Chapter 33 Nazar
Nazar ends the call with Oksana, setting his phone down on the hotel desk with care when what he really wants to do is throw it through the window.
“Yes,” he’d told her, his voice steady despite the rage simmering in his gut. “Set up the meeting. But only journalists you trust completely. People who won’t fold when the Callahan lawyers come knocking.”
Oksana had been quiet for a moment. “You’re sure about this? Going after Doyle Callahan isn’t like going after some corrupt GM or a bad coach. This is different.”
“I’m sure.”
“Nazar, he has resources. Legal teams. PR firms that specialize in destroying people who threaten him. If this backfires—”
“It won’t.”
She’d sighed, the sound crackling through the phone. “Okay. Give me a week. I’ll reach out to some investigative reporters I know. People who’ve been trying to nail him for years but never had enough to make it stick.”
The destruction of Doyle Callahan will not be a loud, messy affair. No dramatic confrontation. No public accusations that can be dismissed as emotional outbursts from a grieving younger son’s boyfriend.
It will be methodical. A slow dismantling, death by a thousand paper cuts. Documentation. Witness testimonies. A pattern of abuse and manipulation spanning decades, all laid out in black and white for the world to see.
The first cut will be administered by the press. His grandmother’s voice echoes in his head, as it often does when he’s trying to make sense of something: Patience wins games, Nazar.
He needs patience.
The thought of Doyle’s hand on Kai sends a fresh wave of white-hot rage through him. The way Kai sometimes flinches when people move too quickly near his face.
Nazar shoves the rage down. Compartmentalizes it. Uses it as fuel instead of letting it control him.
Patience.
He will not let Doyle destroy Kai’s life. Not like he destroyed Derek’s. Not like he destroyed the life of whatever kid Derek had tried to save — the nameless, faceless player who’d cost his brother everything.
He just needs to get through the rest of the season. Keep his head down. Play his game. Let the media circus around Kai’s relationship with Rey die down naturally.
Because it will die down. It always does. The endless, grinding media cycle will move on to the next scandal, the next controversy. And Kai’s name will be dragged through the mud a little less with each passing week.
And then… then they can finally put all this shit behind them and just be.
The thought is almost revolutionary. Shockingly simple.
It almost takes his breath away.
And Kai is answering his messages now. Finally. After weeks of silence that felt like dying slowly.
Nazar: that security team I recommended. Did you talk to them?
Kai: Yes
Nazar: and?
Kai: They’re good. Thank you. Don’t forget to kiss your favorite rival next week.
Nazar: very funny, Callahan.
Nazar: sure. i’ll kiss you while i fuck you.
* * *
The arena is one of the older ones, where the fans are notoriously savage and take pride in being the most hostile environment in the league.
Tonight they’ve outdone themselves.
The chant starts in the third period. Crude. Homophobic. Featuring a specific, graphic reference to fisting that makes Nazar’s jaw clench so hard his teeth ache.
And it’s directed entirely at Kai.
“KAI-SYN CALL-A-HAND—” The rhythm is infectious, spreading through sections of the crowd like a virus. The words that follow are too vile to repeat, but they’re loud enough that the broadcast mics are definitely picking them up.
His hands tighten on his stick until the carbon fiber creaks in protest.
He’s on the verge of skating to the penalty box and demanding the officials do something. Aha, an act that would accomplish nothing except getting him kicked out of the game and probably fined.
During Kai’s goal celebration, Nazar sees Kai turn on the ice after another wave of the chant. Sees him adjust his helmet with movements that are too controlled, too precise.
He’s going to do something. Nazar recognizes that energy. Has seen it before.
Nazar skates over on instinct, putting himself between Kai and the boards where the chanting is loudest.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice low enough that only Kai can hear. “It’s not worth it.”
Kai doesn’t look at him. His eyes are fixed on something beyond the glass. “Get out of my way, Rykov.”
“Kai—”
But Kai is already moving, skating around him with that explosive speed that makes him so dangerous. He heads directly toward the boards, right in front of the loudest section of fans. The ones with their faces painted, their signs held high, their voices raw from screaming obscenities.
The officials notice. One of them starts skating over, probably to prevent whatever incident is about to happen.
Kai stops at the boards. Turns to face the crowd directly.
Then, with a deliberate movement that somehow manages to be both aggressive and elegant, he lifts his glove. Makes a fist. Holds it there for a long, silent moment—a gesture of pure defiance.
Then he turns and skates away.
The arena goes absolutely wild.
Half the crowd is booing louder than before. But a pocket of Wardens fans — outnumbered but loud — starts screaming his name. “KAI! KAI! KAI!”
Someone in the upper deck unfurls a rainbow flag. Security immediately moves to confiscate it, but not before the cameras catch it.
Kai looks absolutely magnificent. In a single silent gesture, he’s taken their ugliest insult and turned it into a symbol of power. Reclaimed the narrative. Made himself untouchable not through denial or deflection, but through complete, fearless ownership.
A fierce, possessive desire washes over Nazar so intense it makes his vision narrow.
He wants to take all of Kai’s worries, all his pain, and swallow them whole. Wants to find whoever started that chant and personally rearrange their face. Wants to wrap Kai in something that keeps the world from hurting him while still letting him be this brave, reckless, beautiful thing.
And a darker, more selfish part of him wants to skate to center ice and tell the entire fucking arena that yes, if anyone is going to be touching Kaisyn Callahan that intimately, it will be him. Only him. And everyone else can go to hell.
But he doesn’t. He just watches Kai skate to the bench, head high, and feels something shift in his chest.
Something that might be pride or love or both tangled together.
* * *
A few weeks later, they’re at another charity event. This one’s on ice. A skate-with-the-pros thing for a local children’s hospital.
One of those mandatory PR obligations that everyone does with varying levels of enthusiasm.
Nazar is going through the motions, pushing smiling kids around the rink, helping them with their stride, making sure no one falls and cracks their head open. Standard stuff.
Then he sees Kai in the corner, surrounded by a small group of boys maybe eight or nine years old. They’re all staring up at him with that particular brand of hero worship only children can manage.
A few other players have drifted over to watch. Even some of the coaches. Whatever Kai’s doing has drawn an audience.
Nazar skates closer, pulled by that invisible magnetic force that’s governed his movements since he was nineteen years old.
“…and that’s why you have to keep your head up,” Kai is saying, his voice patient and clear. None of the sarcastic edge he usually employs. “You can’t see what’s coming if you’re staring at the puck.”
“But what if I lose it?” one kid asks, his voice worried.
“You will lose it sometimes. That’s okay. Better to lose the puck than to lose your teeth.” Kai grins. “Trust me on that one.”
The kids giggle.
“Can we play on a lake?” another kid asks. “Like, a real game? My dad says they used to do that.”
“For fun, sure,” Kai says. “But not for an official game. In professional hockey, the ice has to be three-quarters of an inch or an inch thick. Not more, not less.”
Nazar feels himself sway slightly, his edges catching on nothing. The rink tilts on its axis. He’s five years old again, standing on outdoor ice in the bitter cold, his brother’s voice a warm, familiar presence beside him.
Three-quarters of an inch or an inch, Nazar. Not more, not less.
“The puck is actually thicker than the ice itself,” Kai continues, and there’s something in his voice now.
Something warm and almost reverent. “That’s kind of crazy when you think about it.
This whole sport, this whole thing we do—it exists on something thinner than the object we’re trying to move. ”
“But why exactly three-quarters or an inch?” one of the boys asks. “Why not just more? That seems easier.”
“Because it really works,” Kai says. His eyes are shining now, reflecting the overhead lights. “And in hockey, just like in life, sometimes the smallest detail makes all the difference. The precision matters.”
He pauses, and something shifts in his expression. Something softer.
“Someone explained that to me once. A long time ago, when I was about your age.” His voice drops slightly.
“The most worthy person I’ve ever met. He told me that paying attention to those small details — that’s what separates people who just show up from people who actually care about what they’re doing. ”
The world goes quiet around Nazar. He can see Kai, can hear his voice, but it’s like looking through a tunnel. Everything else fades into static.
His heart is hammering against his ribs so hard he’s surprised it’s not audible.
“So the first inch of ice isn’t even a full inch!” the kid says, his voice full of indignant wonder. “That’s crazy!”
And as Kai laughs, he looks up. His eyes find Nazar’s across the ice. Hold them.
“So when it comes to hockey,” Kai says, “the first inch of ice is kind of the last inch. The thing everything else is built on.”
Nazar can’t breathe. Isn’t sure he’s ever going to breathe properly again.
The pieces click into place with devastating clarity.
No one told him explicitly that Derek fell out of favor with Doyle because of a young hockey player.
Nazar had figured it out himself from snippets of overheard conversations. His stepfather, drunk and grieving, saying “the boy” over and over. Derek had tried to protect “the boy.” Had lost everything for him.
And Nazar now knows which boy his brother had tried to protect.
His stepfather’s angry, grief-stricken ramblings after Derek died. That fucking kid. Derek threw away everything for that kid. Tried to protect him from Doyle Callahan and look what it cost him.
It wasn’t just any boy.
It was little Kaisyn Callahan.
Derek had known Kai when Kai was seven or eight years old. Had taught him about ice thickness. Had been the “worthy person” who’d shown him kindness when his own father was treating him like a liability.
And Doyle had destroyed Derek for it. For showing compassion to his own son. For trying to protect a child from his father’s manipulation.
The realization crashes over Nazar like a wave, making his vision narrow.
He turns, his blades cutting sharp, angry gashes in the ice. He needs to move. Needs to get away before he does something catastrophically stupid in front of a hundred people and two dozen cameras.
He skates toward the exit.
“Rykov?” Someone calls his name—Miller, maybe. “You good?”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. Just keeps skating until he hits the tunnel leading to the locker rooms.
In the empty hallway, he braces his hands against the cold concrete wall and tries to remember how to breathe.
Nazar had spent years hating Kai. Blaming him. Convinced himself that the Callahan name was poison, that Kai was everything wrong with hockey.
When all along, Kai was the reason Derek died.
Not because Kai did anything wrong. But because Derek saw a kid who needed protecting and did what Derek always did — tried to help. Tried to be decent in an indecent world.
And paid for it with everything.
Derek had tried to save Kai.
In that moment, Nazar feels closer to his brother than he ever has, and nothing feels more certain than his need to fight for Kai.
He needs to talk to him. Needs to know if Kai knows the connection between Derek and himself.
But first, he has to stop shaking, has to wrestle control over the rage and grief threatening to consume him.