Chapter 28
Ryan POV
The glare of five high-output halogen studio lamps bounced off the white plastic dais, washing the media room in blinding, sterile heat.
A dozen black directional microphones were clustered on the St. Jude podium, their cords snaking across the risers like dead vines.
Across the risers, forty sports reporters from the Boston Globe, USCHO, and regional television affiliates were leaning forward over their laptops, their telephoto camera lenses clicking in rapid, mechanical bursts.
I sat in the center seat, flanked by Coach Vance and Knox Mercer.
My navy team blazer was buttoned across my chest, the wool straining over the thick bandages securing my bruised ribs.
Beneath my white dress shirt, my skin was slick with sweat from an hour of three-on-two transition drills.
My knuckles were swollen, mottled purple across the index and middle joints, resting flat on the laminate table.
A dull, rhythmic throb hammered behind my optic nerves, matching the frantic clicking of the shutters.
"Ryan, you're forty-eight hours out from the regional final against Boston University," Callahan from the Globe called out, his voice cutting through the hum of the air conditioning.
"Central Scouting has you projected as a top-five lock for June.
But you've logged twenty-four penalty minutes in your last three starts, including two roughing minors after the whistle.
Is your physical volatility a risk factor for the Frozen Four, or are you trying to send a message to NHL front offices? "
My jaw locked.
The masseter muscles along my jawline ached from hours of grinding my molars together. A thick vein pulsed at the side of my neck, beating hard against the stiff collar of my dress shirt.
I looked Callahan dead in the eye, keeping my face carved out of cold, impassive granite.
"My job is to clear the slot, protect our blue line, and win hockey games for St. Jude," I said, my voice coming out flat, gravelly, and stripped of inflection. "The draft is in June. The only sixty minutes that exist on my schedule are on Friday night."
"There are rumors out of the athletic administration building about an unscheduled compliance audit regarding your medical files," another reporter pressed from the third row, leaning into his voice recorder.
"Can you confirm your biometric load management is fully cleared for full-contact minutes? "
Coach Vance reached over, tapping his microphone with a forefinger. "Owen is fully cleared. Next question."
I didn't blink. I didn't look at Vance. I kept my gaze pinned to the back wall of the press room, giving the cameras nothing.
Every second at that table felt like swallowing broken glass. The pressure was an iron vice clamping down on my ribcage—the pro scouts with their clipboards, my brother’s clinic invoices due in two weeks, the team counting on my shifts.
I gave them eight more minutes of clipped, stone-faced answers before the sports information director stepped to the podium and announced the scrum was over.
* * *
I didn't make it five paces down the concourse.
Coach Vance caught my elbow, his grip tight through the wool of my blazer. "Athletic Director's office, Ryan. Right now."
I followed him through the service corridor, my boots making dull, hollow thuds against the rubber floor matting.
We entered the administrative suite. The heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the noise of the arena like a guillotine blade.
Athletic Director Hayes sat behind his desk, his glasses off, his face pale and lined with exhaustion. On the polished blotter between his hands lay an official red-flagged memorandum bearing the embossed seal of the NCAA Eligibility Council.
"Sit down, Ryan," Director Hayes said.
I remained on my feet, my broad shoulders squared, my hands shoved deep into my trouser pockets where my fingernails bit into my palms to steady the raw rush of adrenaline in my blood.
"What is that?" I asked, my voice a low scrape.
"An official inquiry was filed with the university provost and the NCAA Division One Compliance Committee at noon today," Hayes said, sliding the memo forward.
My gaze tracked down the printed page.
The words jumped out like physical blows: ANONYMOUS TIP... ETHICAL IMPROPRIETY... ILLICIT CONFLICT OF INTEREST... FALSIFICATION OF BIOMECHANICAL CLEARANCE.
The document alleged that I had entered into an unauthorized, compromising relationship with my designated student technical director, Nylah Collins, in order to manipulate my telemetry records, suppress evidence of a navicular stress fracture, and preserve my top-five draft ranking.
The room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
My vision narrowed to a black tunnel. The memory of my father standing in the wet concrete underpass on Friday flashed behind my eyes—his sneer, his stale tobacco breath, his threat to drag Nylah into the light. Or maybe it was Arthur Vance, bitter from being humiliated in the foyer at the gala.
One of them had dropped the hammer.
"This is an unverified anonymous tip," Coach Vance interjected, stepping between me and the desk. "Ryan’s data is verified by Dr. Albright."
"It doesn't matter who verified it," Hayes snapped, leaning forward. "The NCAA rules are black and white. If an official investigation is launched by the compliance board tomorrow morning, Ryan is placed on an immediate forty-eight-hour administrative eligibility hold. He sits Friday's game."
A white-hot rage flared in my chest, so violent it made my lungs burn.
I took half a step toward the mahogany desk, looming over Hayes, my knuckles bloodless inside my pockets.
"The telemetry on that server is encrypted," I rumbled, my gravelly voice dropping into a lethal, dangerous register that made Hayes shift back in his leather chair.
"Check the cryptographic hashes. Cross-reference my ice time against the high-speed cameras.
My body took every single one of those hits.
You want to audit my load metrics? Audit them.
But you leave Nylah Collins out of this. "
"If you've touched her, Ryan," Hayes said, his voice dropping low, "if there is a single witness, a single photograph, or a single shred of evidence that you've crossed a professional boundary with that girl, your season is over.
And her fellowship with the Olympic committee will be revoked for academic fraud before Monday morning. "
The threat hung in the air, toxic and suffocating.
"There is no evidence," I said, every word forced out past teeth clenched tight enough to crack bone. "Clear the docket."
I turned on my heel, shoved the mahogany door open with my shoulder, and walked out into the freezing corridor.
* * *
The cold winter twilight had settled over the harbor in shades of slate grey and black.
A freezing rain was falling across the shipyard, glazing the asphalt of the arena parking lot in treacherous sheets of black ice. My truck keys were buried in my fist, the metal edges digging deep into the scarred flesh of my palm as I pushed through the private security gate.
My breath came in ragged, shallow hitches.
My father was trying to burn my life down. Arthur Vance was trying to take my ice time. The whole world was pressing its boot into my throat, waiting for me to break.
Then I stopped dead in the slush.
Standing near the concrete bollards of the reserved exit, sheltered beneath the overhang of the arena roof, was Nylah.
She wore her dark wool coat, her green knit scarf wrapped twice around her throat, holding her leather binder tightly against her chest.
She looked tiny against the massive concrete pillars of the building. Her skin was an unnatural, fragile paper-white, her dark hair pulled back, the shadows beneath her amber eyes dark with a bone-deep exhaustion that made something violently contract behind my sternum.
Her right hand wasn't tucked into her pocket against the freezing wind.
Her small, gloved hand was resting flat, motionless and protective, over the lower curve of her stomach beneath the wool.
Every drop of the murderous rage boiling in my veins evaporated into the freezing air, replaced instantly by a fierce, desperate instinct to shelter her from the storm.
I closed the distance in four strides.
I didn't say a word. I reached out, caught her by the waist, and guided her across the slick pavement to the passenger side of my truck. I lifted her onto the running board, helped her into the cab, and shut the heavy steel door against the wind.
I rounded the hood, climbed behind the steering wheel, and slammed my door shut.
The cab sealed out the rain, wrapping us in the faint, lingering smell of cedar and dry heat.
I didn't turn the ignition key.
I threw off my seatbelt, shifted my massive frame across the center console, and gathered her into my arms.
Nylah gasped softly as I lifted her clean off the passenger bucket, hauling her body across the leather into my lap, pulling her flush against the front of my navy blazer.
Her small hands came up, clutching the lapels of my jacket, her cold forehead sinking instantly into the warm crook of my neck. Her breath hitched against my collarbone in a soft, trembling shudder that shook her entire frame.
I wrapped my thick arms around her back, locking her against my chest with an unyielding, possessive grip that left no room for cold air between our bodies.
I buried my face deep into the dark silk of her hair, breathing in the scent of winter mint and rain like an addict pulling in the only oxygen left on earth.
"Stay right here," I rasped, my gravelly voice cracking on the raw truth of it, my chest heaving against hers. "Good girl. Let me hold you, Nylah. I've got you."
Her fingers tightened in the fabric of my blazer, holding on as if the world were sliding away beneath her feet.
I held her in the dark of the truck, feeling the fragile, rapid flutter of her pulse against my neck.
I didn't know how I was going to beat the compliance audit. I didn't know how I was going to stop my father from destroying my draft status.
All I knew, with the absolute, deadly certainty of an enforcer guarding his crease, was that I would take every hit meant for her. I would let them break my bones, shatter my career, and tear down my name before I ever let their poison touch the woman breathing against my heart.