Chapter 24
Ryan POV
The subterranean concrete underpass beneath The Foundry smelled of vehicle exhaust, damp road salt, and weeping limestone.
A freezing drizzle was falling through the rusted expansion grates thirty feet overhead, dripping onto the stained asphalt in steady, rhythmic taps.
I had just come from a forty-minute defensive video review with Coach Vance.
My shoulder was stiff from morning contact drills, and my left foot was throbbing with a deep, persistent ache.
During Thursday's closed scrimmage, I had dropped down to take away the shooting lane against the second line, catching a ninety-mile-per-hour slapshot flush off the inside of my skate boot.
The vulcanized rubber had crushed against the reinforced leather, driving straight into the navicular bone with a sickening, heavy impact.
I hadn't reported the swelling to the varsity training staff, and I hadn't logged it with Dr. Albright.
A diagnosed tarsal stress fracture right before the regional tournament would have triggered an instant medical red flag from Central Scouting, so I had wrapped the arch tight in friction tape, kept my mouth shut, and skated through the grind.
Every step on the concrete sent a sharp, dull flare up into my ankle, but my focus remained locked on the weekend ahead.
My gym bag hung heavy from my right shoulder as I rounded the corner toward the gated player exit.
A shadow moved near the security booth.
A man stepped out from behind a concrete support pillar, cutting directly across the yellow painted line of the walkway.
He wore a faded brown twill work jacket, an unzipped thermal vest, and mud-caked leather boots.
His hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets, a crumpled pack of menthol cigarettes peeking out of his chest pocket.
He smelled of stale tobacco, black coffee, and the damp, industrial rot of a Michigan winter.
The breath locked in my windpipe.
My vision tunneled down to a pinpoint of blinding light. The ambient noise of the arena concourse—the distant rumble of the ventilation fans, the hum of the transformer—cut out in an instant, replaced by a deafening, high-pitched ringing behind my eardrums.
It was the exact sound of early-winter pond ice cracking four years ago.
"Took you long enough, Ryan."
The voice was thick, phlegm-heavy, and stripped of every ounce of paternal warmth.
Thomas Owen. My father.
The copper tang of raw adrenaline flooded the back of my mouth, bitter as bile. My knuckles inside the pockets of my wool coat clenched so hard the tendons threatened to tear through the skin.
"What are you doing here?"
My voice didn't rise. It dropped into a flat, gravelly rasp that scraped against the cold concrete walls like a rusted blade.
Thomas took a half-step forward, his watery grey eyes—the exact same color as mine—raking over the width of my shoulders, the cut of my coat, and the St. Jude athletic crest stamped on my bag. A thin, vicious smirk pulled at the corner of his chapped lips.
"Your hotshot Boston agent stopped taking my phone calls," he said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and flicking a disposable lighter. The small orange flame illuminated the deep, bitter lines carved around his mouth. "Thought I’d drive eight hundred miles and see the star forward myself."
"Leave," I growled, the masseter muscles along my jaw locking until my back teeth clicked together under the pressure. "Get in your car and drive back to Lansing."
"I'm not going anywhere, boy," Thomas sneered, blowing a plume of grey smoke toward the damp ceiling.
"The Ann Arbor clinic called me on Tuesday. Leo’s second-quarter harness therapy bill is fifteen thousand dollars.
And I need five grand to cover the fuel and the time I spent sitting in your athletic director's lobby. "
"The clinic bills are paid through the booster trust," I said, every word forced out past the suffocating pressure expanding behind my ribs. "You don't touch a single cent of that money."
"You think you're untouchable now, don't you?
" Thomas’s voice took on a sharp, poisonous edge that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"You think because you're projected top-ten, you get to forget who broke that boy's neck?
You think an NHL general manager won't care when I tell the local press that their prospective franchise captain pressured his fourteen-year-old brother onto rotten ice because his fragile ego couldn't handle losing a scrimmage drill? "
The blow hit me square in the sternum.
A sickening, familiar weight crashed down over my lungs, dragging me straight back to that freezing afternoon in Michigan, to the sound of Leo’s scream, to the sight of his lifeless legs dragging through the slush.
I stood there on the wet asphalt, the ghost of my guilt wrapping around my throat like an iron chain.
* * *
Thomas saw the flicker in my eyes and took it for weakness.
He dropped his cigarette into a puddle, crushing the filter beneath the heel of his boot, and took another step into my space.
"You owe me, Ryan," he snarled, his voice rising in the echoing tunnel.
"You owe this family every dime you ever make on the ice.
You broke Leo, and you're going to pay for him until the day I die.
You wire twenty thousand to my personal account by Friday, or I walk straight into the Boston Globe's sports desk. "
The urge to kill him was a physical fire screaming through the bone of my right arm.
Every instinct honed over twenty-two years of violence ordered me to drop my bag, step into his chest, and drive my fist through his jaw until the bone shattered against the concrete.
I wanted to put him through the brick wall behind him.
I wanted to tear him to pieces for using my paralyzed brother as an extortion chip.
One punch.
If I threw it, the security cameras above our heads would record it.
Police would be in the tunnel within three minutes.
An assault arrest would trigger an instant, irreversible NCAA expulsion.
The St. Jude season would end today. The NHL draft eligibility would vanish into a cloud of character-flag warnings, and the signing bonus that was currently paying for Leo’s specialized neuro-rehab would be cancelled before the ink dried.
If I struck him, Leo lost his therapy.
I stood rigid, my fingernails biting into my palms so hard the skin broke, letting the warm blood slick my knuckles inside my coat pockets.
"The money goes to the clinic," I whispered, the words trembling with a lethal, suppressed fury that made the air in the tunnel thin. "Not a dime goes into your hands."
Thomas sneered, leaning in until his stale breath hit my collarbone. "We’ll see about that. Or maybe I should pay a visit to that pretty little brunette in the engineering building first."
The world stopped spinning.
The blood in my veins turned to liquid nitrogen.
"Collins, right?" Thomas murmured, his smirk widening as he saw my pupils dilate into pure black ink.
"Saw you helping her into your truck outside the rink yesterday.
Looked pretty cozy for an athlete and his compliance monitor.
I wonder what the NCAA investigation committee would say if they found out the student holding your medical clearance was sharing your bed every night? "
The red line didn't just break—it was obliterated.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate.
My right hand shot out from my pocket like a piston.
My thick, scarred fingers clamped into the heavy twill lapels of his work coat, and with one violent, concussive surge of power, I lifted his two-hundred-pound frame clean off his boots and slammed his back hard against the weeping concrete pillar.
The concrete groaned under the impact. The air left Thomas’s lungs in a wet, choked wheeze, his eyes widening in sudden, absolute terror as his boots scrambled for purchase six inches above the pavement.
I leaned in, my face inches from his, the silver scar through my eyebrow twitching with a madness that had nothing to do with hockey.
"You listen to me, you miserable piece of shit," I snarled, my gravelly voice dropping into a subterranean register so dark, so heavy with genuine murder, that the breath froze in his throat.
My knuckles twisted deeper into his jacket, choking his collar against his windpipe.
"You speak her name again," I whispered, the words vibrating with a violence that made his hands come up in frantic surrender, "you look in her direction, you step one foot onto this campus, and I will put you in the ground.
I don't care about the draft. I don't care about the police. I will kill you with my bare hands."
Thomas’s face went pasty, his lips turning blue as he clawed at my wrists. He had spent four years manipulating my guilt, but he had never seen the predator unchained. He was looking at an enforcer who had completely run out of fear.
"The clinic bills will be paid," I rasped, leaning an inch closer, daring him to breathe. "Every cent. But if you ever come near Nylah, you won't live to cash the check. Do you understand me?"
Thomas nodded frantically, his chin knocking against my knuckles.
I released him with a sharp, dismissive shove that sent him sprawling onto his hands and knees in the wet slush.
He scrambled to his feet, gasping for air, clutching his bruised throat, and fled toward his rusted sedan without looking back. The car engine screeched, tires spinning on the wet concrete, before speeding out of the tunnel into the grey afternoon.
I stood alone under the humming light, my chest heaving in ragged, shuddering gasps, my knuckles dripping blood into the puddles at my feet.
* * *
The drive through the freezing rain was a blur of grey asphalt and black water.
My hands shook violently against the leather steering wheel of my truck, the tremors starting deep in my forearms and radiating straight into my ribs. The rain lashed the windshield in angry, slashing sheets, the defroster roaring, but I couldn't get enough oxygen into my lungs.
My father was here. The rot from my past had tracked me down to Maine, dragging the ghost of Leo’s accident into the light, and now it had caught the scent of the only pure thing I had left in this world.
I pulled into the warehouse gravel lot, killed the engine, and took the iron stairs three at a time.
My boots hit the treads in heavy, frantic thuds. I shoved my brass key into the lock of unit 3B, wrenched the door open, and stepped inside.
The loft was an island of warm, golden quiet.
The cast-iron radiator was hissing softly against the north brick wall, the air smelling of cedarwood, hot tea, and clean laundry. A single amber lamp was lit beside the sectional sofa.
Nylah was there.
She was curled up in the corner of the leather couch, wearing my thick grey hockey sweater, her small bare feet tucked beneath a knit wool blanket. An open textbook rested against her knees, a pen held loosely in her right hand.
She looked up at the sound of the door, her amber-flecked eyes brightening, a soft, beautiful smile touching the corners of her mouth.
"Ryan? You're home early—"
I didn't answer. I didn't drop my coat. I didn't take off my boots.
I crossed the hardwood floor in three concussive strides.
Before she could speak another word, I reached down, grabbed her waist, and hauled her straight up off the sofa into my arms.
Nylah gasped, her book tumbling to the floor, her hands flying to my shoulders as my massive frame crushed her against my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her back like iron bands, lifting her off her feet, burying my face deep into the warm crook where her neck met her shoulder. My skin was freezing, soaked with rain, but her skin was an open hearth, burning with life, smelling of winter mint and safety.
A violent shudder ripped through my entire body, my chest heaving against hers with a raw, broken desperation that shattered every defense I had ever maintained.
"Ryan?" Her voice was soft, laced with sudden, intense concern as her fingers slid into the damp hair at the base of my skull, holding me against her. "What happened? You're shaking."
I couldn't tell her about Thomas. I couldn't taint the sanctuary of this room with the poison my father carried.
I only tightened my grip, pulling her so hard against my ribs that our racing heartbeats collided into a single, frantic cadence.
"Don't leave me, Nylah," I rasped, my gravelly voice breaking against her skin, thick with a ruined, terrifying plea that came straight from the marrow of my bones. "Don't ever leave me."
Nylah didn't ask another question.
Her arms tightened around my neck, her small, warm hands pressing into my shoulders, anchoring me against the storm raging outside our door.