the hell that means—but I kept documenting everything. I thought if I kept a paper trail, someone would have to do something.” A bitter, humorless laugh slipped out of me. “They did something, all right.”
Cole’s hand brushed my leg—just enough to remind me he was there, listening.
“The nephew panicked,” I said quietly. “He claimed I was ‘causing trouble,’ that I’d misunderstood routine processes. And then he told upper management that I was the one backdating eviction notices.” My voice shook. “The company sided with him. They always do with family.”
“They fired you,” Cole said, voice soft and careful.
“On the spot.” My throat tightened. “They told me I’d put tenants at risk. Said my actions were unethical. And then—they told me they’d make sure I’d never get hired by anyone else in property management. Ever.”
Ignatius didn’t move, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
I forced myself to keep going. “For a while, I thought maybe…maybe I’d messed up somehow.
That I’d done something wrong without realizing.
But then I talked to one of the families I’d tried to help.
They’d been thrown out because of a fabricated notice.
” My voice cracked. “They cried. And they still trusted me more than the company.”
Cole reached for my hand.
I stared down at our fingers touching but couldn’t bring myself to grip back. Not yet. Ignatius exhaled slowly through his nose—controlled, precise, unmistakably draconic.“And no one believed you.”
A hollow sound escaped me—half laugh, half ache. “No one important.”
Ignatius was silent long enough that I felt the air shift.
Then he said, “I saw the internal audit. Access logs. Timestamps. Deleted reports. You weren’t lying.”
My head snapped up. “You—you what?”
Beside me, Cole blinked in surprise. “You knew?”
Ignatius shrugged, unbothered. “I checked because…well.” He nodded in my direction with zero embarrassment. “You matter to Cole. That’s enough reason.”
My throat bobbed hard.
Ignatius went on, “The audit showed the nephew used your login during hours you weren’t even on-site. And someone tried to delete your complaints, but metadata footprints are stubborn.” He tapped his temple. “Most people are terrible at hiding digital tracks.”
I stared at him, unable to speak.
“You did the right thing,” Ignatius said simply. “You were punished for having integrity.” He paused only long enough to make sure I was listening. “I could use someone like you.”
I blinked. “Wh—what?”
“I have several residential properties,” Ignatius said, as if he were discussing the weather. “Many need someone who actually gives a damn about people. Someone ethical. Someone observant. Someone Cole trusts.”
Cole’s eyes widened. “Phoenix—”
Ignatius waved a hand, cutting him off. “I’m not offering charity. I’m offering employment. Competent employment. With benefits and a salary that won’t make you cry.”