CHAPTER 12 #2
Dorian’s hands slowly rose. His long fingers curled into the heavy fabric of Everett’s suit jacket, gripping the lapels with a desperate, frantic strength.
He pressed his face deeper into the captain’s chest, absorbing the slow, heavy, metronomic thud of Everett’s heartbeat.
It was a sound of absolute structural integrity. A fortress that refused to breach.
"Okay," Dorian whispered against the wool. The single word was exhausted, stripped of all pride, completely surrendering the burden of his survival to the man holding him.
Everett held him for ten more seconds, entirely unwilling to break the localized heat of the embrace until he felt the erratic tremor in Dorian’s spine completely fade.
Slowly, deliberately, Everett stepped back.
He didn't break physical contact. He slid his right hand down the length of Dorian’s arm. His rough, calloused palm found Dorian’s hand. Everett drove his thick fingers directly through the spaces between Dorian’s, clamping down with a brutal, uncompromising lock.
Dorian looked down at their joined hands.
The visual was staggering. The sheer size of the captain’s battered, dark hand entirely enveloping his own pale fingers.
It wasn't the fake, performative touch they had utilized in the municipal office.
It was a heavy, violent declaration of total ownership.
Everett grabbed his own gear bag from the floor with his free hand, slinging the heavy canvas strap over his massive shoulder.
"Shoulders back," Everett commanded, turning toward the heavy double doors of the suite.
Dorian forced his spine straight. He dragged in a deep, lung-expanding breath of the conditioned air, locking his athletic discipline back into place. But this time, it wasn't a fragile, isolating ice wall. It was the absolute, unshakeable confidence of a man walking behind an armored vanguard.
Everett pulled the heavy door open.
They walked out into the corridor. The long walk to the elevator bank was executed in total silence.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of their dress shoes against the carpeted runner echoed loudly.
Everett didn't loosen his grip. If anything, the pressure increased as the digital floor indicator above the elevator doors began to drop.
Thirty. Twenty. Ten.
The mechanical chime of the lobby level sounded. The polished steel doors slid open.
The chaotic noise of the Toronto Fairmont lobby hit them like a physical wave. The low roar of hundreds of conversations, the clatter of luggage carts, and the sharp bark of hotel management cut through the air.
Directly in their line of sight, sitting exactly where Everett had spotted him from the balcony, Officer Hawkins sat in the leather wingback chair.
The federal agent’s pale eyes snapped to the elevator bank.
Hawkins set his coffee cup down on the glass table. He stood up, adjusting the lapel of his slate-grey suit, his gaze locking onto the two men stepping out of the elevator car. The Canadian liaison beside him shifted, his hand resting casually near his radio.
Everett didn't break stride.
He didn't alter his trajectory to avoid the seating area, nor did he deviate toward the side exit. He pulled Dorian directly through the center of the lobby, charting a path that brought them within five feet of the federal agent.
Hawkins watched them approach. His eyes dropped immediately to their hands.
Everett’s massive grip on Dorian’s fingers was prominently displayed against the dark fabric of their matching suits. The knuckles were white with tension, the physical connection entirely seamless, entirely unapologetic.
Dorian kept his chin level. He didn't look at the agent. He fixed his gray eyes on the revolving glass doors at the far end of the lobby, tracking the massive, idling black engine of the team bus waiting on the curb. He let Everett’s heavy, space-consuming presence part the crowd of hotel guests like a battering ram.
As they closed the distance, Hawkins took a half-step forward, his mouth opening, entirely prepared to initiate a verbal confrontation regarding their customs declarations.
Everett turned his head.
He leveled a stare of such pure, unadulterated hostility at the federal agent that the Canadian liaison instinctively took a step backward. Everett’s dark eyes promised catastrophic physical and legal violence if Hawkins dared to utter a single syllable in front of the assembled public.
Hawkins’ jaw clamped shut. He froze, the sheer kinetic dominance radiating from the captain forcing his bureaucratic arrogance to misfire.
Everett dragged Dorian straight past them.
The heavy, brushed wool of Everett’s suit jacket brushed against the sleeve of Hawkins’ cheap grey suit. A deliberate, aggressive physical dismissal.
They pushed through the heavy revolving glass doors.
The brutal, freezing wind off Lake Ontario hit them instantly, carrying the sharp, stinging bite of frozen sleet.
The air outside the hotel was absolute chaos.
A massive barricade line of Toronto sports press and screaming local fans swarmed the sidewalk, kept back only by the heavy physical presence of the Inferno security detail.
Flashbulbs erupted in a blinding, erratic strobe. Microphones were thrust over the velvet ropes. The aggressive shouting of journalists demanding answers about the federal warrants cut through the freezing wind.
Everett didn't flinch. He tightened his grip on Dorian’s hand, using his massive shoulder to carve a clean, protected channel through the media pack.
He physically hoisted Dorian up the metal stairs of the idling team bus, entirely shielding the goalie’s back from the flashing lenses until they were safely inside the dark, climate-controlled interior of the vehicle.
The heavy pneumatic doors of the bus hissed shut, completely severing the noise of the street and the suffocating surveillance of the federal agent.
Dorian stood in the narrow aisle of the bus, his chest heaving as the adrenaline slowly began to recede. He looked down at his hand, still entirely encased in Everett’s heavy, calloused grip.
Everett turned to face him in the dim light of the cabin. The captain’s breathing was heavy, his dark eyes burning with a massive, victorious heat.
The administrative threat was still tracking their every move, and the high-stakes away match was waiting for them beneath the stadium lights.
But as Dorian met the captain’s fierce gaze, the sheer terror of the federal audit entirely vanished.
Everett had held the line. The captain had become his absolute sanctuary, and Dorian was finally ready to guard the crease.