Chapter 8
Vanessa
Hockey is not a sport. It is a controlled riot with a scoreboard.
I had been to games before, of course. As the President’s daughter, attendance was mandatory for "morale." I had smiled in the VIP box, eaten stale pretzels, and politely clapped when the buzzer sounded, understanding nothing about icing or offsides.
But today was different.
Today, I wasn't in the VIP box with my father and the donors who smelled like scotch and condescension. Today, I was in the stands. Section 104, Row C. Right behind the glass. Right behind the Sentinel’s bench.
I was wearing a jersey.
Not just any jersey. I was wearing his jersey. Number 19. VOLKOV. It was huge on me, swallowing my frame, the heavy fabric smelling faintly of laundry detergent and him. I had stolen it from his laundry pile this morning while he was in the shower.
When he saw me wearing it, he had stopped dead in the hallway, a towel around his waist, water dripping onto the floor. His eyes had gone black. He hadn't said a word. He just walked over, kissed me hard enough to bruise my lips, and whispered, "Keep it on."
I shivered, pulling the sleeves down over my hands. The arena was freezing, but my blood was running hot.
The noise was deafening. The Sterling Arena was packed to the rafters. Five thousand students screaming, stomping, and chanting. The mascot, a guy in a mangy wolf costume, was crowd-surfing three rows up. The band was playing a chaotic version of Seven Nation Army.
"It’s loud," shouted Sloane, my best friend, leaning over to yell in my ear. She was an Art History major who thought sports were "barbaric," but she had come for moral support. Or maybe just to stare at the players’ thighs.
"It’s supposed to be loud!" I yelled back. "It’s intimidation!"
"It’s a migraine!" Sloane countered, adjusting her thick-rimmed glasses. "Also, why are we sitting so close? I can smell the testosterone from here. It smells like Axe and aggression."
"We need to see the plays," I lied.
I didn't care about the plays. I needed to see him.
I needed to see that he was okay.
Roman had been quiet this morning. Quieter than usual. It was a big game—rivalry night against UMass. But more importantly, there were scouts in the building. NHL scouts. The ones who held his future in their clipboards.
And his father’s "associate" was here. A man named Petrov who looked like a Bond villain and sat in the private suite directly across the ice. I had seen Roman glance up at that suite during warmups, his jaw set so tight I thought his teeth would crack.
The lights dimmed. A spotlight hit the ice. The crowd roared.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," the announcer boomed, his voice echoing like thunder. "PLEASE WELCOME... YOUR... STERLING... SENTINELS!"
The music exploded. Enter Sandman.
They skated out through the giant inflatable wolf head. A blur of white jerseys, flashing steel, and violence. They moved so fast it didn't look human. They looked like predators.
I scanned the line.
There.
Number 19.
Roman didn't skate out like the others, pumping his fist or acknowledging the crowd. He glided. He looked enormous on skates, towering over everyone else. He moved with a terrifying, efficient grace, circling the center ice, his stick tapping the surface lightly.
He stopped at the blue line, staring down the UMass team like he was deciding which one to eat first.
He didn't look up at the VIP box. He didn't look at the scouts.
He turned his head. Through the scratched plexiglass, across twenty feet of distance, his eyes found mine.
The world stopped. The noise, the music, the screaming fans—it all fell away.
He saw me. He saw the jersey.
One corner of his mouth ticked up. A microscopic smirk. He tapped his stick against his shin pad. I see you.
Then he turned away, the mask dropping back into place. The Captain. The Tsar.
The puck dropped.
And the war began.
The first period was a blur of violence.
I had never realized how fast it was. From the VIP box, the game looked distant. Geometric. From down here, right against the glass, it was visceral.
I flinched every time a body slammed into the boards in front of me. The sound was sickening—a heavy, meat-and-bone thud that rattled the glass. Sweat and ice chips sprayed everywhere. I could hear them shouting at each other, guttural grunts and profanities that would make a sailor blush.
Roman was everywhere.
He played like a man possessed. He won every faceoff. He backchecked like a demon. He checked a UMass winger so hard the guy’s helmet flew off.
But he was also a target.
UMass knew who he was. They knew he was the engine. And they were trying to break him.
Every time Roman touched the puck, two red jerseys were on him. Slashing at his ankles. Hitting him late. Cross-checking him in the ribs when the ref wasn't looking.
"They're hurting him!" I gasped, clutching Sloane’s arm as a UMass player drove his shoulder into Roman’s back, sending him crashing into the boards right in front of us.
"It’s part of the game, V," Sloane said, wincing. "They have pads."
"Pads don't stop physics!" I yelled.
Roman got up slowly. He shook his head. He skated back to the bench, his face a mask of grim determination. He looked exhausted. He was double-shifting, playing almost every other minute.
He sat on the bench, leaning forward, chest heaving. He squirted water into his mouth, then over his head.
He looked up at the scoreboard. 0-0.
Then he looked at me again. Just a glance. A grounding wire.
I pressed my hand against the glass. I’m here.
He nodded, almost imperceptibly. Then he vaulted back over the wall.
The second period was worse. The refs had swallowed their whistles. It was prison rules out there.
With five minutes left in the second, disaster struck.
Roman had the puck. He was flying down the wing, cutting toward the net. He deked past one defender, spinning away with a grace that shouldn't be possible for a man his size.
He had a clear lane to the goal.
But he didn't see the second defender coming from his blind side.
It was a dirty hit. Low. Aimed right at the knees.
The UMass player—number 55, a thug named Griggs—didn't go for the puck. He went for Roman’s legs.
CRACK.
The sound was distinct. It wasn't the dull thud of a body check. It was the sharp, sickening sound of impact on bone.
Roman went down.
He didn't slide. He crumbled. He hit the ice hard and didn't move.
The crowd went silent. Five thousand people holding their breath.
"Oh my god," I whispered. My stomach dropped through the floor. The nausea was instant and overwhelming. "Roman."
The whistle blew. A scrum erupted. Banksy, charging from his crease like a madman, tackled Griggs. Gloves dropped. Punches were thrown.
I didn't watch the fight. I watched Roman.
He was curled on his side, clutching his knee. His face was pressed against the ice.
"Get up," I prayed. "Please, please get up."
The trainer ran out onto the ice. Coach Miller was screaming at the ref.
Roman rolled onto his back. He grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut. I could see him yelling something, a wordless roar of frustration and pain.
He tried to stand. His leg buckled.
The silence in the arena was heavy. Suffocating.
Two teammates—Banksy and Johnson—skated over. They hooked their arms under Roman’s shoulders to help him off.
Roman shoved them away.
He stood up. He wobbled, putting weight on his left leg, keeping the right one—the bad one, the one with the scar—off the ice.
He glared at his teammates. Don't touch me.
He skated off under his own power. It was ugly. It was limping. But he did it.
The crowd erupted in applause. A standing ovation for the warrior.
I didn't clap. I was shaking.
He disappeared down the tunnel. He didn't look at me this time. He looked down. Defeated.
"I have to go," I said, standing up abruptly.
"What?" Sloane grabbed my wrist. "V, you can't go down there. Security won't let you in."
"Watch me," I said.
I grabbed my bag and scrambled over the seats, ignoring the confused looks of the people around me.
I wasn't the President's daughter right now. I wasn't a student.
I was the girl who knew exactly where the scar on his hip came from, and I was the only one who knew how terrified he was of that exact moment.
Security tried to stop me.
"Miss Sterling, the locker room area is restricted—"
"My father owns the building," I lied smoothly, channeling every ounce of entitlement I had spent my life trying to suppress. "And if you don't let me through, I will have your badge deactivated before the third period starts."
The guard hesitated. He looked at my face—pale, frantic, terrifying—and then stepped aside.
"Five minutes," he muttered.
I ran down the concrete hallway. It smelled of rubber mats and anxiety.
I found him outside the locker room, in the medical bay alcove.
He was sitting on a metal table, still in his gear, skates unlaced but still on. The trainer was cutting the tape off his knee with scissors.
Roman looked... broken.
His head hung low, chin resting on his chest. His hands gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were white. He was breathing heavily, ragged gasps that sounded like he was fighting back tears or vomit.
"It's tight," the trainer was saying. "Might be a sprain. Ligament strain. We need an MRI."
"Tape it," Roman growled.
"Roman, you can't skate on this. If you tear the MCL—"
"Tape. It." Roman raised his head. His eyes were wild. "The scouts are here. Petrov is here. If I don't finish this game, I am done. Tape it tight."
"Roman," I whispered.
He flinched. His head snapped toward me.
When he saw me standing there in his jersey, his face crumpled for a fraction of a second. The anger dissolved into pure, raw fear.
"Vanessa," he rasped. "Go away. You shouldn't be here."
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
I walked past the trainer. I stood between Roman’s legs.
"Give us a minute," I told the trainer.
"Miss Sterling, we have ten minutes until the period starts, I need to—"
"One minute," I ordered.