Chapter 32 Kai #2
The information lands with unexpected weight. Nazar, who grew up with nothing and worked for everything, who sends money to his grandmother and drives a three-year-old Honda because “it runs fine”—that Nazar spent money he doesn’t like to spend to get here in the middle of the night.
Kai feels something uncomfortably close to crying building in his throat.
He sits up instead, pulling away, trying to restore some semblance of dignity while covered in his own release and still wearing his joggers around his knees.
It’s not his finest moment aesthetically.
“You want to understand?” The bitterness in his voice surprises even him. “Fine. Here’s the CliffsNotes version: I’m a Callahan. My family is shit.”
“Kai—”
“No, seriously. You flew here on a private jet because you saw some photos and decided I needed rescuing. Very Knight in Shining Hockey Pads of you. But you don’t actually know anything.”
“Then tell me.” Nazar’s voice is steady, patient in a way that makes Kai want to scream. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And so, in a low, monotone voice—the one he used when his therapist used to ask about his childhood—Kai tells him almost everything.
He stares at the ceiling while he talks, tracing the path of a crack in the plaster he’s been meaning to get fixed for six months. Anything to avoid looking at Nazar’s face.
The summons to his father’s office. The dossier on Nazar, comprehensive, professional, terrifying in its detail.
“So Rey agreed to play along,” Kai continues, still staring at the ceiling.
“Because he’s a good friend and he thinks my father is Satan incarnate and he has his own reasons for wanting positive press right now.
The plan was to fake the relationship for a few weeks, then have a public breakup.
Make it messy enough. Make it obvious. And then it’s done.
You’re safe. My father has nothing to worry about anymore.
My reputation is already destroyed. Everyone knows I’m gay.
I was linked to a celebrity, and now it’s clearly over.
The worst has already happened, so he’ll back off.
There’s no point in him trying to control anything about you. ”
He tells Nazar about the crack of his father’s signet ring against his cheekbone had been shocking less for the pain and more for the casualness of it. The way Doyle had barely moved, just a quick backhand like he was swatting a fly, before turning back to his desk.
You have one week to make this relationship look real and then end it publicly. Messily. Make sure Rykov sees that you’ve moved on. Or I release this file to people who will find it very interesting.
Kai had walked out of that office with his face throbbing and his hands shaking and the absolute certainty that he would do whatever it took to keep Nazar safe. Even if it destroyed him.
Nazar doesn’t ask questions. Just listens in that intense way he has, like he’s memorizing every word for later analysis.
The silence that follows is heavy enough to have physical weight.
When Kai finally risks a glance at him, Nazar’s expression is carefully blank. But his jaw is clenched and his hands are fisted in the couch cushions and Kai knows that look. It’s the one that precedes violence.
Then Nazar moves. Gently, he cups Kai’s face in his hands and presses a kiss to his skin— soft, worshipful. Then another. And another. Small, careful touches everywhere he can reach, as if he’s trying to memorize him through his mouth.
The tenderness of it makes Kai want to weep.
“Thank you, baby. You don’t need to worry about any of it now that you’ve told me. I’ll take care of it. Come on,” Nazar says quietly. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
What?
“Nazar, you don’t have to do anything! Everything’s already fine.”
“Shhh. You need to rest.”
Kai does feel exhausted… and Rykov’s voice is fucking hypnotic.
He undresses Kai with slow, reverent care — like he’s handling something precious and breakable. Leads him to the bathroom and starts the shower, tests the temperature with his hand before pulling Kai under the spray.
They don’t talk. Nazar just washes him, his hands gentle on Kai’s skin, working shampoo through his hair with surprising competence.
Kai closes his eyes and lets himself be cared for.
Afterward, Nazar dries him off with one of the absurdly bright Turkish cotton towels Kai impulse-bought from Holt Renfrew. Finds clean clothes in Kai’s drawer. Sleep shorts and a worn t-shirt from some charity hockey tournament. Helps him into bed like he’s something fragile.
They lie there in the dark, the city lights filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows Kai had thought were such a selling point when he bought the place.
Toronto spread out below them—indifferent, glittering, full of people living normal lives where their fathers don’t hit them and threaten the people they care about.
Nazar is silent for so long Kai thinks he might have fallen asleep.
“What kind of cream do you use? For the bruise.”
The question is so unexpected that Kai actually laughs. It comes out broken, slightly hysterical. “Arnica gel. From Whole Foods. It’s in the medicine cabinet.”
“I’ll get you more tomorrow.”
“You have a game in Boston.”
“I’ll return to you.”
“You can’t—”
“Watch me.”
Kai doesn’t have the energy to argue. His body is heavy with exhaustion, bone-deep and complete. The kind of tired that sleep won’t fix but might make bearable.
He reaches for his phone on the nightstand.
His Instagram has 847 new notifications. Twitter is probably worse. He doesn’t want to look but does anyway because he’s apparently a masochist.
He sees it before he can stop himself.
Someone’s tagged him in a clip from a podcast, one of those bro-heavy hockey discussion shows that are ninety percent dick jokes and ten percent questionable takes on zone defense.
A player named Kahl—Dallas Stars, very talented, very aggressive—has made a joke at Kai’s expense. Something about fisting and Kai’s “new lifestyle choices” and how maybe that’s why his game’s been off.
The hosts are laughing.
The dark humor of it should roll off him by now. He should be immune. Should have built up enough scar tissue that this kind of casual cruelty doesn’t register anymore.
But he’s tired. So fucking tired. And the cruelty lands anyway, sharp and precise as a scalpel.
Nazar leans over—Kai hadn’t realized he was watching—and takes the phone from his hand. Sets it face-down on the nightstand with a definitive click.
Then he kisses Kai again. A soft, gentle press of lips that asks for nothing. No heat, no demand. Just contact. Reassurance. I’m here.
It might be the most pleasant sensation Kai’s ever felt. Not the sex—though that was fantastic—but this. This quiet care from someone who has every reason to hate him and chooses not to.
Overwhelmed by weariness, Kai feels his eyelids begin to droop. The combination of emotions and adrenaline crash and Nazar’s solid warmth beside him is pulling him under like anesthesia.
He’s drifting off, that space between waking and sleep where thoughts get strange and unfiltered, when he hears it.
Nazar’s voice, whisper-quiet against his hair. The words vibrating through his skull where Nazar’s mouth rests against his temple.
“I swear to God, Kai. I am going to destroy your father. He will never touch you again.”
Kai should tell him no. Should explain that you don’t just destroy Doyle Callahan. People have tried and ended up destroyed themselves. Should warn him that his father has connections and resources and a complete absence of conscience that makes him extremely dangerous.
But he’s too tired. And some small, vindictive part of him—the part that still has Liam’s voice in his head, the part that remembers being seven years old and asking why his father never came to his training—that part wants to see someone try.
So he says nothing. Just lets himself drift off, cocooned in Nazar’s warmth.