Chapter 2
Peter
Pain is just data.
That was the first rule of the crease. That was the first thing my father taught me before the vodka replaced his spinal fluid. Pain tells you where you are, Pyotr. It tells you the puck hit you and not the net. Pain is a successful save.
I sat on the wooden bench in the locker room, the heavy, humid silence of the post-practice cool-down pressing against my eardrums. My body was a map of dull aches.
A bruise blooming purple on my left thigh where a slapshot had bypassed the padding.
The familiar, grinding tightness in my hip flexors from three hours of butterfly drills.
The raw sting of a blister forming on my blocker hand.
I cataloged each sensation, filed them away under acceptable operating costs, and leaned forward to unlace my skates.
Around me, the locker room was a zoo. It usually was.
Thirty college kids high on adrenaline and testosterone, stripping off gear that smelled like wet dog and ammonia.
The air was thick with it—the scent of exertion, of damp towels, of Axe body spray sprayed in quantities that violated the Geneva Convention.
"I’m telling you, man, I think I pulled a hammy," Jax groaned from the stall next to mine.
He was naked, because Jax Malone had an allergic reaction to clothing, and he was currently trying to wrap a towel around his waist while eating a protein bar.
"That last drill was brutal. Sarge is trying to kill us before the season opener. "
I didn’t look up. My fingers worked the wax laces, loosening the tension with practiced, efficient movements. "You didn’t pull a hamstring, Jax. You’re dehydrated because you spent last night drinking cheap beer at the Alpha Sig house."
Jax laughed, a barking sound that grated on my nerves. "Hydration is for people who don’t have natural talent, Tsar. Besides, I wasn’t drinking that much. I was... networking."
"Networking," I repeated flatly. I pulled my left skate off, the release of pressure sending a rush of blood back into my foot.
"Yeah. With a brunette from the psych department. She’s very interested in the psychology of high-performance athletes." Jax smirked, leaning against the metal divider of my stall. "Speaking of psychology... have we recovered from the Earl yet?"
My hands stilled on my right skate.
The image flashed in my mind instantly, unbidden and unwelcome.
Belinda O’Shea. Standing on the stage in that shapeless grey sweater that looked like it had been knitted by a blind grandmother. Her hair, a chaotic halo of brown curls that defied gravity. The frantic, terrified flush of her skin—pink rising from her chest, up her neck, staining her cheeks.
And the smell. Vanilla.
It was ridiculous. I shouldn’t have been able to smell her from the front row. It was a statistical impossibility given the olfactory assault of the locker room. But I had. It had cut through the sweat and the rubber like a laser. Sweet. cloying. Soft.
"Drop it, Jax," I said, my voice low.
"Oh, come on," Jax pressed, grinning. "It was the highlight of the year. 'Twitching like a divining rod.' I almost pissed myself. Do you think she actually reads that stuff? Like, for fun?"
"She’s a statistician," I said, yanking the second skate off with more force than necessary. It clattered against the concrete floor. "She made a mistake. It’s over."
"She’s the GM’s daughter," Jax countered, his voice dropping a decibel. "That’s the real kicker. O’Shea is going to have an aneurysm if he finds out the team saw his little girl’s spank bank."
I stood up, stripping off my compression shirt. The cool air of the locker room hit my sweat-damp skin. "She is the Data Analyst. Her father is irrelevant. Her reading habits are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is if she can improve the penalty kill."
Jax rolled his eyes. "You’re a robot, Pete. A literal cyborg. A hot girl accidentally broadcasts erotica to the entire roster, and your takeaway is 'how does this affect the penalty kill?'"
"Yes," I said. I grabbed my towel and walked toward the showers without looking back. "Because unlike you, I plan on winning a championship this year."
I turned the shower handle all the way to the right. Freezing.
I stepped under the spray. The shock was immediate.
It drove the air from my lungs, turning my skin into gooseflesh.
I didn’t flinch. I stood there, letting the icy water hammer against my skull, washing away the sweat, the heat, and the lingering scent of vanilla that seemed to be stuck in my nasal cavity.
I needed cold.
Cold was clarity.
Heat was chaos. Heat was impulse. Heat was my father throwing a whiskey bottle through a plasma screen TV because the Rangers lost in overtime.
I closed my eyes, tilting my head back.
Twitching like a divining rod.
The phrase annoyed me on a structural level. It was clumsy writing. Inefficient.
But beneath the annoyance, there was something else. A darker current.
When I had looked at her—really looked at her—in that film room, I hadn’t just seen a flustered girl.
I had seen a hunger. Beneath the layers of wool and anxiety, Belinda O’Shea was vibrating with something she clearly didn’t understand.
She read those books because she wanted something she wasn’t getting.
She wanted to be overwhelmed.
A strange, predatory instinct uncurled in my gut. It was the same feeling I got when a forward telegraphed a pass—the sudden, sharp knowledge of exactly where the vulnerability was.
She wanted to be told what to do. She wanted control taken away from her.
I opened my eyes, staring at the white tiles of the shower wall. My breathing was ragged, despite the cold.
Stay away from her, Pyotr.
She was a distraction. She was a liability. She was a variable I couldn’t solve for.
I turned the water off.
The Hive was quiet.
That was the only requirement I had when the boosters built the off-campus athlete housing. I didn’t care about the sixty-inch TVs or the granite countertops or the hot tub on the back deck that was currently acting as a Petri dish for every STD in Vermont. I demanded soundproofing.
My wing of the house was a fortress.
I unlocked the heavy oak door to my room and stepped inside. The silence was immediate, swallowing the faint thump of bass coming from the living room where the sophomores were playing FIFA.
My room was grey. Grey walls, slate-grey bedding, black furniture. Minimalist. Clean. Not a single item was out of place. My desk was organized by size and utility. My bookshelf was alphabetized. My closet was color-coded.
Order.
I dropped my gym bag in its designated spot by the door and walked to my desk. I sat down, booted up my triple-monitor setup, and checked the time.
6:15 PM.
Schedule:
6:15 - 7:00: Market Analysis / Portfolio Review.
7:00 - 7:30: Dinner (Grilled chicken, broccoli, brown rice).
7:30 - 9:30: Game Tape / Study.
9:30 - 10:00: Reading (Non-fiction).
10:00: Lights out.
It was a perfect grid. A cage I had built for myself to keep the monster out.
I opened my portfolio. I had made a decent return on the tech shorts I’d placed last week.
The money didn’t matter—my trust fund was embarrassing, a guilt-ridden apology from my mother’s side of the family to make up for the fact that they had let me be raised by a functional alcoholic.
But the numbers mattered. The green percentages were proof that I was in control. That I could predict outcomes.
I stared at the screen. The numbers blurred.
Instead of stock tickers, I saw hazel eyes behind thick lenses.
“It’s not trash. It’s escapism.”
Her voice had been shaking, but she had stood her ground. A mouse squeaking at a lion.
I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. I couldn’t focus. The silence in the room, usually my sanctuary, felt heavy. Oppressive.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
I looked at it.
Dad: Saw the shutout stats from last week. Good job. You’re looking tight. Hey, listen, I’m a little short this month. Just a liquidity issue. Can you float me 5k? I’ll get it back to you next week.
I stared at the message. The familiar sick feeling washed over me—a mix of pity and rage that sat in my stomach like a stone.
He wasn’t short. He was gambling again. Or drinking. Or both.
He was a Hall of Famer. He had made forty million dollars in his career. And now he was texting his twenty-one-year-old son for rent money.
Because he had no discipline. Because he let his impulses drive him. Because he felt everything and controlled nothing.
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. If I engaged, I would spiral.
I stood up, the chair scraping harsh against the hardwood floor.
I needed to get out of here. The Hive was too small. The silence wasn’t working. I needed a different kind of quiet.
I grabbed my keys.
I needed the ice.
The arena was technically closed, but being the Captain—and the son of Nikolai Volkov—came with keys.
I walked through the darkened concourse, the only sound the squeak of my sneakers on the polished concrete. The air here was always colder, always crisper. It cleared the fog in my head.
I didn’t go to the locker room. I didn’t want to skate. I was physically exhausted. I just wanted to look at it. To see the geometry of the rink, the clean white lines, the perfect symmetry of the face-off circles.
I walked up the stairs to the upper level. I headed for the Crow’s Nest—the media booth at the very top of the stands. It was the highest point in the arena. The vantage point of God. It was where I went when I needed to remember that the game was just a system of angles.
I reached the door at the top of the landing. It should have been locked.
It wasn’t.
A sliver of light spilled out from the crack in the door, cutting across the dark hallway.
My frown deepened. Who the hell was in the media booth at 7:30 on a Tuesday? The custodial staff didn’t clean up here until Thursday.
I pushed the door open.