Chapter 18
Eli
The slam of the door echoes for minutes after Lex storms out.
It doesn’t seem real.
It can’t be real.
There’s no way I fucked up this badly, is there?
You don’t fucking understand.
I never thought such simple words could have the impact of a bomb on my body, on my brain, but after Lex’s rant, I know they’re the truth.
I feel stupid.
Never in my life have I felt stupid, not even at fourteen years old when I told Lex I loved him and he didn’t say it back.
Not three years later when the FBI came knocking and told me they’d figured out I was Angelwings66 and I’d been the one to hack into Quantico and the Pentagon—I was so na?vely smug even while feeling a little bit mortified.
That mortification spurred me into caution, it pushed me to learn more, to become better than I already was.
Now there’s no one in the world who could find me—find Angelwings66—unless I want them to.
I’ve made sure that the agents who came that night and every single person who knew about their findings don’t have any proof. I’ve done enough work for them over the years to be sure they won’t ever tell.
And if they did?
Well, their lives would be irrevocably changed and still it would be really hard for people to believe them.
My back snaps straight and I stand from the mattress on shaky legs, and I walk as if in a trance to my office. I close the door but don’t lock in the security system.
It’s already ten and I doubt anyone would come in right now . . . especially not Lex.
I sit at my desk, boot up my system, and do what I do best.
I learn.
It takes me a while to put the pieces together. I read articles, find websites that track teams’ engagement online or interest from the press. I read endless comments sections on videos and social media posts.
When the full picture forms, I can’t even imagine feeling triumphant about finally understanding.
Lex’s comment about me of all people having to understand the media climate of New York is especially humiliating, mostly because it’s true.
When it comes to professional sports, it doesn’t affect only hockey. It’s for all of it, football, baseball, basketball. They all get a lot more press, and therefore more scrutiny—from fans, from the leagues themselves—and the general expectation for them to perform is always higher.
Is it unfair?
Maybe.
It also brings these teams a lot more money.
It shows how the Ellsworths have succeeded in helping the Barclays—and Harrison ever since he bought the football team—find staggering financial success even when the teams haven’t done particularly well.
Another piece of the puzzle is the narrative around Lex.
He was named Rookie of the Year after his first season with the Empire, so that would put anyone under the magnifying lens, but he’s also a Jankowski, the youngest in what many refer to as a dynasty that also includes the Waynes since they’re such a close-knit group.
He also instantly became the best player in the Empire roster, and yeah, that means he gets more media.
Every one of his words when doing press, every game, every move has been dissected since he was drafted, but it’s been getting more intense as the years have gone on, and now in New York . . .
Objectively, I knew he’d always been a celebrity for being Lyla’s son, but the fervor of hockey fans is a different beast. In hockey circles, his family is worshiped and hated in equal measures.
His cousins are also world-renowned musicians, but the unexpected mid-season trade happening right after a teammate deliberately shoved him—which is something that’s apparently now widely accepted as a fact, at least on social media— means that literally everyone who cares about hockey is talking about him, the trade, and what to expect once he’s better and playing again, this time wearing red and black instead of black and gold.
Sports news networks, retired players, and fans from all over the country are talking about this. And the reactions I find online vary from intrigued to horrified.
Sure, hockey isn’t as big in the US as in Canada, but the only place who might have a tougher time with the media than New York is Montreal.
And yeah, I don’t find any evidence to reasonably conclude that this will die down once he gets back on the ice.
It might actually get worse—and that doesn’t seem to be depending on whether he plays well or bad.
Whatever the outcome of his first game, he’s for sure going to stay under the spotlight unless another huge story breaks out.
Even then, it would have to be about someone from the Jankowski-Wayne clan to rival the level of attention, and I know for a fact Lex would hate that even more than this.
I’m furious as I keep reading, at myself mostly, yeah, but also at some of the fans, talking about the shove like it wasn’t truly serious, like it’s something Lex should have to endure to pay the price for being who he is.
The sum of everything I find points to a very bleak outcome.
I understand Lex’s, Ruko’s, and later Vinny’s reactions to the news of the trade.
Just as painful, powerful regret and helplessness start to consume me, I come across a video of Lottie doing a press conference earlier today—no, yesterday since it’s already three in the morning.
No wonder Lex was—is raging mad.
Maybe if he’d had a say in telling Tucker about him waiving his no-trade clause, he still would’ve wanted me to do it, but I didn’t ask.
All of this is happening and he didn’t have any say over it. Over the huge change in his life and over the consequences he now has to face—and they’re not his to face for fuck’s sake.
There’s one more post that makes me want to destroy my office.
@15alexei15stan
I bet Alexei’s best friend is real happy about this smh
My body starts to tremble with yet another realization.
With the harsher spotlight on Lex, even with everything I’ve done to change the narrative of us, if we make our relationship public—whatever’s left of it after I beg him to forgive me—there’s a real possibility no one will care about us being “best friends.” Maybe they’ll only care about Lyla and Dad’s marriage certificate.
And beyond that, who knows how the coach, the management of the Demons, and possibly the team might react to it.
I could’ve fucking moved anywhere—to fucking LA if it came to that.
Sure, it would’ve meant a lot of flights back and forth, but I should’ve done that instead of—
Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve.
It doesn’t matter anymore. No matter how much I wish I could change things, I can’t.
Now I need to find a solution—and I will.
There has to be something, some kind of loophole or statement Lex can make, hell, someone I can fucking hack to—
The alarm blaring on my speakers as loud as they can go freezes the blood in my veins. I stand on autopilot and hit the button for the intercom to Austin’s room.
While I wait for him to get to it, I shut everything down, grab my tablet, my secure hotspot, connect it all to the charging backpack I have for emergencies just like this one, and then run back just as Austin’s voice comes through.
“Eli, what’s—”
“Need you to take me to the office,” I tell him, the urgency coming through loud and clear in my voice.
“One minute,” he says, and I can tell he’s as ready for action as I am.
Exactly one minute later he snaps at me to put my seatbelt on while he’s already merging onto the road.
It’s gonna take us less than ten minutes to get to the office at this hour, with no one around and Austin knowing that when there’s an emergency he has everyone’s permission to break as many speeding laws as he wants.
He doesn’t ask for specifics, doesn’t need them, because he knows that when it comes to my business, I can’t and won’t tell him anything. But he has to understand enough.
On the way there I hit answer when my phone vibrates without looking away from the counterattack I’m putting together to launch the second I connect to the office’s network—it’ll not only slow down whoever is trying to come at me, me, but it will also launch a hidden bug that will probably follow them all the way back to their IP.
Carla’s voice comes through my phone speaker. She’s my head programmer.
“Eli, sorry to wake you, but we’ve got a problem.”
“Wasn’t asleep and I’m already on my way,” I tell her simply, while my fingers keep moving as fast as I can stand.
“Wha—how?”
“I have an alert for the first hidden trigger in our firewall,” I say. “I’m already coding a counterattack, so just slow them down as much as you can. I’ll be there in—” I pause, look up.
“Two minutes,” Austin says without me having to ask.
“Two minutes,” I repeat. “If you’re the only one there, no worries, but if anyone else is there, then—”
“Franco’s here, he’ll open the door for you.”
“Thank you.” The call disconnects, but I do file away the news that my head of sales is hanging out with my head programmer during her weekly night shift.
That’s something to worry about at literally any other moment.
“Go get coffee for yourself and us, please. Maybe some food,” I tell Austin when he slows the car, then I rush through the building’s lobby and head to the hidden door that leads to the basement.
I spare a thankful look for Franco when he meets me at the bottom of the stairs with the door that normally requires a handprint, retina scanner, and code already open, but then I’m focused back on the screen of my tablet.
As soon as I get to the pit—what we call the desks with the monitors connected to the main system of ECS—I sit and connect everything, but keep using my own hotspot, thinking maybe that will confuse the hacker enough to slow them down.
My malware will still come from our main computer, and travel through their own code to their IP—at least that’s the hope—so for now, I have a full conversation with Carla through mostly one-syllable words, and we get to work.
After ten minutes where we successfully slowed it down, I finally ask her what she knows.