Chapter 24
Chosen POV
The service tunnel beneath the north grandstand of Sloan Arena was forty-two degrees, smelling of damp limestone, motor oil, and the bitter exhaust of the arena Zamboni idling in the lower bay.
Overhead, thirty-foot pre-stressed concrete beams groaned under the weight of the ice deck, vibrating with the muffled thunder of the afternoon junior varsity scrimmage.
Week nine of the master calendar. Twenty hours of clinical observation left on the compliance sheet in my locker. Six weeks until the Frozen Four in Lake Placid. Sixteen weeks until the NHL Entry Draft.
I walked down the oil-stained concrete underpass toward the private athletic parking exit, my gym duffel slung over my left shoulder, my heavy black wool coat unzipped over my gray team track jacket.
I had just spent ninety minutes in the coaches' theater breaking down Clarkson’s penalty kill with Vance, my eyes burning from the glare of the projector screen.
My right knee felt solid, the scar tissue quiet beneath my compression sleeve. For the first time in three weeks, I wasn't thinking about the ice.
I was thinking about the carriage house on the lake. I was thinking about the extra key resting in Marie's pocket, and the way her bare heels felt tucked against my thighs while the fire burned down to ash.
A silhouette stepped out from behind the heavy concrete pillar beside the emergency generator bay.
"You're a hard man to pin down without your coach hovering, Chosen."
My boots stopped on the concrete.
My vision narrowed to a sharp, black pinpoint, the perimeter of the tunnel dissolving into an icy blur. The blood in my ears surged with a violent, deafening velocity that drowned out the hum of the exhaust fans.
Tate Halloway stood five feet in front of me.
The Apex Sports runner was dressed in a tailored camel wool overcoat, his hands clad in black lambskin gloves, a thick buff-colored legal folder tucked under his arm.
His smile was razor-thin, cold as stagnant pond water, his hair slicked back against the freezing drizzle blowing through the open service gate behind him.
"You're trespassing on university athletic property, Halloway," I said.
My voice was a flat, low rasp that scraped against the concrete walls.
"I have a guest pass from your athletic director, Captain," Halloway countered, tapping a laminated visitor badge pinned to his lapel.
He didn't look intimidated by the four inches of height and forty pounds of muscle I had on him.
He stepped into the center of the lane, blocking the path to my truck.
He held up the buff folder.
"Julian Mercer’s care facility in Lake Placid sent a secondary default notice to his family trust on Wednesday morning," Halloway said, his voice smooth and conversational, like he was discussing the weather.
"The outstanding balance is forty-eight thousand dollars for the specialized respiratory therapy wing.
The Mercer family doesn't have the liquidity to service the debt. "
My chest seized, the air turning to jagged glass in my lungs.
"The wire clears on the first of every month," I growled, my hands balling into bloodless fists inside the pockets of my coat.
"The clinic changed the terms, Chosen," Halloway purred, his eyes gleaming with dark, calculating amusement. "Apex Sports purchased the outstanding medical debt from the recovery center’s parent holding company forty-eight hours ago. We hold the note now."
* * *
The concrete walls seemed to close in, shrinking the tunnel until there was no oxygen left to draw.
A cold sweat broke out along my hairline, the scar on my left collarbone throbbing with an old, phantom agony that made my back teeth grind together until the enamel creaked.
Three years ago, on the curved glass of the home boards. The sound of Julian's fifth vertebra snapping. The ambulance lights flashing against the ice.
"You bought his debt," I rasped, the words thick with bile.
"We consolidated his care, Captain," Halloway corrected, taking half a step closer, the scent of expensive tobacco and cedar rolling off his coat. "Apex looks after its family. And we want you in the family."
He tapped the folder against his gloved knuckles.
"The agreement is simple," Halloway continued, his voice dropping into a businesslike cadence.
"You sign exclusive pre-draft representation with Apex Sports before the combine in Buffalo. You commit to our marketing consortium, you take our five-hundred-thousand-dollar rookie advance, and you take your draft meetings with the franchises we assign to you. In exchange, Apex forgives Mercer’s clinical balance and endows his private room for the next ten years. "
"And if I refuse?"
Halloway’s smile vanished. His features hardened into the dead, predatory mask of a loan shark calling in a marker.
"If you refuse, we call the note on Monday morning," Halloway said flatly. "Julian Mercer gets transferred out of that private high-altitude recovery ward and moved into an underfunded state facility in Syracuse by the end of the week. His father will hold a press conference outside the state capitol, detailing how Carver’s golden-boy captain broke his son’s neck and abandoned him to rot in a county ward. "
My vision flared red.
The violent urge to drop my duffel, close the four feet between us, and drive my knuckles through Halloway’s throat was so intense my entire upper body shook with the strain of holding back. My masseter muscle knotted, the veins in my neck bulging against my collar.
A single blow would crush his larynx. A single punch would put him on the oily concrete.
And a single police report would terminate my NCAA eligibility, void my shot at the NHL, and leave Julian with nothing.
"Don't do it, Chosen," Halloway murmured, watching my hands clench inside my coat. "You hit me, and you're in a holding cell before the ice freezes for the second period. You know the math."
He unzipped the folder, pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy print, and slid it toward my chest.
"Besides," Halloway whispered, his voice dripping with poisonous calculation, "you have more to lose than just your draft slot now, don't you?"
My gaze dropped to the photograph.
The image was crisp, shot with a telephoto lens from across the dark road outside Sloan Arena on Thursday night.
It showed Marie Freeman stepping out of the lower service exit at eleven-fifteen PM.
Her dark hair was loose, tumbling over her shoulders, her hands tucked deep into the pockets of my dark-green Carver Hockey traveling hoodie—the #14 clearly visible on her left sleeve under the sodium security lights.
A roaring, white-hot fury detonated in my marrow, scorching away the last scrap of civilized restraint.
"You touch her," I growled, taking a single, violent step forward.
My bulk blotted out the light from the exit gate. I leaned down until my face was three inches from Halloway’s nose, my breath hot and ragged as it hit his cheek.
"You put a camera on her again, you send a man down that lake road, or you speak her name to another living soul, and I won't care about a draft board," I whispered, every syllable coated in cold, unadulterated venom.
"I won't care about a police report. I will track you to whatever hole you crawl into, and I will tear your life apart with my bare hands. Do you understand me?"
Halloway didn't smirk. The color drained from his face, leaving his skin the shade of wet flour. His throat moved on a frantic, dry swallow as he looked into my eyes and saw the absolute, terrifying truth:
I meant every word.
"You have forty-eight hours, Black," Halloway choked out, backing away two steps, his leather boots squeaking on the oil. "Sign the paper. Or watch both of your worlds burn."
He turned on his heel, walked briskly toward the black sedan idling at the mouth of the tunnel, and slammed the door.
The car sped away into the freezing drizzle, leaving me alone in the dark.
* * *
The drive to the lake was twenty minutes of pure, suffocating torment.
My knuckles were bloodless against the leather steering wheel, my hands vibrating with an uncontrollable, violent tremor that rattled up my forearms. The windshield wipers beat a frantic, uneven rhythm against the freezing rain, but my vision remained locked in a dark, narrow tunnel.
Forty-eight thousand dollars. Julian’s room. The photographs of Marie in my sweater.
The walls of my past were collapsing inward, threatening to crush the only clean, beautiful thing I had ever touched.
I swung the truck into the gravel drive of the carriage house, killed the engine, and stepped out into the sub-zero Adirondack dusk.
The yellow light glowing from the front porch cut through the gray mist like a beacon in a storm. Through the living room window, I could see the soft, flickering amber wash of the stone fireplace.
I unlocked the heavy timber door with shaking fingers, pushed it open, and stepped into the foyer.
The heat hit me instantly—seventy-two degrees, smelling of dried birch, sweet chamomile tea, and the clean, fresh citrus of her skin.
Marie was curled up on the leather sofa before the hearth, a thick wool blanket draped over her legs, her laptop resting on the low coffee table. She had her reading glasses pushed up into her dark hair, a steaming mug cradled between her hands.
When the front door clicked shut, she turned her head, looking over the back of the couch.
Her face broke into a soft, breathtaking smile—warm, unguarded, and entirely devoid of the fear that had haunted her on Friday afternoon.
"You're back," she whispered, her voice a fragile, beautiful melody in the quiet house. "I made tea."
Something broke in my chest.
A sharp, physical fracture tore straight through my ribs, taking the remaining air from my lungs.
I didn't take off my coat. I didn't take off my boots. My duffel bag hit the wide-plank floor with a heavy, dead thud.
I crossed the living room in three long, uneven strides, rounded the edge of the sofa, and dropped to my knees on the hardwood floor before her.
"Chosen?" Her smile faltered, her brow furrowing with sudden, sharp concern. "What's wrong? What happened at the rink?"
I didn't answer.
I reached out with both arms, caught her around the waist, and hauled her off the leather cushions into my chest.
She let out a soft, startled gasp, her mug clattering safely onto the low table as my massive frame folded over hers. I buried my face into the warm hollow of her neck, my hands clutching the back of her sweater with an iron, desperate grip that pulled her body flush against my trembling chest.
Her skin was fever-hot, smelling of lavender and rain.
The violent trembling in my arms didn't stop; it shuddered straight through her frame as I held her so tightly our ribs compressed together, our heartbeats colliding in a frantic, uncoordinated stampede.
"Chosen," she whispered, her hands coming up instantly to tangle in my hair, her fingers pressing firmly against the base of my skull. "You're shaking. What is it? Talk to me."
"Don't leave me, Marie," I rasped into her skin, the words ruined, cracked, and torn from a throat choked with three years of poison.
I tightened my hold until she was anchored completely to my chest, my breath hot and ragged against her pulse point.
"Don't you ever leave me," I begged, the command breaking into a desperate plea. "Stay right here. Promise me."
Marie didn't ask another question.
She wrapped her slender arms around my broad neck, holding my massive, shaking body against hers in the firelight, her cheek pressing tight against my temple as she whispered into the dark that she was right here, unaware of the storm already gathering at our door.