CHAPTER 10
Page fourteen.
The dry, nasal scrape of the words was followed by the agonizingly slow rustle of sixty-pound bond paper being flipped over.
Everett sat at the head of the massive, twelve-foot mahogany dining table.
He didn't blink. He kept his spine perfectly straight, his shoulders squared in a posture of relaxed, unbothered executive control.
He watched the federal agent across from him drag a yellow highlighter across a line item on their joint bank statement.
The penthouse was suffocatingly quiet. It was past eleven at night.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the Chicago wind battered the high-rise, a heavy, rhythmic thud against the reinforced panes.
Inside, the air felt stripped of oxygen, replaced entirely by the sharp, acidic scent of cheap dry-cleaning fluid radiating off Officer Hawkins’ grey suit.
"Three thousand dollars transferred on the eighteenth," Hawkins muttered, the cap of his pen clicking against the polished wood. "From your primary investment account into the newly established joint checking."
"Routine household operational funds," Everett replied smoothly. His voice didn't rise above a low, conversational baseline. It carried the precise, aristocratic boredom he had spent years perfecting at his father’s corporate defense galas. "We are upgrading the security system in the west wing."
Hawkins didn't look up. He made a tight, jagged note in the margin of his leather-bound folder.
Everett’s right hand rested casually on the top of the table.
His left hand was entirely out of sight.
Beneath the heavy mahogany overhang, hidden from the federal agent’s pale, investigative eyes, Dorian was currently dismantling the bones of Everett’s wrist.
Dorian sat in the chair immediately to Everett’s left.
Above the table, the goalie projected the flawless, icy detachment of a professional athlete enduring a press junket.
His jaw was set. His posture was impeccable.
But beneath the wood line, the reality was violently different.
Dorian’s long, cool fingers were clamped around Everett’s left forearm with a desperate, white-knuckled pressure.
Dorian had twisted his grip directly into the heavy cotton cuff of Everett’s dark henley, his nails biting sharply into the dense muscle and tendons underneath.
He was trembling. It wasn't a visible shake, but a high-frequency, localized vibration of pure, unfiltered panic translating directly into Everett’s skin.
Everett shifted his weight just a fraction. He moved his left knee outward, pressing the heavy, denim-clad line of his thigh flush against the side of Dorian’s leg. A silent, physical barrier. I have you. Hold the line.
Dorian’s thumb stroked a frantic, erratic pattern against Everett’s pulse point, a subconscious tell of the trauma spiraling through his nervous system. The threat of deportation wasn't a legal concept to the goalie. It was a physical cage, closing in inch by inch with every page Hawkins flipped.
Everett felt a dark, violent surge of hostility rising in the back of his throat.
This was his home. His private sanctuary.
For years, he had utilized his wealth and his captaincy to maintain a brutal perimeter around his personal space, ensuring the chaotic noise of the league never crossed his threshold.
Now, a low-level federal bureaucrat was sitting in his dining room, aggressively dissecting his phone logs, his utility bills, and the exact timing of his grocery deliveries, hunting for an excuse to destroy the man sitting beside him.
Hawkins set the bank statements aside. He picked up a secondary file, his pale eyes finally lifting to meet Everett’s.
"The financial integration is thorough, Mr. Kane," Hawkins said, his tone dripping with a cold, mocking skepticism. "Your family’s legal division does excellent preliminary paperwork. However, the bureau is entirely aware that wealthy individuals can manufacture a paper trail in an afternoon."
"If the documentation satisfies the statutory requirement of the I-130 petition," Everett countered, his jaw locking tight, "your personal skepticism is irrelevant."
"My skepticism," Hawkins corrected, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the polished mahogany, "is what authorizes me to verify the granular, day-to-day reality of your cohabitation. And I am looking at a massive discrepancy."
Under the table, Dorian’s nails dug so hard into Everett’s wrist that the skin nearly broke. Everett didn't flinch. He turned his left palm upward, his thick fingers wrapping entirely around Dorian’s hand, crushing the icy, trembling digits in a heavy, unyielding grip of absolute protection.
Hawkins slid a laminated sheet across the wood.
It was the Chicago Inferno’s official post-season itinerary.
"The playoffs begin on Thursday," Hawkins stated, tapping his pen against the dates.
"Your franchise is scheduled to travel to Toronto for Games Three and Four next week.
The standard operating procedure for the PHA dictates that players are housed in dual-occupancy hotel rooms, strictly segregated by roster position, or given single-occupancy suites if they hold veteran status. "
Everett’s eyes narrowed into dark, calculating slits. He saw the trap instantly.
"If this marriage is legitimate," Hawkins continued, his voice dropping into a hard, threatening cadence, "you will not be maintaining separate quarters on the road. If my liaisons in Canada pull the hotel security logs, and I find out you are sleeping in a different suite than Mr. Pike..."
Hawkins let the sentence hang, allowing the lethal implication to fill the room.
Dorian stopped breathing. The total cessation of respiratory movement beside him was a glaring alarm in Everett’s peripheral awareness. The goalie was freezing up, the suffocating pressure of constant surveillance finally cracking his ribs.
"If we cannot secure complete, granular proof of your shared cohabitation history during this road trip," Hawkins finalized, his eyes darting to Dorian’s pale face, "I will not issue a warning.
I will file a formal fraud report to the Department of Homeland Security.
The stay of removal will be voided, and I will initiate an immediate federal detention warrant for conspiracy. "
Everett’s vision went entirely white.
A primal, deafening roar of protective fury entirely hijacked his central nervous system.
The urge to act was a physical sickness.
He possessed the sheer size, the kinetic power, and the trained violence to reach across the table, grab the agent by the lapels of his cheap suit, and hurl him through the reinforced glass of the penthouse windows.
Everett’s right hand clamped down onto the edge of the mahogany table.
He gripped the thick, solid wood with a force that defied basic human limits. The muscles in his massive forearm bunched into thick, rigid cables. The heavy dining table emitted a low, audible groan as the dense wood fibers strained under the localized, crushing pressure of his fingers.
He forced the violent reaction entirely down into his hands, refusing to let a single micro-expression of rage cross his face. If he snapped, Dorian would be the one to pay the price. Dorian would be the one loaded onto a transport plane.
Everett exhaled. It was a slow, controlled release of air, masking the absolute inferno burning behind his ribs.
"The team's logistics coordinator," Everett said.
His voice was terrifyingly smooth. It lacked any inflection, a dead, absolute tone that forced the air pressure in the room to drop.
"Has already modified our travel manifests.
My husband and I share the executive suite on all road trips.
You will find zero discrepancy in the keycard logs. "
Hawkins’ smile was a thin, bloodless line. He didn't believe a word of it, but he recognized a perfectly executed legal blockade when he saw one.
"We will see, Mr. Kane," Hawkins murmured.
The agent reached out and gathered his stacks of paper. He moved with a deliberate, agonizing slowness, aligning the edges of the bank statements, slipping the phone logs into the manila folders, and finally securing the heavy brass clasp of his leather portfolio.
Every second he remained in the apartment was an act of psychological warfare.
Hawkins stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from his jacket. He looked down at the two athletes, his pale eyes gleaming with the predatory satisfaction of a man holding a loaded gun to their heads.
"I will not inform you of my arrival time in Toronto," Hawkins delivered his final, flat warning. "I expect full compliance when I knock on your hotel door. Have a pleasant evening, gentlemen."
The heavy squeak of the agent’s leather shoes echoed across the marble foyer.
Everett didn't move. He didn't turn his head to watch the man leave. He sat perfectly rigid, his right hand still locked onto the edge of the table, his entire massive frame coiled with unspent, violent adrenaline.
Clack.
The heavy steel deadbolt of the front door engaged. The mechanical sound echoed through the massive penthouse, signaling the final, absolute departure of the federal threat.
The apartment plunged into a ringing, deafening silence.
Everett let go of the table.
He didn't ease his grip; his fingers simply detached from the wood, entirely numb. Four deep, crescent-shaped indentations remained permanently gouged into the underside of the expensive mahogany.
He turned his head.
Dorian was still sitting beside him, his posture completely shattered.
The goalie was staring at the space where the federal files had been, his gray eyes wide and entirely vacant.
His chest hitched, a short, jagged struggle for oxygen that failed to fill his lungs.
He looked like a man who had just been handed his own execution date.