Chapter 16
Chosen POV
I stepped out from behind the heavy velvet drape first, leaving Marie in the dim safety of the stone alcove.
I smoothed the front of my waistcoat, rolled my shoulders back, and let the cold, indifferent mask of the Carver captain slide back over my features. My pulse was still hammering a furious rhythm against my ribs from her mouth on mine, the scent of her skin clinging to my lapels like smoke.
Two men stood waiting five feet down the marble corridor.
Reginald Sterling stood with his hands shoved into his tuxedo pockets, his silver hair catching the light of the bronze wall sconces.
Beside him was Tate Halloway, the Apex Sports agency runner, looking sleek, predatory, and entirely out of place in a three-thousand-dollar midnight-blue dinner jacket.
"Enjoying the draft off the lake, Chosen?" Sterling asked, his voice smooth, carrying that razor-thin veneer of administrative authority.
"Checking the knee," I said, my voice dropping into that flat, unreadable drawl I gave to reporters. "The brace was pinching the lateral strap."
Halloway stepped forward, his polished oxfords clicking sharply on the marble floor. He didn't smile. He looked at me with the calculating assessment of a butcher sizing up a side of beef.
"We need forty seconds without your coach hovering, Black," Halloway said, his voice a low, grating purr.
"The Boston scouts were unimpressed by your third-period minutes on Friday.
Word is circulating that your knee is compromised.
If you sit during the ECAC quarterfinals next week, your first-round draft projection evaporates.
You drop to the third round, maybe the fourth.
That's a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar haircut on your signing bonus. "
My jaw locked. The tendon in my cheek popped, but I kept my hands resting flat against the seams of my trousers.
"I don't sign representation agreements during the collegiate season, Halloway," I said. "NCAA Bylaw Twelve point three. You know the rule."
"To hell with the rule," Halloway sneered, taking another step into my space, his breath smelling of bourbon and mint.
"Apex has an offshore medical group that can deliver a series of high-density platelet-rich plasma and synthetic corticosteroid injections to your apartment tonight.
No campus logs. No compliance audits. You skate pain-free through the Frozen Four, we sign the paperwork the morning after the title game, and we advance you two hundred and fifty thousand on marketing. "
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a poisoned whisper.
"We know about Julian Mercer's trust balance, Chosen.
We know the Lake Placid clinic sent you a final notice on Monday for twelve grand.
You play the noble college boy, and Mercer ends up in a county facility staring at a water-stained ceiling.
You broke his neck three years ago. The least you can do is take the damn needle so you can pay for his bed. "
The words hit me like a skate blade to the throat.
A cold, sickening fury rushed through my veins, freezing the air in my lungs. My knuckles turned white, my fingernails digging into my palms hard enough to break the skin.
Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to drive my fist through Halloway’s jaw, to slam his head into the marble wainscoting until the bone gave way.
But I couldn't move. If I threw a punch at a certified agent in front of Carver’s athletic director, my NCAA clearance was terminated before midnight.
Julian’s trust would default. The money would vanish.
I had spent three years absorbing every blow, taking every hit into the glass, bleeding myself dry to pay for a broken fifth vertebra. I knew how to take the punishment.
I closed my eyes, locked my teeth, and prepared to swallow the bile.
* * *
"Take three steps back from him, Mr. Halloway."
The voice cut through the marble corridor like a razor across silk.
The emerald velvet drape swept aside.
Marie stepped out of the shadows.
She stood under the amber light of the sconces, her dark hair pinned high, the emerald silk gown trailing across the polished stone. Her face was pale, but her dark eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fury that made both Sterling and Halloway freeze mid-breath.
She didn't look at me. She didn't hesitate.
She crossed the marble floor in three sharp strides and planted herself directly between me and the two men.
Her five-foot-six frame stood squarely in front of my chest. She was smaller than all three of us, wearing three-inch heels and a dress that exposed the slender line of her back, but she stepped into the line of fire without a single tremor in her boots.
"Miss Freeman," Sterling began, his face flushing mottled red with sudden irritation. "This is a private athletic matter—"
"This is an explicit violation of federal sports bribery statutes and NCAA compliance regulations, Director Sterling," Marie said.
Her voice wasn't loud. It was smooth, crystalline, and packed with enough lethal authority to drop the temperature in the corridor ten degrees.
She turned her gaze directly onto Tate Halloway.
"Under NCAA Bylaw 12.3.1, any direct or indirect solicitation of an enrolled student-athlete involving impermissible financial benefits or undisclosed medical interventions constitutes immediate professional misconduct," she stated, the legal citations rolling off her tongue with surgical, unhurried precision.
"Furthermore, administering non-FDA-approved corticosteroid compounds outside the supervision of the designated university orthopedic physician violates the Carver University Medical Governance Charter. "
Halloway stared at her, his smirk faltering, his mouth opening to speak.
Marie didn't give him the air.
"I am the supervising biomechanics fellow assigned to Chosen Black under independent medical authority," she continued, her chin tilting up, her gaze pinning Halloway to the wall.
"Every milligram of fluid that enters his joint capsule is logged in my clinical files.
If you approach him again, Mr. Halloway, I will personally file an ethics grievance with the National Hockey League Players' Association Agent Disciplinary Committee by eight o'clock tomorrow morning. "
She stepped forward, her heels clicking with absolute finality.
"Carver’s security cameras cover this corridor," she whispered, her eyes narrow and deadly. "I have the timestamp. You have sixty seconds to leave this resort before I forward the footage to the compliance board."
Halloway turned gray. He looked at Sterling, seeking backup, but the athletic director was staring at Marie with a mixture of shock and venomous calculation.
"You're making a catastrophic mistake with your career, Miss Freeman," Sterling hissed, his hands trembling with suppressed rage.
"My career is protected by institutional whistleblower statutes, Director Sterling," Marie shot back, not backing up an inch. "I suggest you return to Table One before Trustee Caldwell wonders why his athletic director is loitering in the service hallway with an unaccredited agent."
Halloway didn't wait for another word. He adjusted his collar, turned on his heel, and walked briskly down the corridor toward the grand staircase.
Sterling glared at Marie for three long, poisonous seconds, his jaw working violently, before he turned and disappeared through the ballroom doors.
The hallway fell dead silent.
* * *
I stood frozen against the marble pillar.
My pulse was thundering behind my temples like an avalanche. My lungs burned, my chest heaving against the stiff fabric of my dress shirt, the breath knocked clean out of my body.
In twenty-two years of life, no one had ever stepped in front of me.
My father had walked away when I was twelve. Coach Vance demanded results. Sterling demanded banners. Julian’s family demanded restitution. I was the shield; I took the checks, I fought the enforcers, I absorbed the hatred and the guilt so everyone else could stay whole.
And this girl—five feet six inches of stubborn defiance in an emerald silk dress—had just thrown herself into the path of an athletic director and an NHL agent to protect my name.
The emotional walls I had built out of shame and blood didn't just crack. They shattered into dust.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping around her bare wrist.
Her skin was hot, vibrating with the aftershocks of pure adrenaline. She turned to look at me, her chest heaving beneath the cowl neck of her gown, her dark eyes still wide with the fire of battle.
I didn't say a word.
I hauled open the heavy bronze latch of the French doors and pulled her out into the Adirondack night.
The terrace was deserted, covered in a two-inch blanket of fresh, undisturbed powder. The sub-zero wind off Lake Mistassini hit us instantly, howling over the stone balustrade, whipping loose tendrils of dark hair across her face.
I didn't care about the freeze. I backed her against the heavy stone wall beneath the terrace overhang, planting my massive frame between her body and the wind, using my wool suit to block out the storm.
My hands came up, my thick, calloused palms framing her face.
My fingers were trembling. A violent, bone-deep shudder ran through my forearms as I held her jaw, tilting her face up into the pale light reflecting off the snow.
"Why did you do that?" I rasped, my voice cracking, ruined by an ache so deep it tore at my throat.
Marie’s breath came in ragged, white plumes between our lips. Her small hands rose, her fingers curling around my wrists, holding my hands against her cheeks. She didn't look away. Her dark eyes were soft, fierce, and entirely devoid of fear.
"Because he was wrong," she whispered, her voice steady against the wind.
"Marie, Sterling can revoke your fellowship recommendation with a single phone call," I groaned, my forehead dropping to rest against hers, my thumbs brushing the hot crests of her cheekbones.
"He can take your grant. He can destroy your degree.
You don't throw your life away for an enforcer who broke his teammate's neck. "
"You didn't break his neck, Chosen," she said, her voice fiercely quiet, every word sinking into my chest like iron stakes. "And I don't care about Sterling. I don't care about the fellowship. I will never stand by and watch anyone treat you like you're disposable."
A strangled sound tore from my throat.
I looked into her eyes, seeing the absolute, unconditional devotion staring back at me, and felt the last scrap of my defenses burn away into the Adirondack dark.
I had spent my life trying to survive the ice.
Now, standing in the freezing snow with her hands on my wrists, I knew with terrifying, unshakeable certainty that I would tear down the entire world before I ever let anyone harm a single hair on her head.