CHAPTER 23 — I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE
POV: Damon Blackwood
Mason’s message came through while I sat on the bench in the empty locker room, shoulder guard still half-assed, shirt plastered to my back, my mind caught somewhere between Valerie’s article, Noah’s suitcase walking out of my penthouse, and Julian’s voice offering a solution too neat not to be poisoned.
The screen lit up on the wood beside me with a short, barely-there vibration, and I almost ignored it because every phone in the last few hours had felt like another door to disaster.
But Mason’s name had become, against all logic, something like a moral alarm.
When he texted without a joke, someone was about to bleed.
“Saw Noah and Coach Bennett going into the old archive wing. Julian just went up with two security guards. If you’re thinking about becoming a useful person, now would be a great time.”
I read it once. Was on my feet before I finished reading it again.
My shoulder protested with a sharp, dry ache, and for a second my right hand grabbed the locker’s edge to keep me from tripping over my own momentum.
Noah would’ve told me to breathe, would’ve called it a stupid reaction, would’ve said that running into a crisis without a plan was handing Julian a gift-wrapped victory.
Noah wasn’t there to stop me, and maybe that was exactly the most dangerous part.
I could choose the old path. Charge forward like a wounded Blackwood, turn the hallway into a ring, and give my brother exactly the scene he’d know how to use against all of us.
Or I could do something much harder: arrive fast without arriving blind.
I grabbed the team jacket, pulled it on carefully enough not to make the injury worse, and left the locker room still wearing my skates—not because I needed them off the ice, but because the urgency still thrumming through me needed somewhere to go.
In the hallway, the arena hummed in the distance—team collecting equipment, scattered voices, doors slamming—but everything felt muffled by a single thought: Noah was cornered again, and this time I couldn’t show up late enough to call my hesitation caution.
The administrative wing felt like another campus entirely—no sweat, no shouting, no visible ice.
Glass, carpet, frames with dead donors smiling as if they still demanded obedience.
I passed two assistants who opened their mouths to say something and gave up when they saw my face.
Maybe I looked exactly like what I was: an injured athlete carrying more anger than my clothes could hold.
In the elevator, I pulled out my phone and texted Mason without overthinking it.
“Call Valerie. Tell her to come to the old wing. Now. And send a copy of the full article to Marjorie.”
He replied in seconds.
“Already called. I’m coming too. Please don’t murder anyone before I get there.”
I almost smiled. Couldn’t.
The elevator opened on the old wing’s floor, and the air changed before I even stepped out.
There was a different kind of cold here—not the clean cold of the rink, but the cold of a rarely used hallway, old walls, and accumulated secrets.
I walked fast but didn’t run. Each step forced me to remember another hallway, four years ago, when Noah stood with a folder pressed to his chest and I followed Julian because it was easier to obey the familiar pain than to listen to the person I’d decided was wrong.
The memory hit without mercy: Noah standing near the vending machine, pale, eyes too wide, mouth opening to say my name; Julian touching my elbow; me looking away.
There was no pretty way to remember it. There was no excuse that changed the gesture.
This time, when I heard voices ahead, I didn’t look away.
Julian had his back to me, standing a few steps from the old athletic archive door, dark coat falling perfectly over his shoulders, two university security guards behind him like visual punctuation of power.
Henry Bennett stood half-turned, pale, a gray folder pressed against his body.
And Noah stood in front of them all, bag on his shoulder, head raised, wearing an expression that had nothing defenseless in it.
He looked tired, yes. Furious too. But there was a firmness in him that cut right through me, because at eighteen he must have tried to stand exactly like this before older men wrote fear over his courage.
“Then I guess Northaven will have to learn my name properly,” Noah was saying, voice low and clear, each word cutting down the hallway like a clean blade. “Because I’m tired of letting you write it.”
Julian smiled, and I knew that smile. It was the one that came before a polished sentence, before a call to a lawyer, before a threat dressed up as concern. I hated knowing this now like someone who finally sees an old stain in their own house.
“Always dramatic, Noah,” Julian said. “It’s a shame. There were more discreet paths for everyone.”
“Discreet for you,” I replied, before Noah could speak.
Everyone turned.
Noah reacted before the others. Not with complete surprise—maybe he’d expected me to come, maybe he’d feared it.
His gaze found me at the end of the hallway, and the first thing I saw wasn’t relief.
It was caution. Then pain. Then a question I deserved: did you come for me, or for your version of the story?
The answer needed to be given with more than presence.
I walked until I was beside him. Not in front.
Beside. The gesture seemed small, but I felt Julian register it before anyone else.
The security guards shifted their weight.
Henry Bennett let out an almost imperceptible breath.
Noah stayed motionless, as if he didn’t yet trust the space I occupied at his side.
Fair. Trust didn’t appear just because I decided to deserve it in the middle of a hallway.
“Damon,” Julian said, immediately adjusting his tone, as if my presence had transformed threat into family conversation. “Good of you to come. Maybe you can talk some sense into this before Noah does something he can’t come back from.”
“He doesn’t need to come back from anywhere,” I said. “He’s exactly where he should be.”
The words made Noah look at me again. This time, there was something more in his expression—a small crack in the defense.
I didn’t touch him. I wanted to. I wanted to put my hand on the back of his neck, on his wrist—anywhere that said I’m here without turning the gesture into possession in front of Julian.
But I didn’t. I chose to keep my hands visible, empty, without turning Noah’s body into an argument.
Julian tilted his head. “You don’t know what he took from the archive.”
“I know enough to know you’re scared.”
His smile faded. “Careful.”
“You’ve used that word too much with me. Careful, protection, family, legacy. Running out of material?”
“You’re under emotional pressure, Damon. Injured, exposed by an irresponsible article, influenced by someone with personal motives to distort old facts.”
“Noah tried to give me those facts four years ago,” I said.
The hallway went so quiet that even the security guards seemed to hold their breath.
Noah didn’t move, but I felt the sentence hit him. Not as complete salvation. As public acknowledgment of something I’d denied for too long. Henry Bennett lowered his eyes. Julian, for the first time since I’d arrived, stopped smiling.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my brother said.
“I do. I remembered the hallway. I remembered the folder. I remembered you pulling me away before I could listen. And now I’ve read memos where his name shows up as a risk because he might hand attachments to me. Not to the press. Not to a sponsor. To me.”
Julian took a step toward me but didn’t come close.
He’d always known how to measure distance—how to seem threatening only when it suited him.
“Documents taken out of context. Incomplete copies. An athlete isn’t an investigator, Damon.
You don’t understand the administrative responsibilities involved during that period. ”
“Then explain Carter Ellis.”
The question landed. I saw it. The name passed across Julian’s face like a shadow, barely visible, but Noah drew a breath beside me, and I knew he’d seen it too. Henry clutched the gray folder against his chest.
“The Ellis case was handled according to the information available at the time,” Julian replied.
“The medical recommendation said leave. Your administrative authorization cleared him to return.”
“There was a supplementary evaluation.”
“Where?”
“In the appropriate files.”
“Great. Let’s get them now. With Valerie, Marjorie, outside legal counsel, and any sponsor who wants to understand how Northaven treated athletes’ bodies when there weren’t any cameras around.”
The anger on Julian’s face almost broke through completely. Almost. He controlled it with his usual speed, but I’d already seen it. It was strange how, after spotting one crack, the entire wall seemed less solid.
“You’re putting your career at risk for him,” Julian said.
That line would have worked yesterday. Maybe the day before.
Maybe any year before the Bennett folder.
In his mouth, career always ranked higher than person, higher than body, higher than love—though he never used that last word because feeling didn’t fit in the documents he preferred to sign.
I looked at Noah. He still didn’t seem certain I’d stand by my choice.
Maybe I needed to say it while looking at him, not at Julian.
“I put a lot at risk believing you,” I said, without looking away from Noah. “I’m not doing that again by leaving you alone while someone else decides who you are.”
Noah’s throat moved. His face stayed firm, but his eyes changed. It wasn’t forgiveness. I didn’t expect that. It was listening. It was the tiny beginning of something that might survive if I wasn’t enough of an idiot to crush it.
“Damon,” Julian called, now with less patience.