Chapter 16
Coast POV
The brass latch of the terrace alcove clicked behind us with the dull finality of a jail cell locking shut.
I stepped into the stone foyer of the Great Hall, my tie pulled straight, my expression locked into the blank, dead mask I had worn since I was seventeen years old.
The air in the foyer was drafty, chilled by the frost seeping through the heavy oak double doors, but the scent of her skin—sweet almond, clean rain, and the heat of her mouth—still burned in my sinuses like fresh lye.
"Stuart."
The voice came from the fireplace hearth, sharp and laced with the smug confidence of someone who had spent his evening drinking sixty-dollar scotch on an athletic department tab.
Derek Mercer stood beside the limestone mantle, his varsity bomber jacket hanging open over a blue silk shirt. Standing beside him were Compliance Officer Corinne Vane, Director Aris Thorne, and Grant Wesley, the Boston scout whose pen controlled the next three years of my life.
Mercer took a slow step forward, a heavy crystal tumbler balanced in his right hand. He was flushed across the cheekbones, his eyes glassy with liquor and poisoned with the resentment that had been festering since I checked him into the brick pillar at the student union.
"We were just talking about your draft window, Captain," Mercer said, his voice loud enough to carry over the quartet playing in the ballroom.
I stopped. I didn't look at Wesley. I didn't look at Thorne. I kept my weight centered over my left leg, my right ankle locked tight inside the dress shoes, my hands buried deep in my trouser pockets to hide the scabs across my knuckles.
"Go home, Mercer," I rasped, keeping my vocal cords flat. "You're drunk."
"I might be drunk, but I'm not the one running an elaborate fraud on the compliance board," Mercer said, smirking around the rim of his glass as he glanced at Wesley.
"Tell me, Grant, does Boston usually give seven-figure entry-level deals to players whose families run dirty junior programs?
Or does the front office just ignore the fact that the Stuart name is an alias because Arthur Cross got run out of the Northern League for encouraging intentional headshots? "
The foyer dropped into a dead, suffocating silence.
The clink of champagne flutes from the main hall seemed to fade into a dull, underwater hum. My masseter muscles clamped down so hard my back teeth ground against each other with a dry, sickening crunch. The white starch of my collar turned into a strip of burning rawhide around my windpipe.
"Derek, that is enough," Thorne warned, stepping forward, his brow furrowed with alarm. "This is not the venue."
"Why not?" Mercer challenged, his voice rising, drawing the eyes of three alumni trustees standing near the coat check.
"We all know how Coast plays. He hits to break bones. He learned it from Arthur. Four years ago in Plattsburgh, he was supposed to cover the flank for his brother Julian. Instead, he let a forechecker take Julian into the boards headfirst, snapped his fourth vertebra, and left him in a wheelchair for life. And now he’s down in Sub-Two, using an unqualified student technician to fake his kinetic recovery numbers so he can collect an NHL bonus before his leg gives out. "
Mercer leaned forward, his sneer dripping with pure malice. "He's not a captain, Wesley. He's a glorified thug who ruins everyone who stands on the ice with him."
A sharp, violent cold pooled in the pit of my stomach.
The words hit every scar tissue fiber in my chest, tearing the old wound wide open to the bone.
The image of Julian’s head snapping back against the dasher boards four years ago flashed white behind my eyes.
The sound of his cervical spine breaking.
The look on Arthur’s face when he told me I had butchered my own family.
My fingers curled into fists inside my pockets, the nails biting deep into my palms.
I couldn't swing.
If my knuckles touched his jaw in this foyer, with Wesley and Vane standing three feet away, my eligibility was terminated on the spot.
Boston would shred the draft papers before midnight.
The six-thousand-dollar monthly transfer to Julian's clinic in Rochester would bounce before the end of the week.
I locked my jaw, closed my eyes, and prepared to swallow the poison whole. I had spent four years taking the hits so other people could skate clean. This was just another hit.
* * *
"Are you finished, Mercer?"
The voice didn't come from Coach Hayes. It didn't come from Thorne.
It was a clear, frigid tone that cut through the drafty foyer with the surgical precision of a diamond saw.
Tallulah Barry stepped out from the shadow of the terrace colonnade.
The emerald silk of her slip dress gleamed beneath the wall sconces, the delicate gold comb holding her dark hair in place as she walked into the center of the circle.
Her chin was tilted at that lethal forty-five-degree angle, her spine straight as an iron rod, her dark eyes blazing with an unyielding, icy fury that silenced the entire room.
She didn't glance at me. She stepped directly into the space between Mercer and my chest, putting her five-foot-four frame directly in the line of fire.
Mercer laughed, a nervous, jagged sound. "Stay out of this, Barry. This is varsity business."
"This is an athletic compliance matter," Tallulah said, her voice dropping into a calm, clinical register that commanded the floor.
"And as the lead biomechanics fellow assigned to this program, I will not stand here and listen to a sophomore defenseman recite slanderous fiction to excuse his own athletic mediocrity. "
Mercer’s face drained of color. "What did you say?"
"I reviewed the New York State High School Athletic Association forensic accident report from January eighteenth, four years ago," Tallulah said, her gaze pinning Mercer to the mantle like a specimen on a board.
"The hit that injured Julian Cross was an illegal blindside boarding maneuver executed by an opposing forward at twenty-six miles per hour, originating from an intentional blind-angle screen.
The state athletic board cleared Coast Stuart of any mechanical or positional culpability within forty-eight hours of the incident. "
She took half a step toward Mercer, her heels clicking sharp against the flagstones.
"Furthermore," she continued, her words landing like rapid-fire blows against his chest, "Coast Stuart’s rehabilitation telemetry is recorded on a multi-axis optical force-plate suite with an error margin of less than zero point two percent. His longitudinal data has been certified and uploaded directly to the NCAA clearinghouse server under my academic signature and Director Thorne’s departmental license.
To suggest that data was falsified is not merely an insult to the team captain—it is an allegation of academic fraud against me and this university. "
She turned her head slightly, her gaze locking onto Corinne Vane, whose mouth had tightened into a thin, bloodless line.
"If Mr. Mercer wishes to pursue an official inquiry into fraudulent conduct," Tallulah stated, her voice echoing off the limestone ceiling, "I suggest we begin with his own performance logs from Tuesday’s scrimmage, where his eight percent lateral deceleration deficit resulted in three defensive turnovers and two unprovoked boarding penalties that nearly cost this program its regional standing. "
She turned back to Mercer, her eyes cold as mountain shale.
"Coast Stuart holds the highest plus-minus rating in the ECAC," she whispered, the quiet intensity of her voice carrying farther than any shout.
"He leads this defensive pairing because he carries the weight of eighteen men every time he steps onto the ice.
You, Mercer, merely occupy eight minutes of ice time while praying someone else does the work for you.
Do not speak his name in this building again. "
The silence in the foyer was absolute.
Mercer stood with his mouth slightly open, his glass trembling in his hand, his face burning a dark, humiliated crimson. Beside him, Grant Wesley let out a slow, appreciative breath through his teeth, adjusting his tie as he studied Tallulah with a look of profound respect.
"I think that concludes the evening, gentlemen," Wesley murmured, glancing at Thorne. "Director, we'll review Stuart's file in the morning."
Without waiting for Mercer to answer, the scout turned on his heel and walked toward the coat check. Thorne gave Mercer a scathing look of disgust, gesturing for the sophomore to clear out of the foyer immediately.
Mercer swallowed hard, muttered a broken curse, and shoved past the gathering crowd toward the side exit, his shoes scuffing loudly against the stone.
I didn't move. I couldn't move.
My heart was slamming against the inside of my ribs with an ache so violent it knocked the wind straight out of my chest.
In my entire life, no one had ever stepped in front of a blow for me. My father had used me as a weapon; my coaches had used me as an anvil; my teammates had hid behind my knuckles when things turned violent on the ice. I was the one who bled. I was the one who cleared the lane.
And she had just stood in front of four hundred people and torn a man to pieces with her bare hands just to keep him from touching my name.
* * *
Before Thorne or Vane could speak, I reached out.
My large, burning fingers closed around Tallulah’s wrist—not hard, but with an unyielding, desperate grip that left no room for debate. I pulled her past the whispering trustees, shoved the heavy terrace door open with my shoulder, and hauled her out into the freezing Adirondack night.
The double doors slammed shut behind us, cutting off the noise of the gala completely.
The terrace was dark, deserted, dusted with a thin glaze of dry snow. The winter wind howled off the ridge, whipping the skirt of her emerald dress around her bare legs, tearing loose strands of dark hair from her gold comb.
I spun her around, backing her gently against the heavy stone balustrade, trapping her between my body and the frozen valley below.
I stripped off my charcoal suit jacket with a single, violent motion, throwing the heavy wool around her bare shoulders, pulling the lapels tight across her chest to seal out the wind.
My hands came up.
My large, scarred palms framed her jawline, my thumbs pressing into her high cheekbones. My hands were shaking. A fine, continuous tremor ran through the thick muscle of my arms, my breathing ragged and shallow as I stared down into her upturned face.
"Why did you do that?" I rasped.
The words tore out of my throat, rough and ruined, stripped of every trace of pride.
Tallulah was shivering, her teeth chattering slightly from the sudden freeze, but her honey-dark eyes met mine without flinching. Her small hands came up to grip my forearms, her fingers biting through the white cotton of my dress shirt.
"Because he was wrong," she whispered, her breath puffing in quick white plumes between our lips.
"You put your fellowship in the crosshairs, Tallulah," I growled, my thumbs smoothing over her cold skin with a fierce, trembling reverence. "You stood in front of Wesley and Vane and made an enemy out of an athletic booster’s kid. For me. Why?"
She didn't look away. Her fingers tightened on my arms, holding me steady in the howling dark.
"Because you don't belong to them, Coast," she whispered, her voice steady and clear against the Adirondack gale.
"You spend every hour of your life letting people hit you because you think you deserve to bleed for Julian.
You don't. And I will never stand by and watch anyone treat you like you don't matter. "
The words struck my sternum with concussive force, shattering the final, rusted iron plate protecting my heart.
The air left my chest in a broken exhale. My forehead dropped forward, coming to rest against hers, our breaths mingling in the sub-zero draft.
I was finished. The walls were dust. The rules, the distance, the fear of ruining her—all of it had burned away on the flagstones of that foyer.
"You're going to destroy me, Tallulah," I whispered against her lips, my voice thick with a raw, terrifying surrender.
"No," she breathed, her lips brushing my stubble as she leaned into my hands. "I'm going to keep you together."
I held her against the stone in the freezing dark, my jacket wrapped around her shoulders, knowing with absolute, terrifying clarity that there was nowhere left on this earth for me to go. I was hers, body and bone, and the rest of the world could burn to ash.