Chapter 16
Kai
The anatomy of a lie is surprisingly similar to the anatomy of a bone fracture.
There is the initial impact—the shock, the sharp intake of breath, the disbelief that something so structural could snap.
Then comes the swelling, the protective rush of adrenaline trying to cushion the damage.
And finally, there is the setting. The brutal, necessary act of forcing things into a shape that is unnatural, painful, and wrong, just so the healing can eventually begin.
I was currently setting the bone. And I was doing it without anesthesia.
I sat in the back of the team bus. It was parked in the loading dock of the arena, idling, spewing exhaust into the freezing night air. The rest of the team was gone. They had taken Ubers, rides from parents, or walked to the bars to celebrate the Championship.
I was alone.
Across from me sat three men.
My father, Aleksei Volkov.
Dean William Sterling.
And my agent, a man named Miller who looked like he was about to vomit into his Gucci loafers.
"The terms are simple, Malakai," my father said. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his watch, checking the time in Moscow. To him, this wasn't a tragedy. It was a logistical hiccup. A supply chain issue. "We have a flight at 6:00 AM out of Logan. You will be on it."
"And the investigation?" I asked. My voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from someone else's throat.
"There will be no investigation," Dean Sterling interjected.
He looked older than he had an hour ago.
His face was grey. "Because you are withdrawing from the university.
You are issuing a statement admitting to violating the student code of conduct.
You will take full responsibility for the… impropriety."
"I take the blame," I translated.
"You take the fall," the Dean corrected. "You sign a statement saying that you pursued Maeve. That you initiated the relationship. That you… manipulated the situation to gain access to academic resources."
I gripped the edge of the seat. "You want me to say I used her."
"I want my daughter's name cleared," the Dean hissed. "If the NCAA thinks she was a willing participant in a scheme to fix your grades, she gets expelled. Her reputation is ruined. She becomes a pariah."
He leaned forward, his eyes pleading and hateful all at once.
"She has a future, Volkov. She has talent. She has a life here. Do not drag her down into the mud with you. If you leave—if you disappear tonight and take the heat—she stays. She graduates. The scandal dies because the villain has left the building."
The Villain.
That’s what they needed. A monster to scare the children. A cautionary tale.
I looked at my agent. "And the draft?"
Miller winced. "The Blackhawks are out, Kai. The scandal is too hot. But… if you go to Russia? If you play in the KHL for a year or two? Let the heat die down? Maybe, maybe you get a camp invite in a few years. But right now? You’re radioactive."
It was gone.
The NHL. The loft in Chicago. The dog. The cabin.
It was all smoke.
I had a choice. I could stay. I could fight.
I could tell the truth—that we fell in love, that I did my own work, that Maeve was innocent.
But the investigation would drag on for months.
The press would camp out on her lawn. They would dissect her life, her history, her "bratty" reputation.
They would destroy her just to get to me.
Or, I could leave. I could cut the limb to save the body.
"If I sign," I said, my voice rasping, "she is safe?"
"She is safe," the Dean promised. "I will handle the rest."
"And she stays in the program? She keeps her studio?"
"Yes."
I looked at my father. He raised an eyebrow, waiting. He knew what I would do. He had engineered me for this. He had taught me that sacrifice was the only currency that mattered.
A wolf does not need a hearth.
I picked up the pen from the seat. My hand wasn't shaking. It was rock steady. The Machine was back online. The heart was locked away in the needle, inside the egg, inside the duck.
I signed the paper.
"Good," my father said, standing up. "Go to the penthouse. Pack your things. You have one hour. The car will pick you up."
"I need to speak to her," I said.
"No," the Dean said immediately. "No contact."
"I need to say goodbye," I said, standing up to tower over him. I was still in my gear, smelling of sweat and violence. "I am giving you everything. My career. My reputation. My life. You will give me one hour to close the door. Or I tear this paper up and we go to war."
The Dean hesitated. He looked at my father.
My father shrugged. "Let him say goodbye. It changes nothing. He knows the consequences."
The Dean nodded stiffly. "One hour. If you aren't downstairs by 3:00 AM, security goes up."
I walked off the bus.
I didn't look back.
The walk to the Blackstone Tower usually took twenty minutes. I did it in ten.
The cold air bit at my face, freezing the sweat in my hair. I wasn't wearing a coat. I was still in my suit from the post-game press conference that never happened, my tie undone, my dress shirt clinging to my chest.
The city was asleep. The campus was silent. The snow muffled my footsteps.
It felt like walking through a graveyard.
I reached the building. The doorman, a guy named Ralph who usually high-fived me after wins, wouldn't look me in the eye. He opened the door silently. He knew. Everyone knew.
I took the elevator up. The numbers ticked by. 10… 15… 20.
Every floor was a countdown to the execution.
I rehearsed the lines in my head. I had to be cruel. If I was soft, if I wavered, she would try to follow me. She would try to fight for us. And she would lose.
I had to make her hate me. Hate was a clean fuel. It burned hot and fast, and then it was gone. Grief lingered. I couldn't leave her with grief.
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened.
The penthouse was lit only by the lamps in the kitchen.
Maeve was sitting on the floor in the living room. She was surrounded by suitcases—my suitcases. She had dragged them out.
She looked up when I entered.
She had been crying. Her face was blotchy, her eyes swollen. She was still wearing the white coat, but she had taken off the scarf. It lay on the floor like a pool of blood.
She scrambled to her feet.
"Kai," she breathed. She took a step toward me, then stopped.
She saw my face.
She saw the mask.
"Did you fix it?" she asked, her voice trembling with a terrifying hope. "Did you talk to them? Is it… is it going to be okay?"
I walked past her. I didn't stop. I walked straight to my bedroom and grabbed my duffel bag.
"Kai!" She ran after me. She grabbed my arm, spinning me around. "Talk to me! Why aren't you saying anything?"
I looked down at her hand on my arm. The hand I had kissed a thousand times. The hand that had healed me.
I pulled my arm away. Sharp. Violent.
"There is nothing to say," I said. My voice was ice. "I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" She blinked, confused. "Leaving the apartment? We can go to a hotel. We can—"
"Leaving the country, Maeve," I said. "I'm going to Moscow. Tonight."
"What?" She shook her head, a frantic, jerky motion. "No. No, you can't go to Moscow. We have a plan. Chicago. The loft. You have the draft."
"The draft is gone," I said, walking to the closet and ripping hangers off the rod. I threw my suits into the bag. I threw my hoodies. "The Blackhawks pulled the offer. The NCAA is vacating the season."
"We can fight that!" she cried. "I'll testify! I'll tell them the truth!"
"The truth doesn't matter!" I roared, spinning on her.
She flinched, backing into the dresser.
"The truth is that I am ruined," I spat. "The truth is that staying here makes no sense. I have an offer in the KHL. My father arranged it. It's good money. It's a career."
"But... but what about us?" she whispered.
I stopped packing. I looked at her.
This was it. The moment I had to kill the thing I loved most.
"Us?" I laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound. "There is no 'us' in Russia, Maeve. You think I'm going to drag a spoiled American princess to Siberia? You think you'd survive a week in my world?"
"I would go anywhere with you," she sobbed. "I told you that. I don't care about the cold."
"But I care!" I shouted. "I care that you are a burden! I care that you are a distraction!"
I walked toward her, forcing her to back up until she hit the wall. I loomed over her, using my size to intimidate her, just like I had the first night we met. But this time, there was no heat. Only cold.
"Look at this," I gestured to the room. "This mess. My career is dead because of you. Because I let myself get distracted by a pretty girl with daddy issues."
Her lip trembled. "You said you loved me. In the storage room. You said I was your home."
"I was running on adrenaline," I lied. "I just won a championship. I would have told a lamp I loved it if it held me for five minutes."
It was a cruel line. It was unforgivable.
I saw the light go out in her eyes. It was like watching a star collapse.
"You don't mean that," she whispered.
"I do," I said. "I have to be practical, Maeve. I'm a Volkov. We don't bet on losing horses. And right now? You are a losing horse."
I turned back to the bag. I zipped it up. The sound was deafening in the quiet room.
"I signed the papers," I said, tossing the information over my shoulder like an afterthought. "I admitted to everything. I said I used you. I said I manipulated you for grades. You're clear. Your dad is happy."
"You... you admitted it?"
"It was the fastest way out," I said. "Clean break. I take the blame, I leave, you go back to your little fashion sketches."
"I'm not a transaction," she choked out.
"Everything is a transaction," I said. "I learned that from my father. And you learned it from yours. We just… negotiated a bad deal."
I grabbed the bag. I grabbed my hockey sticks from the corner.
I walked to the door.
"Kai."
Her voice stopped me. It wasn't a scream. It was a broken whisper.
"Tell me the truth," she said. She was standing in the middle of the room, tears streaming down her face, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me. If you can do that... I'll let you go."
I gripped the handle of the bag until my hand cramped.
I could feel my heart beating against my ribs. It wanted to scream. It wanted to drop the bag and run to her. It wanted to burn the world down just to keep her warm.
Hide the soul. Hide the heart.
I turned around.
I looked her in the eye. I looked at the violet irises I had memorized. I looked at the lips I had kissed hours ago.
I summoned every ounce of discipline I had ever learned. I summoned the cold of the cabin. I summoned the Machine.
"I don't love you," I said. My voice didn't waver. It was flat. Dead. "I never did. It was just a game."
Maeve let out a sound that wasn't human. It was a sharp, strangled gasp of pure agony. She doubled over, clutching her stomach as if I had physically gutted her.
I didn't go to her.
I turned around.
I walked out of the bedroom.
I walked through the living room. I saw the Zillow printout on the floor where I had dropped it earlier. I stepped on it.
I opened the front door.
I walked out.
The elevator ride down was silent.
When I reached the lobby, my father was waiting. The car was idling at the curb.
"Done?" he asked.
"Done," I said.
I got in the car. I didn't look up at the penthouse window. I knew she would be there. I knew she would be watching.
The car pulled away.
As we turned the corner, leaving Blackstone University behind, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. A snapping sensation.
It wasn't a bone.
It was the needle. Breaking.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cold glass.
I was safe. She was safe.
And I was dead.