Chapter 10 Nik
NIK
“The owner’s box is full tonight,” Dominic says quietly, throwing his bag into his locker.
This is code.
The owner’s box is, technically, always full at home games, just not with owners.
Oh, there are plenty of corporate CEO’s and celebrities, all with some tie to the elusive silent owner of the Chicago Reapers. Deals get done up there, but the owner himself is rarely in attendance.
Tonight, though, is different. The Campisi family is in the house.
Which ones?” I ask. “Don zdes’?”
Dom nods. “He is here, along with his children.”
“Spasibo.”
“My pleasure, Boss.”
As a plan for post-game recon is forming, I start getting dressed for the game. I’m stopped short by a sharp pain in the muscle of my shoulder.
“Fuck,” I growl. “Fucking shoulder.”
Dom smacks me on the back. “Off to the therapy room for you, old man.”
“Old man,” I mutter.
“Razvalyukha,” he says.
“I’m not falling apart. You have no idea. Back in a bit.”
I wander out into the hallway and down to the therapy gym, where one of our lovely, strong-handed therapists, Rita, shoves me up on a table and proceeds to torture me as she works the kink out of my shoulder.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Oh, I think I just tweaked it during conditioning yesterday,” I say.
A lie. I actually tweaked it, punching a man so hard he was concussed. Rita doesn’t need to know that, though.
About fifteen minutes later, Rita sends me off with a tender but slightly more mobile shoulder, and I head back to the locker room to suit up.
At game time, we head down the tunnel, all about half asleep from the less-than-rousing pregame speech our coach offered.
Thankfully, pregame is a whole spectacle with music, lights, and video featuring our best moments.
At home games, we are gods. We head out on ice to a cacophony of cheers, lights low as we skate around and do a few warmups.
They announce the Toronto team’s starting lineup, who all skate out to a chorus of jeers.
Once their team is lined up, they make a big deal about our starting lineup, and the lights dim for dramatic effect.
I dance back and forth from skate to skate, stick in hand, as they call out our goalie, our defensive players, our center.
Then they call me.
I tap the Captain badge stitched onto my right arm and skate out slowly, stick raised high. The crowd roars like thunder.
But when Dominic’s name is announced—Jesus.
The place erupts.
Chicago loves The Assassin.
Every damn person is on their feet.
“Still a celebrity, I see,” I say as things calm down, a local chorus walking out over a red carpet on the ice, ready to sing the National Anthem.
“Don’t be jealous, Boss,” he says, grinning as he moves his hand over his heart.
“Shut the fuck up, twats,” Conor says. “This is my National Anthem. Be respectful.”
“They haven’t started singing yet, Mouth,” Dom shoots back.
“Come on now, boys, let’s not bicker,” says Max Knight, our center. “The children are watching.”
“Max, always smiling for the cameras,” Conor says. “Mr. Social Media Influencer. Don’t fuck up his perfect public persona.”
I actually snort at this because I know just exactly what that suave, put-together facade is hiding. Max Knight is a hell of a hockey player, but he’s also a gambling addict with a fuck-ton of debt owed to the wrong people.
“Now who’s ruining the National Anthem?” Dom mutters, grinning.
The song ends, and we all skate to the bench.
The ice is cleared, and we head out for the first puck drop.
The Toronto players are notoriously ruthless, and tonight’s game is no exception. They’re here for a fight with a side of hockey, which is fine.
We’ll adjust.
And even though my shoulder is wrecked from my extracurricular duties earlier in the week, my passes are pretty much perfect.
Our starting lineup plays well, adjusting after a couple of heavy checks and missed calls by the refs.
I feel the momentum building as we get into the seventh minute of the first period and then, inexplicably, Coach Harris sends in a line change.
It’s a bad call. Bone-deep stupid. I clench my jaw and leap the wall, teeth bared as I skate past him.
“We had things well in hand,” I snarl.
“Respect the choice I made,” he snaps back, eyes locked on mine.
I don’t blink. “Then make a better one.”
Coach Darrell Harris is on the young side. He played hockey in college but didn’t draft well, and he only played two years in the pros. He moved straight into coaching, and this is his first NHL head coaching gig.
He’s nice enough off the ice, a dad type with a pretty wife and a couple of kids. But he has been an inconsistent son of a bitch when it comes to coaching.
I’d be awaiting his firing if I didn’t know who owned our club. I’m certain some of his shitty coaching decisions are purposeful. People like to bet on sure things, and making someone lose is way easier than assuring their win.
After gulping down water, I turn and watch a seemingly befuddled third line get beaten. Toronto sails past our defenders and knocks the puck right into the net with minimal effort. There are a few cheers from their fans throughout the stadium, but our Chicago Reapers fans are stunned.
One of them yells, “You suck, Harris!”
Agreed.
The teams reset, and our starting line grabs spots at the wall, ready to go back out. Darrell puts up a hand, telling us to hold.
“What the fuck, Coach?” Dom asks. “I mean, respectfully.”
Coach looks like he might vomit, and when his eyes surreptitiously travel to the owner’s box, my suspicions are aroused.
This is a thrown game.
Of course, as a Captain, I can’t tell my guys this. I can’t see that kind of discord when they need to focus.
Every single guy on this team is good enough to be here.
Good enough to get this win, regardless of whatever bullshit is going on between the coaching staff and ownership. And no matter who I am outside of this, I am all about hockey when I am here.
I love this game, but I hate losing, especially when it seems like the system is rigged.
Fuck that.
Our third-string fight hard, taking advantage of a bad pass out of Toronto’s center.
Our right-wing forward gets going, nothing between him and the goalie, when the center chases him down and shoves his stick out, tripping him.
He faceplants, and the puck goes free, allowing the Toronto goalie a chance to scoop it up.
We all yell for a foul, but no whistle comes.
“That was blatant!” I yell.
“Tripping, ya blind fuck!” Conor yells. Then, to Coach Harris, “Why those fuckin’ guys? Why are they still out there?”
Everyone’s yelling, and it’s utter chaos. Our guys are slow to react because they genuinely expect the foul to be called, and when it isn’t, they’re a step behind Toronto, allowing them to score on us again.
It’s now two to nothing.
Max steps toward Coach Harris. “You done pissin’ about then, mate?”
Coach says nothing. Literally looks like he’s going to puke if he opens his mouth.
Finally makes a motion, which has our first line hopping over the wall to take the line change.
Every single one of us is fuming, which makes the play rough and scattershot. Passes are messy. Guys are stabbing at the puck, whacking each other with their sticks. One jab gets too aggressive, and a punch gets thrown.
I don’t see who started it.
Maybe Liam.
Maybe Dom.
Either way, we’re all in it as soon as we smell blood. I’ve got a Toronto defender’s jersey in my hand, his helmet is on the ground, and my free fist is pummeling his face.
This won’t end well for us, but it feels good to battle like this, to get the frustration out. And the crowd is wild for it, too. They want blood, so we give it to them.
The refs pull us apart, and somehow we end up on the winning end as the ref sends their center to the sin bin, and we resume on a Reapers power play.
I look at Dom, and he nods. He knows what we need to do.
As soon as the puck drops, with just a couple of minutes left in the period, we both scramble.
We move out of formation, thus pulling defenders out of position.
Their center gets caught up by our two defenders and tries a pass-back, but it goes loose.
Dom is fast, so he gets to it first, scooping it up and sending it flying right past the goalie’s outstretched glove and into the net.
The buzzer goes. The crowd erupts.
Moments later, the period ends. We all head to the bench, then out and down the tunnel. Everyone’s talking at once, most of the guys fuming about the lineup switches. Dom and I just stay quiet. There’s no point in complaining when the odds are stacked against us.
“Line changes shouldn’t matter at this level of play,” Coach Harris is saying.
“Every single one of you ought to be able to jump in flawlessly. This is about doing your job out there, doing the job you get paid to do. Don’t blame line changes; those are part of the game. Get your heads in the right place.”
“I’m giving serious consideration to the idea of using my skate as a weapon,” Dom says under his breath. “Fucking clown.”
“Mmhmm,” I hum. “But we know it’s not really his fault. What does the Don have on him, I wonder?”
“If I know you, you won’t stop until you find out.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
“It’s fucking weird, playing for that guy.”
He means Campisi, of course. Darrell Harris is a pawn.
He’s a nothing. Not a player in our world outside of hockey.
Campisi, for whatever reason, chooses to remain relatively anonymous regarding his ownership of the team.
Technically, it means we should be oblivious to the overlap of our hockey and non-hockey worlds.
But, of course, word gets around. Our worlds aren’t that big, after all.
“This is about betting, then?” Dom asks.
“Surely,” I answer.
“Well, then, let’s go make some loser a winner, then.”
I grin, and one fist-bump later, we’re on our way back out toward the ice.
We managed to tie it up in the second half, but they held us to a tie in the end. It’s still a win, in my book, because we were obviously meant to lose and we did not.
After we shower, I get sent down to do media, where I have to pretend I don’t know that our coach set us up for failure.
“What did you think about the early line change?” a journalist named Harper Lee asks.
She’s pretty and petite with auburn hair and pale skin.
She wears eyeglasses that seem to change at every event.
She’s a nerdy, persistent little thing. Dominic says he thinks she’s cute, but she makes me nervous, like she knows more than she should.
“It was odd,” I admit. “Felt like we had momentum. But I try not to question the coach’s choices.”
“Well, it seems like his choices cost you two goals,” she says.
“Is there a question in there, Harper?” I ask.
“You said it yourself. It was odd. Why do you think he did that?”
I lift a shoulder. “I’ll tell you what he told us: We’re professional players. Every one of us is expected to perform when we’re called. Line changes are part of the game.”
Harper stares at me a moment, like she’s itching to pry deeper, to call bullshit outright. But then someone yells a question about Dominic’s first goal, and I shift my attention.
Then our PR team swoops in, announcing that the press is done for the night.
I head out, getting a high five from one of the media staff.
Sixteen texts. All from the guys: group invites to the bar —shots, music, the works.
I roll my eyes.
We tied.
I don’t celebrate ties.
Instead, I wander the quieting arena, my path veering up to the club level, toward the owner’s suite, now likely empty. I don’t know what I expect to find. Closure? Clarity? A confrontation?
What I do find stops me in my tracks.
Two voices, echoing from the shadows of a nearby corporate suite.
I freeze just outside the door.
Coach Harris. No doubt.
“…hate this so much,” he’s saying. “I feel sick about it.”
“Grow a pair, will you, Harris?” says the other voice. “This is just business. It’s a handful of games a year. It’s not killing anyone, and it’s lining your fuckin’ pockets, so why complain?”
Coach exhales, exasperated. “These lineup changes are bizarre. People are noticing. It’s sloppy.”
“Then clean it up,” the guy says. “And make it work, Harris. A tie is not what I asked for. A tie doesn’t make people any money. You’ve got to get these guys in line.”
“By what? Telling them they need to lie down and let some shitty team walk all over them? They’re strong-willed. They’re competitors. They’ll always fight for a win. “I’m done,” Harris growled. “Pay the refs, rig the calls, I don’t care. But leave me the hell out of it.”
There’s a low, slimy laugh from the other man. “Oh, Harris,” he says, mockingly gentle. “You’re in this. There’s no out. Your job is to do what I say, because I report directly to the man who owns this fucking team.”
A beat.
“My father.”
Ah. So this is Vincenzo Campisi.
“My old man signs your checks. We own the Reapers. Which means we own you. And if you don’t get your shit in line for me… well—” he pauses, voice darkening, “—maybe I’ll stop by and visit that pretty wife of yours. Maybe take your cute little daughters out for ice cream.”
The apparent threat in his words is nothing to take lightly. I shudder at the implications. What are his intentions with the children, I wonder? Just how unhinged is this guy?
I’m not a good man. Never claimed to be. I like the feeling of my fist meeting someone’s jaw. Like the crack of ribs under pressure, the splash of blood, the rush of adrenaline when it all explodes.
But I don’t hurt kids. Ever.
And that’s where my line is, and no amount of money, vengeance, or twisted legacy bullshit will make me cross it.
I’ve heard enough.
I don’t want to get caught up here, eavesdropping. I wander past, hands in my pockets, nonchalant as if I’ve just come from the other end of the hall.
I pop my head into the owner’s suite, it’s empty—just as I figured.
But something stops me at the threshold.
A scent.
Subtle. Familiar.
Sweet.
I inhale again, deeper this time. My head tilts, trying to place it.
Not cologne. Not booze. Not the lingering scent of catered food or leather seating.
Her.
I don’t know how or why, but it’s her. That light, intoxicating perfume. The same one that settled my pulse the moment she stepped into that room.