Chapter One #2
I tug my compression shirt over my head and shove my sweatshirt into my duffel. "Alone. I like that the snow doesn’t talk back."
"Is that what you’d say about the snow bunnies at the hotel bar, too?" JP tosses back.
I smirk as I zip my bag. "Trust me… they don’t slide onto the stool next to mine because they want to talk. That’s more your department."
JP’s engaged to Cammy now, which means he’s got plenty of free time to critique my dating habits instead of contributing to them.
Olsen’s smile turns feral. "That magazine spread probably didn’t help."
He’s talking about the full spread I agreed to do for VELVT Magazine.
A clothing-optional magazine for women with self-help articles, beauty product reviews, and editorial photos of half-naked to fully naked men between the pages.
It’s not the first photoshoot I’ve done for a magazine, but it’s the only one currently getting me in trouble with the Olympic Committee over trademark infringement.
My jaw tightens for half a second—barely noticeable, but Trey clocks it immediately. Call it his ex-special forces habit of noticing every shift in body language.
"Relax," Trey says, holding up his hands. "We’re impressed."
"Yeah," Wolf adds. "Didn’t peg you as the centerfold type."
"And, damn…" Slade says. "You stripped it all off? Didn’t want to leave something to the imagination? Let the ladies suffer?"
"Mistakes happen," I say flatly.
"Like covering your dick with your Olympic medals in a nudie magazine without an ounce of shame?
" Scottie deadpans. "You could have at least warned your sister about the shoot.
One of the WAGs in her group chat sent a snapshot of it to everyone, and Katerina threatened to gouge her eyes out afterwards. She had nightmares for a week."
Aleksi laughs and slaps my arm like he’s the supportive friend in this nightmare. "Hey… ignore them. It was artistic. Very tasteful."
I don’t give them the satisfaction of reacting.
Not because I’m embarrassed, and not because I regret it, but because if I let myself think about it for more than a second, I’ll remember exactly how it happened. And exactly why.
"If any of you needed three medals just to keep things decent," I say, "you’d be posing nude every chance you got."
The conversation keeps rolling around me, but my head is already somewhere else.
My agent has been losing his goddamn mind for weeks over this photoshoot. The Olympic Committee is in an uproar, sponsors are ‘concerned’, headlines are multiplying, and everyone’s acting like I held the medals hostage and posed for the camera like some patriotic stripper.
The best part?
My agent never wanted it to happen in the first place.
Randolph had called the moment the offer came in from the VELVT magazine. His voice was clipped right away, as if he’d bitten into something rotten.
"Absolutely not." That was his first response. Not, ‘We need better terms.’ Not, ‘Let’s see the numbers.’
Because Randolph understands branding. He understands contracts, and he’s been my agent long enough now to understand how the Olympic Committee thinks.
He understands, just as I do, that medals aren’t jewelry.
They’re property of the Olympics, and more than that, they stand as a symbol.
Using them in anything remotely sexual is basically lighting a match under a gas leak to any commercial sponsorship I currently have, and potentially any in the future if they see me as a "risk".
He refused to negotiate. To even entertain the conversation. So I went around him.
I cut him out of the email chain entirely and dealt with the magazine directly, telling myself it was faster and cleaner that way.
But the truth? The truth is that I didn’t want anyone talking me out of it, because I wasn’t thinking like a pro athlete or a brand.
I was thinking like a son with a father to punish.
I knew he’d see it. If the universe were generous, it would embarrass him enough to make him feel even a fraction of what he’d tried to do to my sister by trying to make her feel like a trading card rather than a real person, trying to marry her off to a Russian politician for his own gain.
That’s what the centerfold was.
Not a stunt or a cash grab. It was a knife in the dark, pointed at my father and his precious family legacy.
Something to put a stain on it, and to remind him that I have nothing to lose.
Not that he hasn’t already stained the family name enough by running illegal operations that have both the Russians and the U.S.
watching him to make a wrong move, putting him away for life.
What hurts me the most is that for all my intelligence, three Olympics’ worth of rules drilled into my bones, I made one arrogant mistake.
They sent me an email. I believed them when the magazine said that the medals had been cleared. A neat little promise dressed up in legal language.
Olympic Committee approval confirmed. Licensed usage authorized.
I should’ve known better. I don’t trust anyone.
Not since my father showed me that I was just an asset for him to use, not after my mother passed away and I realized she was the only one who had my best interest at heart, not since my family cut me out and disowned me for going my own way.
Revenge does strange things to a man’s judgment. It sharpens some instincts … and dulls the ones that matter.
Randolph wouldn’t have taken the email at face value… not with my brand on the line. Now he’s throwing PR teams at me like holy water, hoping one of them can cleanse my sins and get me out of this mess, and I’ve brushed every one of them off.
Two different PR agents have shown up. Two, as if I’m a fire they keep trying to put out with beige blazers and overly confident smiles.
I’ve dodged both of them. I refused meetings when they showed up at the stadium and at games. I let their calls go to voicemail. I ignored them buzzing into my apartment building to get a strategy meeting with me.
Eventually, they gave up and went home, and Randolph is acting as if I’ve personally nuked his entire retirement plan.
He keeps warning me that this "could cost millions." That I’m risking deals, lighting his carefully curated "Luka Popovich" branding on fire. It’s taken him years to perfect, since I’m not upbeat and easygoing like Scottie, or charismatic and charming like JP, or funny and outgoing like Aleksi. I have a resting asshole face, and I get it… because I do it on purpose. I’m not looking to make friends beyond what I have with the guys on the team, who are more like family, anyway.
To him, I’m tarnishing any future legacy he could capitalize on.
I don’t care about the money. I never have. Hockey is about paving my own path and making my own rules.
If I cared about money, I would have agreed to run the "family business" and kept my inheritance. My inheritance is more money than the NHL and every sponsorship deal combined could offer in a lifetime.
But if this is the cost—sanctions from the team, fines from the Olympic Committee, and lost sponsorship revenue—for revenge, for a warning shot to remind my father that if he ever comes for my sister again, I’ll do something worse to embarrass him, then I’ll happily pay it.
Because the Olympic Committee doesn’t care that I wanted to piss off my father. They care about the optics of a former Olympian posing nude with only their licensed property covering up his family heirlooms.
And if they decide to make an example out of me, they can, and I won’t say I didn’t deserve it. I knew the line I was crossing, even if the magazine lied about the approval.
The locker room surges around me again as the players pack up to head out for the day.
No one in here wants anything from me besides what I give on the ice.
No one is tallying favors, or looking for a return on investment, or threatening to disinherit me if I don’t do what they ask.
My family was never like this.
In my family, everything comes with strings attached. Every conversation is a negotiation. Every relationship is a transaction.
Even my sister was collateral. A bargaining chip to be traded.
I promised my mother on her deathbed that Katerina would be safe.
Scottie carries most of that weight now, but I’ll never stop watching. Never stop listening. Never stop being ready to step in if I have to again. That centerfold was a reminder to my father that he has no control over us anymore, and the message was loud and clear.
The locker room noise swells again, pulling me back.
I finish dressing quickly, sling my duffel over my shoulder, and head for the door. Always the first in, always the first out.
Cold air slams into me the moment I step outside the arena. It bites at my lungs, a welcome contrast to the stale heat inside. I take a deep breath as I cross the parking lot, sneakers crunching against the ice and asphalt of the players' lot.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I don’t look at it.
Then it buzzes again.
And again.
"Jesus," I mutter, reaching for my phone and answering as I reach my car. "What?"
"You don’t get to say ‘what’," Randolph snaps immediately. "You’ve blown off two PR teams in three weeks."
I unlock the truck and toss my bag into the back before sliding in. "I didn’t ask for them."
"They were there to help you, Luka."
"I didn’t need help," I say, sliding into the truck and slamming the door closed beside me.
"The Olympic Committee disagrees."
"It’s done. There’s nothing more I can do about the magazine publishing the images now," I say.
"There’s nothing you can do about it now? That’s all you’re going to say? You know better than anyone that using those medals without prior consent was going to get you in deep water with them," Randolph huffs back. "They’re furious."
Of course they are, and I understand why.
"They’re saying it’s a violation," he continues.
"It’s just a threat as of now," I say, hitting the push-start button. My engine roars to life under the hood, though it’s not quite loud enough to drown out the sound of my agent’s voice… unfortunately.
"Luka… it was an unauthorized use of Olympic property… You know the rules. They’re threatening fines. Sanctions." His voice continues to escalate, like it usually does, the more I pretend that it’s not a big deal, but the thing is, there’s nothing I can do about it.
"They haven’t enforced anything yet," I say.
"That’s not the point."
"It is to my lawyer," I tell him.
Silence stretches across the line.
"You talked to a lawyer?" he asks carefully.
He hates it when I use my lawyer over the agency's lawyers, but I don’t care. They have a client to please—Randolph—whereas my lawyer has my best interests at heart, first and foremost. Another useful thing my father taught me.
"Son… you never bargain shop for lawyers, hit men, or tattoo artists. You pay for the best of the best, or those mistakes will follow you for life."
"Yes."
"And?" he asks, annoyance dripping as if he shouldn’t have to ask me to explain further.
"And he told me to shut up."
"Luka—"
"I signed an NDA," I cut in. "If I say one word about the magazine and my experience, they can bury me in a defamation suit before the Olympic Committee even finishes sharpening its knives."
Randolph swears under his breath. "Why didn’t you tell me this?"
Because your job is money, and mine is to make my father’s life a living hell whenever and however I find the chance. Randolph would have acted too fast and in a panic. My lawyer told me not to tell my agent… and he was right.
But I don’t say any of that.
"Because my lawyer told me not to," I answer.
"Two PR firms flew out to help you," he snaps. "You ghosted them. Now you’re gaining a reputation as being difficult to work with… not that your reputation was pristine to begin with, might I add. Now I’m out consulting fees that I’m taking out of your commission… by the way."
"Bill me."
"This could cost sponsors," he warns.
"I don’t care."
"The Hawkeyes have a no-scandal clause, Luka. They can bench you if this becomes a full-blown disciplinary issue."
I pause, my hand on the steering wheel. He knows he hit me where it really hurts—the idea of getting benched. The only thing I can think of now is how I need to be out on the ice helping my team win a Stanley Cup. I can’t get benched. Not this season.
"What was this for?" he demands suddenly, voice raw with frustration. "Was it women? Attention? Because if it was, you already have them lining up outside the arena to be with you—"
"I have my reasons," I say, clipped and annoyed.
I put the phone on speaker and then drop it on the center console next to me as I put my truck in reverse, backing out of my space.
There’s a beat of silence, which means I’ve finally exhausted his attempts to break through. At least for this attempt. He’ll try again in a couple of days when he thinks I might have thought it through and come to my senses. I won’t.
Randolph exhales hard. "That was a stupid call you made."
"I didn’t ask for your opinion."
"No," he snaps. "You didn’t. You just went behind my back, doused your career in gasoline, and lit it on fire."
I smile without humor as I turn out of the players' lot. "My career is not on fire."
"It could be if this continues to get bigger and we don’t get ahead of it," he warns. "And when it does light on fire, Luka, don’t expect me to put it out with my bare hands if you keep cutting me off at the knees."
"Noted."
"You can’t keep ignoring this."
"Watch me."
"Luka—"
"I always have a choice," I say, and then reach over to my center console and hang up.
The pressure, the expectations… It’s all my life has ever added up to. It always circles back to the same thing.
Everyone wants something from me.
PR teams want control. Sponsors want obedience. Committees want compliance. Families want loyalty… but on their terms.
I’m done explaining myself. I’m done defending the choices I made to survive.
Distance keeps me safe. Not trusting anyone besides Katerina and my teammates out on the ice is how I’ve survived this long.
My phone buzzes again. This time it’s an email confirmation I’ve been looking forward to.
Reservation Confirmed
Private Alpine Chalet—East Ridge
Welcome back, Mr. Popovich.
My usual place.
A one-bedroom chalet tucked deep in the Swiss Alps, where I can lose myself on the slopes and block everything else out over the upcoming two-week bye-week.
Completely isolated from expectations. A familiar place where the mountains and the snow are too pure to ever feel threatening.
The hotel staff knows who I am, and tourists sometimes recognize me out of my ski gear, but all they ever want is a picture or an autograph. Nothing I can’t handle.
I exhale for the first time all day.
Switzerland is where rules hold and where nothing follows me.
Let them panic.
I won’t.