48 - Ares
ARES
The place smelled like old beer and burnt wood.
Not a bar, really. More like the kind of place that used to be loud before something went wrong — and nobody bothered to fix it. A half-dead neon sign buzzed in the window. The few guys sitting at the far end were hunched over their drinks like they were waiting for something that wasn’t coming.
Coach Trees sat alone at a table in the back.
He looked exactly the same.
Thank God.
“Coach,” Grayson said.
Trees glanced up. His eyes landed on Grayson first — then shifted to me and stayed there.
“Huh,” he muttered. “They sent the big guns.”
“I came on my own,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “Looks like it.”
We didn’t sit right away. We just stood there, taking him in, like nobody wanted to make this real.
Eventually Trees kicked out a chair. Grayson sat. I took the one across from him.
Silence dropped over the table.
It wasn’t pretty.
“You win?” Trees asked.
Grayson nodded. “Barrage.”
“Good,” Trees said. “About time you remembered how.”
His eyes wandered over to me.
“You look like you’re still pissed.”
“I’m always pissed.”
“Good,” he said again. “Means you’re paying attention.”
The waitress came over — a redhead with a ponytail and a plastic smile. Grayson waved her off before she even got near the table.
“Did you know?” I asked.
No buildup. No easing into it.
Trees didn’t blink.
“Know what?”
“Sutherland.”
A beat. Then—
“Yeah,” he said.
It was crazy, how casual he was about it. Something hot flared up my spine.
“You knew he was throwing games?”
“I knew something was wrong,” Trees corrected. “Then I knew what it was.”
“And you didn’t—”
“I did,” he cut in. “I’m not your coach anymore, am I?”
His voice sharpened, just a notch. There was pain in it.
For some reason that took the edge off me.
“I went to management.”
That made me blink. Grayson didn’t react at all.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
Trees tightened his grip on the pint in front of him.
“What do you think happened?” he said. “They told me to drop it.”
“Just like that?” I snapped.
“No,” Trees said. “Not just like that.”
He leaned forward, mirroring me.
“First they questioned it,” he said. “Then they downplayed it. Told me I was crazy. That I was seeing things that weren’t there.”
“Were you?”
“Hell no,” he said, heat breaking through. “Think I’d stick my neck out if I wasn’t sure?”
I glanced at his hand. The knuckles were white. Trees noticed too, so he let go of the glass and pushed it away.
“Eventually,” he went on, “they told me to stop digging.”
I tilted my head.
“And you didn’t.”
A smirk I hadn’t seen in months tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was like seeing an old friend again.
“When have I ever?”
I nodded solemnly.
“So what?” I asked. “They fired you for it?”
Coach Trees shook his head once. “Not officially.”
“Then what?”
His heavily-lidded eyes shifted between us.
“They were already looking for a reason,” he shrugged. “I gave them one.”
“You pushed,” said Grayson.
“Yeah. I pushed.”
Another pause.
“Because at that point, I knew it wasn’t just him.”
I stiffened immediately. Grayson and I exchanged glances.
“What do you mean?” asked Grayson.
Trees looked at him for a long second.
“You’re the captain,” he said. “You tell me.”
Grayson didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. I could see it in his face.
He knew.
Or at least… part of him did.
“Sutherland’s good,” Trees went on, “but he’s not that smart. He couldn’t have pulled it off as cleanly as he did. Not over multiple games. Not without getting caught.”
“Which means—”
“He wasn’t alone,” Trees said.
An ugly thought suddenly occurred to me. One that I wanted to immediately destroy.
“Someone else on the team?” I ventured.
Trees shook his head right away. I let out an internal sigh of relief.
“No,” he said. “Bigger than that.”
“Management,” Grayson blurted.
The word came out like a curse. It sat there on the table, like something dirty.
Trees picked up his beer again. He took a long, slow sip, then set it back down.
Then he said it:
“Daniel Rourke.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. Not immediately.
Grayson’s reaction told me it should’ve.
He went utterly still. Like something had clicked into place.
“Director of hockey ops,” Trees added. “Assistant GM. Smiles in meetings. Shakes hands. Talks about ‘long-term vision’, like he’s building something.”
I watched the coach’s lip curl in genuine disgust.
“He’s not building shit.”
My stomach, which didn’t feel good to begin with, took an even harder turn.
“What’s he doing then?” I asked.
Trees looked right at me.
“Controlling outcomes.”
Silence.
“Gambling?” Grayson asked.
“Among other things,” Trees said. “Guy’s got his hands in places they don’t show on spreadsheets.”
“Why us?” I demanded. “Why tank our games?”
Trees shrugged.
“Draft position. Leverage. Contracts. Maybe he just needed a losing streak to justify cleaning house.”
He raised his glass like he was toasting someone.
“Starting with me.”
He drank again. I had the feeling he was getting all too used to it.
“He used Sutherland,” I said.
“Yeah,” Trees nodded. “And when Sutherland got nervous?”
Another small smile.
“He tightened the leash.”
My lip curled. I felt bile working its way up my throat.
“You tried to expose it,” Grayson said, matter-of-factly.
“I tried to stop it,” Trees corrected. “Big difference.”
Grayson slid forward on his chair.
“Did you ever get proof?”
Trees shook his head. “Not enough to survive it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if I’d gone public, they’d bury me,” the coach said. “Maybe you too. Maybe the whole team.”
My eyes flicked to Grayson. There was still guilt in his eyes.
But now, also some vindication.
“Any of this sound familiar?” Trees asked.
Grayson exhaled slowly, nodding his head.
“Yeah.”
“Captain tried to contain it,” Trees said solemnly. “Better than detonating it.”
I grunted. “Tell that to the games we lost.”
“Tell that to the careers that would’ve ended,” he shot back.
Silence fell over the table again. Heavier than ever.
“What do we do?” Grayson asked.
Not as a captain. Not as a hockey player.
As a guy, needing an answer.
“You win,” Trees said.
I frowned. “That’s it?”
“That’s everything,” he replied. “You win, you take control away from guys like Rourke. You make his plays irrelevant.”
He paused, turning his empty glass a few times.
“And if you get the chance?”
Trees eyes narrowed. His gaze went hard.
“You make sure he doesn’t get to do it again.”
I finally let my body relax. Settled back in my chair a little.
Daniel Rourke.
A name to a face. A face to a problem.
Grayson stood first.
“Thanks coach,” he said.
Trees waved it off.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “You haven’t fixed anything.”
We turned to go.
“Ares.”
I stopped, and turned to look back. Trees looked smaller than I remembered him. Older too.
“Be smart,” he said. “Anger’s useful. Right up until it isn’t.”
I nodded once. Almost even cracked a smile.
Then we left, pushing back out into the cold.
Grayson and I walked the sidewalk in silence.
No words.
None needed.
Because for the first time since all of this started —
We knew exactly what we were up against.
And shit.
That felt a hell of a lot more dangerous than not knowing at all.