CHAPTER 9
Seventy-two individual flashes in the span of three seconds.
Dorian tracked the strobe effect with mechanical precision.
The harsh, erratic bursts of white light from the press cameras hit his retinas with the exact same violent, disorienting intent as an opposing forward spraying ice into his mask.
He didn’t blink. He kept his chin level, his spine locked perfectly straight against the sponsor-logo backdrop of the arena’s mixed zone.
The air was unbreathable. It was a dense, suffocating mass of old roasted coffee, damp wool coats, and the acidic, aggressive sweat of a dozen sports journalists fighting for a pre-game soundbite.
"Dorian! Over here! Two questions on the defensive alignment!"
A cluster of thick foam microphones bearing the logos of local and national syndicates were shoved across the metal barricade, hovering inches from his face.
He stood his ground, wearing his heavy black-and-red Inferno quarter-zip pulled high up his throat.
The high collar was a strict necessity. Underneath the synthetic fabric, directly over his carotid artery, the skin was violently bruised—a dark, heavy mark left by Everett’s teeth merely nine hours ago.
Every micro-movement Dorian made was a sharp, localized reminder of the penthouse.
The heavy, aching friction in his hips. The lingering soreness in his lower back.
The absolute, catastrophic surrender of his physical autonomy against the dark silk sheets.
He had walked into the arena this morning carrying a completely different internal architecture, his deeply guarded isolation entirely dismantled by the captain's heavy, possessive weight.
But standing here in the blinding, clinical glare of the mixed zone, the private sanctuary of the master bedroom felt like a hallucination.
"We focus on the slot," Dorian recited, his thick Eastern European accent cutting through the chaotic noise. His voice was flat, offering zero emotional traction to the reporters. "We clear the rebounds. Detroit plays a heavy physical game, but our blue line is prepared."
"Are you prepared, Pike?"
The voice didn't come from the standard cluster of beat writers. It cut through the din from the left flank.
A tall, sharp-featured reporter wearing a tailored trench coat shoved his way to the front of the barricade. He didn't hold a standard microphone; he held a sleek digital recorder, and his eyes carried the cold, malicious gleam of a man who had just struck a highly profitable vein of blood.
"Markos, Chicago Tribune," the man stated, not waiting for authorization from the PR handler standing five feet away.
"We received a leaked brief from a State Department liaison at dawn.
It details an active, expedited deportation warrant filed under your name, citing international contract fraud initiated by your former club in Vladivostok. "
The ambient noise in the mixed zone entirely died.
The other journalists, sensing the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure, went dead silent. The camera shutters stopped clicking.
Dorian’s respiratory system ceased functioning. His lungs locked in a state of terminal inhalation.
"The timeline is incredibly tight, Dorian," Markos continued, his voice echoing loudly in the sudden quiet. He leaned over the metal barrier, his eyes locked onto Dorian’s pale face.
"You receive a federal deportation notice on Tuesday.
By Wednesday morning, you are legally married to the captain of the Chicago Inferno, a man whose family practically owns the appellate courts in this state.
Tell us, was this sudden wedding a desperate, orchestrated legal maneuver to evade federal prosecution? "
The question hung in the air, a jagged, lethal object suspended by invisible wires.
Dorian’s vision tunneled. The brightly lit corridor, the sponsor logos, the faces of the reporters—everything warped and distorted, bleeding into the sterile, grey walls of the management office back in Russia.
He was back there. He was twenty-three years old, sitting in a hard plastic chair while three corrupt directors slid a falsified ledger across a cheap desk, telling him his career was over.
He remembered the feeling of total, inescapable institutional betrayal.
The realization that he was nothing but a piece of equipment to be sacrificed to protect the hierarchy.
He stared at the black foam of the microphones. They looked like weapons.
His jaw clamped shut so hard the hinge joints audibly popped.
He tried to formulate a response. He needed to deploy the rigid, icy athletic discipline that had kept him alive for three years.
He needed to deliver the denial. But his English completely shattered.
The syllables fragmented in his throat. He looked utterly defenseless, stripped of his pads and his mask, entirely exposed before the flashing lenses that had begun to rapid-fire once again.
Fraud. Deportation. Fake.
The words echoed in his skull, deafening and absolute. He took a fractional step backward, his shoulder blades hitting the vinyl backdrop. The cameras caught the retreat. They caught the sheer, unadulterated terror draining the color from his skin.
A massive, violent physical disruption hit the right side of the press pack.
It wasn't a request for space. It was a kinetic, aggressive displacement of human bodies.
Two reporters were shoved bodily backward, their heavy equipment bags colliding with the concrete wall as a towering wall of black Kevlar and composite plastic breached the barricade line.
Everett Kane didn't walk into the mixed zone; he tore through it like a runaway freight train.
The captain was still in his full upper-body gear from the morning skate.
The massive, reinforced shoulder pads and chest protector made his already staggering six-foot-four frame look absolutely monstrous.
He wore the heavy black Inferno practice jersey over the armor, the captain’s 'C' stitched in stark white over his left pectoral.
Everett didn't look at the reporter. He didn't look at the PR handler.
He looked directly at Dorian.
Everett closed the remaining three feet in a single stride. He raised his massive, heavily gloved right arm and clamped it securely over Dorian’s shoulders.
The physical impact was a heavy, grounding shockwave.
The sheer density of Everett’s arm, the rough texture of the hockey glove, and the immense, radiating heat of the captain’s body immediately severed Dorian’s trauma spiral.
Everett pulled him in, tucking Dorian’s rigid frame flush against the solid, unyielding wall of his chest protector.
Dorian let out a fractured, silent breath, his fingers instinctively curling into the thick fabric of Everett’s jersey at the hip. The chaotic noise of the reporters faded into a dull, manageable hum beneath the heavy, protective barrier of the captain's presence.
Everett turned his head.
He locked his dark, entirely merciless eyes onto the Tribune reporter. The temperature in the corridor plummeted. The aggressive, predatory energy of the press pack evaporated, replaced by the acute, highly localized realization that they had just provoked a profoundly dangerous man.
"I am going to speak exactly once," Everett stated.
His voice was a deep, vibrating rumble that scraped against the concrete walls of the tunnel. It was stripped of all media training. It was the raw, territorial snarl of an alpha defender guarding his absolute center.
The cameras remained frozen. No one dared to trigger a flash.
Everett stared directly down the lens of the primary television camera mounted in the center of the pack.
"My husband’s honor is absolute," Everett declared, the word husband delivered with a heavy, unapologetic weight that completely commanded the air space.
"The allegations originating from Vladivostok are a fabricated, retaliatory smear campaign designed to cover their own internal financial corruption.
Our international legal task force is already executing a systematic dismantling of those claims."
Everett shifted his weight, his thick arm tightening possessively around Dorian’s neck. The heavy composite plastic of his shoulder pad bumped against Dorian’s jaw, a physical reminder of the violent, unyielding protection shielding him from the wolves.
"If any syndicate, publication, or independent journalist in this room prints a single sentence questioning the legitimacy of my marriage," Everett continued, his eyes drifting back to the Tribune reporter, cutting the man down to absolute nothingness, "my family’s legal division will file defamation suits so extensive they will liquidate your parent companies.
You will not write another word in this city. Am I understood?"
The silence was total. It was the suffocating, heavy quiet of a room full of people realizing the exact magnitude of the threat leveled against them. Everett Kane didn't make empty threats. His father’s firm dismantled federal prosecutors for sport; a sports journalist was barely an appetizer.
Everett didn't wait for verbal confirmation. He didn't require it.
He turned, keeping his arm locked securely around Dorian, and physically steered the goalie away from the sponsor backdrop.
"We are done here," Everett threw over his shoulder, his voice a cold, final dismissal.
They marched down the concrete player tunnel side by side.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of Everett’s boots against the rubberized matting provided a steady, metronomic anchor for Dorian’s racing heart.
The air grew colder as they moved deeper into the facility’s secure zone, leaving the thick scent of the media entirely behind.
Dorian’s legs moved automatically, matching the captain's long strides. The physical contact remained unbroken. Everett’s heavy arm didn't leave his shoulders, the grip tight, radiating a dark, intense heat that completely neutralized the residual panic in Dorian’s chest.
They reached the massive steel double doors of the locker room.
Everett hit the electronic push-bar with his free hand. The heavy doors swung open, the sterile, brightly lit sanctuary of the team's inner sanctum welcoming them.
They stepped inside.
SLAM.
The reinforced steel doors closed behind them with a loud, absolute finality, engaging the heavy magnetic locks. The noise of the press, the flashing lights, the federal threats—all of it was severed, locked out in the concrete corridor.
Dorian stopped walking.
He stood in the center of the empty locker room anteroom, the quiet of the facility finally ringing in his ears. The brutal whiplash of the last ten minutes caught up to his nervous system. His knees gave a subtle, involuntary tremble.
Everett dropped his arm from Dorian’s shoulders.
The captain took a half-step back, reaching up to grip the thick velcro straps of his chest protector. The heavy ripping sound echoed off the metal lockers as he tore the armor loose, shedding the bulky equipment to gain unrestricted movement. He tossed the pads onto the nearest bench.
Everett stepped right back into Dorian’s space.
He reached out, his massive, calloused hands bypassing the collar of Dorian’s quarter-zip entirely, opting to grip the sides of Dorian’s face. His palms were hot, slightly damp from the morning skate, framing Dorian’s jaw with an unyielding, heavy pressure that forced the goalie to look up.
"Are you with me?" Everett demanded. The low, rough vibration of his voice wasn't asking about Dorian's physical location. It was a direct, psychological probe.
Dorian stared up into the dark, entirely dilated eyes of the defenseman. The cold, institutional terror of Vladivostok was a ghost, entirely banished by the towering reality of the man holding him.
"Yes," Dorian whispered, his hands slowly lifting to grip the thick, sweat-dampened forearms of Everett’s practice jersey.
Everett’s thumbs swept across the high, pale arches of Dorian’s cheekbones, a slow, deeply reverent motion that sharply contrasted the violence he had just promised the press.
"They do not get to touch you," Everett stated, his jaw locking into a hard, uncompromising line. "They do not get to question you. You stay in the crease, and you let me clear the ice. That is the line."
Dorian’s chest hitched. The sheer magnitude of the protection being offered was a heavy, suffocating weight, but for the first time in his life, it was a weight he wanted to carry.
He remembered the dark bedroom. He remembered the exact second his own independence had shattered under the captain's hands.
"Everett," Dorian murmured, his gray eyes darkening as he leaned a fraction of an inch forward, entirely submitting to the heavy grip on his face. "If they investigate... if they find out it was a maneuver to stall the warrant..."
"Let them," Everett interrupted softly, his right thumb dropping to brush over the high collar of Dorian’s quarter-zip, pressing deliberately against the sensitive, bruised skin hiding underneath.
Dorian drew a sharp, involuntary breath as the dull sting flared, a rush of heavy heat pooling instantly in his gut.
"There is no fraud," Everett continued, his voice dropping to a rough, private rasp that belonged solely to the dark hours of the penthouse. "Because the contract is dead. I meant every word I said out there."
Everett leaned down, pressing his forehead hard against Dorian’s. The physical collision of bone and skin was absolute.
"You are my husband," Everett breathed, the words scraping against the quiet air of the locker room. "And Detroit is going to find out exactly what happens when they try to put pucks past what belongs to me."
The high-stakes playoff reality loomed directly ahead, the opening face-off barely hours away.
The federal net was still tightening around their ankles.
But as Dorian closed his eyes, entirely anchored by the heavy, possessive breathing of the captain, the ice inside his chest didn't just melt—it caught fire.