23. Rocco
ROCCO
I tape my stick and check the board. My wingers are Fitz on the right and Hudson on the left. I pull my jersey on and roll my shoulders. Ellis taps my helmet when he passes. “Own the dots. We’ll feed off that.”
I take draws to lock timing, then run a few quick sets with Fitz so our reads are sharp. Short chips, give-and-go, net drive. The ice feels fast. I can feel my edges under me. Meg is there with Aqua and her crew. I put my mouthguard in and lock in.
Game on.
First period. Opening draw. I set my stick flat and win it back to Ellis.
Hudson snaps it up the wall to Fitz. He gains the line, stops up at the dot, and hits me late.
Quick shot low blocker. Save. Next rush, I carry the middle, chip left to Vargas, and crash the back post. His shot goes off a leg. We force a turnover and cycle.
Defensive zone. Right-side draw. I beat their center clean and tie him up with my body so Ellis can clear. Back-check next shift, I pick up the late man and block a low wrister with my shin. It stings, but it kills the shot.
A dump-in hits a seam at the dasher and kicks out front. Our goalie gets a piece, but it rolls behind him and in. One–nothing them.
Shit.
We huddle on the bench and reset. “Keep our layers tight,” Coach says. “Win the middle. Remember what we practiced. Eyes on the prize, ladies.”
Second period. I get a shorthanded look when their D blows a wheel on a rim. I pick it off and go in alone. Seconds pass, just me and the puck with everyone protecting me. When I take my shot, it’s clean. But their goalie stays with me and eats it.
That’s the price of being a big guy on the ice. They see you coming a mile away. I skate to the bench, mad at myself. Gotta shake it off with two deep breaths. Too much to do.
Even strength again, our line starts to own the zone time.
I win draws in their end. We run a low cycle and keep changing sides to pull their D.
Fitz takes a hit to move it to me, I spin it to Hudson, he feeds me the backdoor, and I get a stick on it.
Crossbar. I bite down and hunt the rebound. It drifts to the wall.
The third period is trench work. We cut cute plays. Chips, bumps, support below the puck, grinding changes. I keep my head down and take the draws like they decide the night, because they do. I count the linesman’s rhythm and steal small edges. I make sure my stick is quiet.
Every team has music. If you know the notes, you can predict the melody. I talk to myself as I pick up theirs. “Up.” “Wheel.” “Reverse.” “Chorus.”
Eight minutes left, we pin them for a full shift. Hudson fires through the traffic and gets a save, followed by a rebound into the corner. I get there first, reverse to Fitz, set a screen, and tip a point shot wide on purpose to keep them moving.
We change. They ice it.
TV timeout at two minutes. Coach draws on the board. “Win it back, shoot low for a rebound. Net drive. Rocco at the crease. Fitz, backdoor if it kicks far.”
Next out, I set my stance at the dot, center left, our bench side. I watch the linesman’s hand. Drop. Their team moves like a chorus line, swift and predictable now that I know their rhythm.
I sweep it to Hudson. He wastes no time and shoots low pad. The rebound pops to my forehand. I jam it once, twice.
The goalie sprawls.
I pull to my backhand and chip. It hits his shoulder and drops flat on the line. A defenseman swings. I shove my stick through and tap it across.
Red light. Horn. The sound hits like a wall, and then it’s just noise with our colors in it, black and green.
I don’t celebrate big. I skate to the glass and look up. Meg is on her feet, both hands up. Aqua is yelling into a phone. Tom is pounding the rail. Bex is whooping. Anthony is filming. I point once and turn to the bench. The guys mob me. Fitz smacks my helmet. “You earned that.”
But it’s not over yet. More work to do. Always.
With only minutes left, we’re back out there, and I’m listening to their music, watching the choreography play out. Now that I know the tune, it’s almost too easy. Last draw with five seconds left. I pin it to the linesman’s skates and keep it there.
Horn. Win.
A fucking win.
The crowd goes whatever is beyond wild. I’m right there with them.
I can’t believe it either. Moments blur together after that.
The handshake line is quick. In the tunnel, I swallow the leftover adrenaline and breathe.
The room is loud. Stick taps on stalls. Towels snapping.
Moods are high. It’s a rare win for the Baltimore Black Devils, and we relish it.
Coach walks in and lifts a hand, so we fall silent. “Good job, guys. Don’t get ahead of yourselves. Long season to go.”
Fitz whines, “Let us enjoy the moment, man.”
Coach chuckles on his way out.
I sit, untape, and check my phone. Siena sent an email. Rocco—checking in. I need a firm yes or no by Friday to hold the New York block. If now isn’t the time, early summer is possible. I think you have something worth capturing. Don’t leave me hanging. —Siena.
I stare at the screen. The room buzzes around me. I picture Meg at the table last night with the three-week notice. I picture Nonna at her kitchen table playing an old record and saying my name like it would carry meaning one day. Two paths through the future.
I answer Siena: Thank you. I’ll give you a clear answer by Friday.
Hudson is already dressed. “You good?”
“I’m torn. New York soon or the shop.”
“You’ll pick right. I trust you.”
That makes one of us.
We park and head up. The apartment is dim. I drop my bag. A knock comes not ten seconds later. Not loud, but not neighbor-soft either.
I check the peephole. A man in a cheap jacket holds a manila envelope and a small Pelican case. He checks the hall camera like he knows where it is without looking.
He’s either lost or the worst scammer on the planet. No good scammer would dress like a scrawny grunge rocker from the nineties who never changed his clothes in the three decades since.
“Looking for Fitz,” he says when I ask through the door.
“Name?”
“My best friends call me Cash. Fitz asked me to drop off some homework.”
I keep the chain on when I open the door. The man is squirrelly, and I’m glad Meg isn’t home. I don’t want her anywhere near this guy. His twitches have twitches.
I narrow my gaze on him. “What kind of homework are you doing for Fitz?”
He tilts his head, looking me up and down. “You’re Rocco, right?”
“Yes.”
“The kind of homework Addaway won’t like.”
Well, those are the magic words. One of the good things about being built like me is that I know I can take this guy if he gets clever. I unchain and let him in.
He steps inside, sets the envelope and case on the counter, flips the latches, and opens it.
“Digital trail. Mile wide.” Inside is a thumb drive in foam, two SD cards, and other things I don’t recognize.
“Encrypted. Memorize this password—I have only five years until I go to Mexico forever. Five is the word, to and the for in forever are numbers. No spaces, no capital letters. Don’t open it on your phone.
Give it to your lawyer and have them image it first.”
“What’s on it?” Hudson asks, arms folded.
“Public dockets, UCC filings, property records,” Cash explains.
“Scraped dealer reviews before they were cleaned, CFPB complaint exports, AG complaint indexes, and a pile of social you won’t find with regular searches.
Evidence he sold PPI. Plus internal docs from a friend who used to work inside.
Lending memos. A training deck on yo-yo financing.
A spreadsheet of add-on targets. Name matches to Harbor Street Holdings and shells.
Timelines on the building LLC. Not from me. ”
I don’t know what most of that is, but it sounds bad. “And the envelope?”
“Hard copies. Originals or good scans. Forged signatures that will look bad next to the right notary. Cash receipts that never hit the books. Photos and a couple of videos from repos that went violent. Plenty of them have. Faces and plates are clear.” He holds my eyes.
“Your lawyer builds the chain. Time stamps matter.”
“You want money from us?” Hudson asks.
“My fee has been handled.” He leaves the case and walks to the door. “If anybody asks, I was never here.”
He leaves. I lock the door and set the chain. The kitchen feels different with the case on the counter. I text Fitz: Your guy dropped a case and an envelope. Home?
He replies: Five minutes. Dana wants it first. Don’t mess with anything.
I wouldn’t know where to begin in the first place.
I look at the drive and the envelope. I’d thought that hiring a hacker would be neat and tidy—everything digital, maybe one thumb drive to rule them all.
Not this. But Luke Addaway has been a busy boy, ripping people off on top of being a pain in the ass to his ex-girlfriend. Evidence comes in all flavors, I guess.
The EP email sits in my head next to Meg’s new date. A month in New York, or stay and hold the line.
While I stare at the pile on the table, the decision becomes clear. “I can’t leave now.”
Hudson sighs. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“I’m choosing here . I’ll ask Siena for the summer. It’s the right thing to do—there’s too much chaos to try and leave now. For Meg. For the team. For me.” The words make the decision crystalline. “This is where I want to be.”
He nods once, still staring at the evidence. “Knew you’d make the right call.”
“I could have used some advice.”
He huffs under his breath. “You’ve never needed my advice, Roc. My advice usually involves hitting, and these are problems you can’t hit.” He pauses. “Unless Meg changes her mind about letting us kick Luke’s ass. Really hoping she comes around on that.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting in on that, but that’s one of the few areas where we’re different from her. She doesn’t have any sort of bloodlust.”
He quirks a brow at me. “Neither do you.”
“Bullshit,” I snap with a smile.
“You took the least violent position on the ice—center. Face it, Rocco, you’re not?—”
“Goalie.”
“Huh?”
“Goalie is the least violent position. The only time they make contact is if someone screws up and skates into them.”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I meant.”
Fitz rushes in with Dana on speaker. He doesn’t even take his coat off or do more than nod to address us. “Don’t touch,” he orders, and puts the phone on the counter. “We have the package.”
“Good.” Dana’s voice rings out clear. “Do not power anything on. I’m sending a courier with an evidence bag and a laptop with forensic tools. We’ll image the drive and cards, catalog the envelope, and build a chain of custody. Do not watch. Do not read. Let me do it right.”
“Copy.”
The courier arrives with two tamper-evident bags and a rolling case. She photographs the items where they sit, logs the time, our initials, and the description, then slips everything into bags and seals them, writing across the seams. “Logs will be in your inbox.”
The door shuts. The air shifts. Fitz is Oliver again in my head. Funny—on the ice, it’s Fitz. At home, Oliver.
When I sing I’m a singer. When I’m on the ice, I’m a player. Luke’s public face is charming and funny, a real go-getter. Behind closed doors, he’s a douchebag with too much money and privilege.
No one is just one thing, I guess.
Oliver ends the call and grabs his keys. “I’m going to Dana’s. I’ll update you when I can.” He takes the chain-of-custody copies and leaves.
I shower and stand there until the water runs lukewarm. Our building is good, so it takes a long time.
Oliver texts near midnight: Dana says there’s enough to start pressure. Not the finish line. It puts heat on the right necks. AG call tomorrow. Sleep.
Sleep sounds like the best idea ever.