Twenty #3
Delilah nods once. “No. But he said something that got recorded, and our little god-complex backup turned it into this.”
I stare at Braxton’s face in the team photo again. Half-hidden. Off to the side. On the periphery of the frame, like he always ended up on the outskirts of everything that actually mattered.
“He wanted to be seen,” I say, my lip curling. “And he wasn’t. Not on the ice. Not at the post-tourney mixer. And especially not when Gabriel walked in and I forgot he existed.” My throat tightens. “So he made sure everyone remembered me the way he wanted. Made sure I couldn’t be anything else.”
Delilah goes quiet, eyes moving across the tabs still open on the screen. Then she clicks one more link.
An article loads, its caption reading: Hicks Family Foundation Continues Junior Hockey Legacy. New donation to support Ottawa U18 AAA Capital City Crows Development Fund.
Four people in the photo, including Braxton.
Delilah points at the cheque. “Well. That explains the point-seven-four-seven.”
I stop breathing.
Not because of Braxton, but because of the man who was being gifted the oversized cheque.
Martin Westfield. The name on Wolves partnership paperwork. The man who splurged his team’s budget on a blockbuster trade for Gabriel Castellano now.
And there he is then, too.
In Ottawa. Beside Braxton Hicks’s family. In a donation photo tied to the Capital City Crows.
A cold pulse moves through me. I don’t know what that means yet—I just know it means something.
Then my eyes shift to the man standing next to him, and the room drops out from under me.
Mid-fifties. Silver at the temples. Square face. Wool coat. He wears a smile that doesn’t reach his Husky-blue eyes.
I know that face.
Delilah notices before I say anything. “What?”
I don’t answer. There is a thing I have carried in silence since my world imploded.
It’s the reason this bar still exists. The reason Dad died at home, in his own bed, with decent morphine and clean sheets instead of a ward cubicle.
The reason I signed my name to a piece of paper I have never once let myself read again, locked in a drawer.
Nobody knows. Not Delilah. Not Reza. Not Ulf, who still shakes his head sometimes and calls the bar’s survival a small miracle. Miracle is Ulf’s word; mine is payoff.
“Nothing,” I force out, turning back to the screen before my expression betrays me. The lie coats the back of my throat like day-old wine. I’m not ready for whatever comes next on her face—pity or grief or anger on my behalf. I focus on the men connected by ink and ice.
The pieces don’t hum.
They scream.
Westfield didn’t have to write the thread to be part of the machine that buried it. Braxton was an elite donor’s kid. Gabriel was the star player worth protecting. I was the expendable part.
I stare at Westfield’s smile until my stomach threatens to turn.
“He wasn’t protecting Gabriel,” I say, dragging my focus away. “He was protecting the investment.”
Delilah leans in. “Why wouldn’t anyone call him out? If Braxton posted that about a teammate—how does nobody say anything?”
“Because in that world, backup goalies with rich parents get protected. So do teenage stars every scout already wants.” I drag my gaze to the fake account still open in the next tab. “Girls from nowhere don’t.”
The truth hits in a sickening rush. Seven years of hating the wrong man every time his name crossed a ticker.
Seven years of carrying the fallout alone.
Seven years of Braxton Hicks floating through the hockey world untouched, only to plant himself in my bar and watch the sequel play out.
Nausea spikes hard. I breathe through it until it burns off and leaves something cleaner and much colder.
“I’ve been hating the wrong man; Gabriel didn’t know,” I say, the realization hitting me like a physical blow.
Another memory clicks into place: the night he walked into this bar, arrogant and genuinely baffled when I treated him like a monster after spilling beer on him.
“He thought I was just a bartender holding a grudge over one bad night.”
Delilah’s eyes stay on me. “Does that absolve him?”
“No,” I say quickly. “He still stayed quiet and let it ride. He still made choices that hurt me.”
Last night moves through my head with new edges. Gabriel standing in my bar, wrecked, choking on guilt over the things he hadn’t stopped.
Delilah watches me. “What now?”
I close the laptop.
“Now we open.” I stand, pull my apron off the hook by the door, and tie it around my waist. “It’s Christmas Eve. We’ve got resos on the books, and Ulf and Birgitta are on their way to Sweden.”
Delilah reads my face for one long beat, then nods once and follows me out.
I glance toward the bar floor where several hours earlier Gabriel’s body had been pressed against mine. Where I shoved him away. Where I still taste his lips if I let myself think about it for more than two seconds.
I don’t.
Gabriel wants to stop being the villain? Fine. My mouth twists. I don’t need a hero. I need a grenade. And Gabriel’s the only one close enough to pull the pin.