3. January 17, Monday
Chapter three
Ilya
Ilya Sergechev sat on the tailgate of his truck, long legs hanging off the edge, a pocketknife moving steadily through a scrap of wood in his hands.
Fine curls of shaved pine drifted down over his expensive dress pants and collected on the concrete beneath him, joining the pale scatter from the many nights he’d spent in this exact spot.
Waiting.
The parking garage hummed softly around him. Ventilation. Distant pipes. The occasional tick of a cooling engine from some staffer who’d arrived hours ago. The overhead lights buzzed in tired intervals, leaving pockets of shadow between concrete pillars.
He kept his body loose and his ears alert.
A soft rustle to his right had him fighting the instinctive urge to go still.
Finally.
He let out a slow breath and kept his shoulders easy, his gaze still lowered to the wood in his hands. After months of trial and error, he learned the dog didn’t mind his voice, as long as it came low and calm and he didn’t look directly at him like a challenge.
Slowly, Ilya dragged his eyes toward the sound.
There he was.
The team’s sort-of-adopted, absolutely not caught, ragged mutt lingered near the far wall, half in shadow, watching him with wary black eyes.
“Hey, buddy,” Ilya murmured. “We have to stop meeting like this. The missus might get suspicious.”
A near-silent chuckle escaped before he could stop it. Damn, he was getting old. The teens at Babs’s group home would’ve roasted him alive for a joke that weak. Then again, they were always the first to laugh and the last to tell him to stop—even his worst ones.
The dog’s ears twitched, but he didn’t take off.
Those ears and head tilts still made Ilya think German shepherd mix, though the rest of him looked like he’d been assembled from leftover spare parts and bad luck.
“Y’know,” Ilya said quietly, shaving another thin strip from the wood, “life gets easier when you accept the help offered. Maybe you should just let us help you.”
The dog took one cautious step back, but his ears stayed forward.
Progress.
“Trust me. It only hurts for a day or two. A month. A year. Tops.”
One ear flicked.
Ilya huffed softly. “Yeah. I don’t believe it either.”
He kept his head tilted down, hands busy, voice even.
The dog liked that. He seemed to enjoy being talked to, as long as he wasn’t being cornered.
If Ilya looked at him head-on, he’d vanish into the maze of concrete and parked cars, gone fast enough that even security’s cameras somehow never caught where he went.
But if Ilya rambled—quietly, without pressure—the dog would linger. Listen. Tip his too-big head one direction, then the other, like he was sorting through human nonsense and finding most of it unconvincing.
Ilya had never monologued this much in his life. But he’d keep doing it, until his throat gave out, if it eventually got this poor animal close enough so he could help.
“On a diet, Fido? You’re looking more ragged than last week. Did somebody drop the ball on your five-star meal delivery while we were on the road?”
The dog’s ribs were more visible than Ilya liked. Guilt stirred under his sternum. He needed to do more. Faster.
The team spent months and a combined small fortune on dog rescue agencies, humane traps, trail cams, special bait, and increasingly elaborate plans that all failed the second this dog decided humans were idiots.
Nothing worked. Not cages, not gourmet food, not professionals who spoke in soothing voices and promised they “specialized in high-flight-risk strays.”
Finally, the guys surrendered to the slower strategy. If they couldn’t catch him, maybe they could earn him. So, they came out here when they could. Sat for a while. Talked. Left food. Waited.
And every now and then, Fido would appear from the dark to observe them like a suspicious little parking-garage goblin deciding whether they were worth the trouble.
It was enough progress that Ty, eternal optimist that he was, had already ordered a custom team jersey for the dog.
Whether the dog would ever actually wear it remained a separate and deeply theoretical issue.
Ilya brushed another ribbon of wood into the growing pile and risked a glance. Fido was still there. Good.
He shifted the scrap in his hand, preparing to launch into a low-stakes recap of Mitch’s latest nonsense, because for whatever reason the dog seemed to like stories, when something somewhere in the garage clanged.
The dog startled and bolted. He vanished between two parked SUVs, then cut hard around a pillar and disappeared into the dark beyond the service stairwell.
“Damn it,” Ilya muttered.
He slid off the tailgate, boots hitting concrete with a muted thud, and looked after the dog for one hopeful second. Nothing. Same as always.
He brushed the wood shavings from his lap, pocketed the knife, and headed inside for the coaches-and-captains meeting.
The second Ilya stepped through the staff entrance, the cool hush of the garage gave way to bright lights, heated air, and the constant motion of arena life.
Someone pushed a bin of rolled towels past him. The smell of coffee, fresh tape, and laundry detergent hung in the corridor like a team-issued cologne. A video intern speed-walked by with a tripod and the frantic expression of a person one minor mess-up away from a breakdown.
“Ilya!” Haley from PR materialized at his left shoulder, clutching a clipboard and two highlighters like she’d been lying in wait behind a potted plant.
“Sorry to ambush you,” she said, which usually meant she was absolutely not sorry, “but quick question. Any chance we could get Novak and Daniels to do a back-to-school supply drive at a local elementary next week? Kids and cameras. The media team is already drooling.”
Before he could answer, Todd from Facilities squeezed past with an eager grin and a fist bump.
“Hey, Cap. Any updates on whether the guys want to join the staff rec league Thursday nights? Totally casual. Very low-key. Except the maintenance guys are animals.” He lowered his voice. “We’d love to see if Teemu would guest in net.”
Shit. He’d meant to follow up on that.
And Teemu had mentioned a tight hamstring yesterday.
He’d check with Bobby. Bobby always had a better read on who was quietly hurting, whether it was physical, emotional, or some ugly mix of both.
If Bobby was the one the guys went to for girl trouble, Ilya was the one they called when their brother punched them and they were two seconds from punching back.
“I’ll let you know,” Ilya said, returning Todd’s fist bump as he kept moving.
Haley stayed locked to his stride. “It’s only an hour,” she was saying. “Two max. Photos, handouts, smiling, adorable children, the usual.”
“Sorry,” Ilya cut in gently. “What day and how long exactly?”
“Next Wednesday. One hour, maybe two.”
Novak was already booked with Bobby for a hospital drop-in that day.
Daniels had said something yesterday about a bird-watching hike with a local conservation group.
Or a mountain trail cleanup. Or some other oddly peaceful activity that would probably matter to him and therefore needed to be protected from being steamrolled by three extra requests and a camera crew.
Fuck. Two asks in, probably two no’s, and he hadn’t made it past the vending machines yet.
Monday.
“Morning, Serg.” Denise from community outreach clicked into step on his other side, her heels sharp against the floor. She had enough seniority that Haley immediately fell quiet.
“We’re short two volunteers for next Tuesday’s charity golf invitational,” Denise informed him. “Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance. Lunch included. They don’t even have to be good at golf. Just photogenic, friendly, and willing to stand near donors.”
He opened his mouth, but a fourth voice cut in. “Hey, hey, don’t hate me.” Evan from media relations power-walked toward him with his usual iced coffee and his phone already unlocked, as if the request was inevitable and documentation would be required.
“Think you could convince the Savi? brothers to read to a kindergarten class Friday? Bonus points if they do it in Russian. Even better if you join them. Multicultural moment. Hashtag content.” He winked.
Ilya stopped walking. Held up one whole hand like a traffic cop. Not abrupt. Not rude. Final.
The small cluster around him slowed to a halt.
“No more than two asks per player this month,” he said, voice even. “And nothing that interferes with rehab, skate, or recovery blocks. If you want them fresh, you don’t burn them out. Email me the details. I’ll look.”
Haley looked mildly pained.
Evan made a theatrical face at the ceiling.
Denise was already reaching for her calendar like she wanted to argue.
He did not care. He’d learned the hard way that if he didn’t build walls for the guys, they would run themselves into the ground trying to say yes to everything.
School visits. Hospital drop-ins. Sponsor dinners.
Team family events. Staff favors framed as fun opportunities.
Community asks that mattered, yes, but still cost time and energy no one magically generated from nothing.
Most of the men on the roster were good guys. And most of them were also terrible at saying no. So, Ilya did it for them. He had no trouble being the bad guy if it meant they got to keep a little more of themselves.
Haley opened her mouth again.
“No extras,” he added, glancing at her.
She gave him a sheepish smile and stepped back.
Evan mimed zipping his lips.
Denise sighed like he had personally ruined literacy.
“Thank you,” Ilya said, not unkindly. Then he tipped his head toward the hallway ahead. “If I’m late to this meeting, Coach is going to bury me somewhere no one will ever find the body.”
Todd laughed. Haley blinked. Evan muttered, “Dark, but fair.”
Ilya kept walking. The requests faded behind him. The weight of them didn’t.
Just another day of saying no because everyone else needed yeses from the same limited pool of energy.