Chapter 29
Tallulah POV
The high arched leaded windows of the North Reading Room looked down upon three centuries of Garrison limestone, the stone gray and weeping under a freezing morning drizzle.
The quiet wing of the central library was deserted.
The only sound was the steady, rhythmic ticking of sleet against the diamond-paned glass and the low, dusty rattle of the baseboard heaters.
The room smelled of crumbling leather bindings, yellowed paper stock, and the damp wool of my coat hanging over the back of the heavy mahogany chair.
I sat at the end of a long research table, an open binder of kinematic force-plate graphs resting in front of me, though I hadn't turned a page in forty minutes.
My left hand was pressed flat against my lower abdomen, my palm resting over the denim of my trousers, feeling the strange, heavy warmth that lived beneath the cloth.
A cold lurch of nausea climbed into the back of my throat.
I reached for my thermos of ice water, taking two tiny sips, letting the freezing liquid wash the sour metallic taste from my tongue. My pulse was a slow, heavy thrum behind my ears, my extremities chilled despite the steam hissing from the pipes along the baseboard.
Twenty-one days since Valentine’s night.
Four days late.
The calendar math sat in my skull like an unexploded shell. I hadn't bought a test yet; I hadn't whispered the word to Sonya, or to the empty air of our flat, or to the man who had pulled me into his lap yesterday evening and kissed my forehead as if I were the only clean thing left in his world.
Coast was locked down across campus in the varsity theater, running through three hours of special-teams walkthroughs with Hayes.
He had no idea.
The heavy oak swing door at the far end of the reading room groaned on its brass hinges.
Heavy, unhurried footsteps moved across the green carpet runner, the rubber soles dragging with an uneven, scraping rhythm that set off an immediate, sharp alarm along my spinal column.
I didn't move my hand from my stomach. I turned my head slowly.
* * *
The man who stepped into the alcove smelled of stale menthol tobacco, cheap damp nylon, and the bitter reek of sour whiskey.
He didn't hesitate. He pulled out the heavy oak chair directly across the table from mine, the legs screeching against the floorboards, and sat down.
He wore a threadbare blue nylon coaching jacket from the Plattsburgh junior league, the collar stained with grease, a stained baseball cap pulled low over greasy graying hair. A crooked, broken nose mapped his face above thin, colorless lips.
His eyes were the exact gray-green of Coast’s.
The realization hit my diaphragm like a blunt stick, knocking the air clean out of my lungs.
Arthur Cross.
He didn't introduce himself. He leaned forward on the polished mahogany table, folding his dirty hands together, his watery eyes raking over my pale face, the dark circles under my eyes, and the way my arm stayed locked protective and still across my ribs.
"You look tired, Miss Barry," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sounded like a rusted hinge swinging in the wind.
My fingers dug into the edge of the mahogany table until the wood bit into my skin. "You're trespassing on university property, Mr. Cross."
Arthur let out a wet, rattling chuckle from his lungs, shaking his head with mock pity. "Smart girl. Coast told me you were quick with your mouth."
He reached inside his nylon jacket, pulled out a thick manila envelope, and dropped it onto the open pages of my biomechanics binder with a dull, heavy slap.
The metal clasp on the envelope was undone. The flap fell back, revealing three glossy eight-by-ten photographs.
My breath locked behind my teeth.
The top photograph was sharp, taken with a telephoto lens from across the arena parking lot yesterday evening: Coast hauling me into the cab of his black Ford truck, his face buried in the crook of my neck, his large hands clamped possessively around my waist. The second was from last week—Coast backing me against the concrete wall outside the Sub-Level 2 fire door, his lips an inch from mine.
Beneath the photographs was a photocopied sheet stamped with the university compliance seal: Corinne Vane’s confidential ethics grievance from yesterday morning.
"Forty thousand dollars," Arthur said, tapping the edge of the glossy print with a yellowed fingernail. "That's the number Coast owes me for the training I put into his bones."
The blood in my veins turned to slush. "Coast doesn't owe you anything."
"Coast thinks he's a tough guy," Arthur sneered, leaning closer, his nicotine breath washing across my face.
"He put his hands on my throat in the tunnel on Wednesday.
Told me he'd put me under the ice. But he won't put a finger on me now, because if he does, these pictures go directly to Rick Miller at the Boston Globe. "
Arthur tapped the compliance memo.
"NCAA Bylaw Ten," Arthur murmured, his grin turning jagged and cruel.
"Unethical conduct. Immediate provisional disqualification.
If this file lands on Corinne Vane's desk before noon tomorrow, Coast doesn't lace his skates against Harvard.
He doesn't play in the championship next week.
Boston terminates his draft window before the draft combine, and the university revokes your senior fellowship waiver for academic fraud. "
He sat back in the chair, crossing his arms over his stained jacket.
"Here is your play, Miss Barry," Arthur whispered, each word dripping with venomous calculation.
"You tell Coast to wire forty thousand dollars to my account in Plattsburgh by five o'clock today.
Or you pack your bags, sign a statement saying you falsified his medical clearance, and get off this campus before the morning skate.
If you're gone, the compliance board drops the Title IX inquiry. He skates. He gets his NHL millions."
Arthur’s eyes dropped, lingering with sickening perception on the hand resting over my lower abdomen.
"You're a smart girl," he murmured. "You know how elite hockey works. You're an anchor dragging at his skates. If you stay, you drown him. If you pay me, he gets his life."
* * *
The silence in the North Reading Room was an iron vice tightening around my trachea.
My stomach gave a violent, sick spasm, the nausea rushing up my throat in a cold, dizzy wave that made the edges of the room blur into gray static. My knuckles were bloodless against the mahogany.
He's bluffing. He's a parasite trying to bleed his own son.
I drew a long, slow breath through my nose, forcing the icy panic down into the pit of my gut, letting the clinical rage I had used to survive for four years take the wheel.
My chin tilted upward, locking at that sharp, unyielding forty-five-degree angle.
I looked Arthur Cross dead in his watery, ruined eyes.
"You are a coward, Arthur," I said, my voice dropping into an icy, steady whisper that didn't waver by a single fraction of a millimeter.
Arthur’s sneer slipped, a flicker of irritation crossing his brow.
"I reviewed the New York State High School Athletic Association forensic medical files from four years ago," I said, leaning an inch forward, matching his posture.
"I know you were banned from coaching minor-league hockey in three counties.
I know you have forty thousand dollars in illegal sports gambling debts with loan sharks in Montreal.
And I know that attempting to extort forty thousand dollars using stolen athletic compliance documents across state lines constitutes federal wire fraud and blackmail under Title Eighteen of the United States Code. "
Arthur’s jaw tightened, his fingers twitching on the table. "You think the federal marshals care about a junior hockey player—"
"I think the Essex County District Attorney’s office cares very much about a convicted deadbeat extorting an NCAA Division One institution," I cut in, my words landing with the sharp finality of a gavel.
"You butchered Julian Cross's spine because you were too arrogant to pull him off the ice. You will not butcher Coast's future."
I reached out, picked up the manila envelope, and slid the photographs back inside with deliberate, unhurried precision.
"You don't get forty thousand dollars," I whispered, the gravel in my voice matching the man who loved me.
"You don't get forty cents. If you ever approach me, if you ever step onto this campus again, I will personally hand this file to the state police with your name on the complaint. Get out of my sight."
Arthur stared at me for three long, suffocating seconds. The sneer on his mouth warped into an ugly, murderous snarl.
Slowly, he pushed himself up from the chair.
"You think you're brave, little girl," he rasped, leaning over the table, his face inches from mine.
"You think you can hold his line. You've got until tomorrow morning before the team bus rolls to the arena.
If the wire isn't confirmed, the Globe runs the story.
Let's see how much he loves you when you cost him his NHL sweater. "
He turned on his heel, shoving his hands into his pockets, his boots squeaking against the green runner as he walked out the double doors.
The heavy oak doors swung shut behind him.
The brass latch clicked.
The second the sound echoed off the limestone rafters, my armor shattered.
My vision spun into pitch-black static.
A violent, crushing wave of nausea tore through my diaphragm, forcing me out of my chair.
My knees gave out beneath my denim, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull, bruising thud.
I grabbed the edge of the mahogany table with both hands, my forehead pressed flat against the polished wood, gasping for air as my body shook with uncontrollable tremors.
The cold sweat drenched my collar; my carotid artery hammered like a pneumatic piston against my windpipe.
He's going to leak it. He's going to leak the photos before tomorrow's semifinal.
Arthur wasn't bluffing about the media. If Rick Miller ran those pictures, the NCAA would suspend Coast before he could lace his skates for Harvard. The three million dollars from Boston would evaporate. Julian's clinic in Rochester would go unfunded.
And it would be my fault. Because I let him pull me into his lap. Because I let him love me.
My right hand left the table, pressing hard against the dragging warmth beneath my sweater.
The biological reality pulsed beneath my fingertips, steady, silent, and absolute.
I couldn't tell Coast. Not today. Not with forty sports reporters circling his locker room and the biggest game of his collegiate career twenty-four hours away.
If I told him Arthur had cornered me—if I told him about the baby—Coast would hunt his father down in Plattsburgh and put his fists through the man's skull.
He would throw his entire life into the fire to shield me.
I hauled myself up from the floor, my legs trembling so violently I had to lean against the stacks to stay upright.
The clock above the reading room door read 9:28 AM.
I gathered my books, shoved the manila envelope deep into my messenger bag, and walked toward the exit into the freezing sleet.
I had twenty-four hours to confirm the test, and a lifetime to figure out how to save the man I loved from burning in my blast radius.