Chapter 2
Chase POV
The black athletic tape took half a layer of skin with it when I ripped it off my left wrist.
I dropped the balled-up adhesive onto the rubber floor of the auxiliary training room, rolling my left shoulder until the joint popped—a dull, grinding click that sent a dull throb down my tricep.
The labrum had been torn since November.
Every hit against the glass felt like someone jamming a dull chisel between the humerus and the socket, but admitting that to the medical staff meant sitting the pine during a draft year.
Sitting wasn't an option.
Across the hall, the varsity weight room was alive with the harsh, rhythmic clang of iron plates slamming against racks.
The air smelled of chalk, rust, and the menthol liniment Silas rubbed into his groin pull three times a day.
Through the frosted glass, I could hear the bass from the locker room speakers vibrating the drywall, but my head was locked in a different frequency.
“You lose control for five seconds, and someone’s life ends.”
My father’s voice never left the room. It lived between my shoulder blades, heavier than the two-hundred-pound barbell on the squat rack.
It had been five years since Declan’s vertebrae had cracked against the pavement outside that dive bar in Marquette, five years since my older brother’s name had been erased from the NHL central scouting boards.
Declan lived in an assisted-care bungalow forty miles south now, watching our old game film with dead eyes while my father looked at me like a debt that needed collecting.
I was the replacement. The second chance to buy back the family name. One mistake, one disciplinary strike, and the scouting directors would cross my name off their boards without looking back.
I wiped a dry towel over the back of my neck, trying to scrape away the chill of the ice.
It didn't work. The phantom pressure from the service tunnel was still stuck to the front of my jersey.
Nola Wagner.
Five-foot-five of pure, stubborn defiance.
When my forearm had locked around her bicep to keep her from splitting her skull on the concrete, the impact had rattled clear through my sternum.
She hadn't smelled like the girls who hung over the glass after third period with their sweet body sprays and rehearsed smiles.
She smelled like clean rain, bitter dark roast, and cold skin.
And when I crowded her space, she hadn't taken the step back.
Most people in this barn gave me two yards of clearance when my brow was split and my gear was dripping.
She had stood right in the pocket, chin up, hazel-gold eyes flashing like sparks off a grinding wheel, threatening me with an NCAA compliance citation like she had the power to break my wrist.
The insolence of it had tightened every muscle in my gut.
"Chase."
Coach Miller’s assistant stood in the open doorway, clipboard tucked under one arm. His expression was tight, the skin around his eyes pulled thin.
"Director Miller wants you upstairs. Right now."
I tossed the dirty towel into the laundry bin. "I haven't hit the cold tub yet."
"Skip the tub," the assistant said, his voice dropping into that clipped, nervous register staff used when the athletic board was breathing down their necks. "He's waiting."
* * *
The carpet on the third floor swallowed the sound of my sneakers, but it didn't do a thing to slow the steady, heavy hammer of my pulse behind my ribs.
I didn't bother knocking. I pushed Miller’s heavy oak door open, expecting to find our head coach or an executive liaison from the draft advisory committee.
Instead, my eyes hit the back of a dark gray fleece jacket.
Nola Wagner sat in the leather armchair across from Miller’s desk, her posture as rigid as a steel beam.
Her auburn-brown hair was pulled into a high, severe ponytail that exposed the pale, vulnerable line of her neck.
Beside her boot on the rug sat the cracked plastic crate she had dropped in the hallway.
My feet stopped moving for half a second. My jaw locked so hard the joint clicked.
"Shut the door, Guzman," Miller said. He looked exhausted, his tie loosened at the collar, a spread of white paper covered in red highlighter pens lying between his elbows.
I pulled the door shut behind me, the latch clicking into the frame like a round chambering. The room was too hot, the copper radiators hissing behind the curtains, trapping her scent in the enclosed space.
"What's this?" I asked, keeping my voice down in my chest, low and level.
Wagner didn't turn around. She kept her eyes glued to Miller, but I saw the subtle shift in her shoulders—the way her shoulder blades pinched together, bracing for impact.
"Sit down," Miller ordered.
"I'll stand." I stepped up to the edge of the mahogany desk, positioning myself two feet to Wagner's right.
From this angle, I could see the rapid jump of the artery beneath her ear, her skin flushed faint pink from the room's radiator heat.
Her fingers were laced tightly over a digital tablet resting in her lap, knuckles white.
"The NCAA player safety liaison called an emergency session this morning," Miller said, rubbing both palms over his face. "The third-period hit you laid on the North Dakota winger last month got flagged by the independent review board. They pulled your telemetry logs from the bench."
My stomach went cold, the adrenaline hitting like a mouthful of snow. "The hit was clean. Shoulder to chest. Two-minute minor for roughing, that’s it."
"The hit was legal," Miller snapped, his eyes cutting up to mine.
"Your recovery data wasn't. You played three shifts after that hit with your telemetry sensors registering severe deceleration spikes.
Your post-game cognitive baseline was never logged.
The board is claiming we hid an unaddressed concussion and an unhealed soft-tissue tear in your left shoulder. "
I didn't blink. "I missed zero shifts."
"And that’s the problem," Wagner’s voice cut in.
It was the first time she had spoken, and the sound was like a razor dragging across glass. Crisp, clinical, utterly unimpressed.
She finally turned her head to look at me. Her honey-brown eyes were wide and steady, though the tight set of her lips gave away the strain in her jaw.
"You red-lined your neuromuscular fatigue markers by the middle of the third period, Guzman," she said, tapping the glass screen of her tablet.
"Your reaction time on defensive transitions dropped twelve percent in the final eight minutes.
That isn't grit. That’s systemic failure.
If you take another hit with those numbers, your shoulder capsule gives out, or your brain takes a secondary impact that ends your season. "
A surge of dark, suffocating heat climbed into my throat. "Keep your mouth shut about my numbers."
"Chase," Miller warned, his voice sharp.
"She’s a student," I said, pointing a calloused finger toward her lap without looking away from her eyes. "She doesn't touch my medical clearance. Put me with the head athletic trainer or let me handle my own recovery."
"The head athletic trainer works for the university, which the NCAA currently views as a compromised party," Miller said, his voice flat and unyielding.
"The review board mandated an independent compliance monitor. Wagner is the lead student fellow in sports biomechanics. Her fatigue-monitoring pilot study has been approved by the department. She’s your dedicated specialist, Chase. Effective five minutes ago."
The air locked in my chest. "No."
"This isn't an open discussion," Miller stood up, resting his knuckles on the desk blotter, leaning forward until he was in my face.
"You report to the Vault twice a day. Morning assessment before first skate, evening recovery protocol after practice.
Wagner runs the telemetry, she monitors the soft tissue, and she logs the baseline data.
If you skip a session, you sit the next game.
If she refuses to sign your compliance form on Friday afternoon, your travel pass for the weekend series is revoked. "
I looked down at Wagner. She had tilted her head back to meet my stare. There wasn't an ounce of fear on her mouth, just that same cold, infuriating stubbornness that had made me want to push her against the wall downstairs.
"And if she tries to use my files to pad her little academic project?" I rasped, the venom thick on my tongue.
Wagner’s chin jerked up. "Your files are data points, Guzman. Nothing more. I care about the integrity of the study and my fellowship recommendation. You’re just the subject holding the sensors."
My lungs burned. The urge to lean down, grab the armrests of her chair, and trap her until she choked on that clinical tone clawed behind my ribs.
"You're done here, both of you," Miller said, sitting back down and waving a dismissive hand toward the door. "The Vault is unlocked. First session starts at 0600 tomorrow. Don't make me explain to the professional scouts why my top line center is watching the game from the press box in a suit."
* * *
The heavy oak door swung shut behind us with a muffled thud.
Wagner didn't hesitate. She pivoted on her heel, gripping the handles of her crate, and started down the carpeted hallway toward the stairwell like she couldn't get away from me fast enough.
Two strides. That was all it took for my reach to close the distance.
I caught the strap of her bag with one hand, checking her momentum, and used my other forearm to brace against the wall directly in front of her face. The movement was instant, violent enough to force her backward until her spine hit the wood paneling beside the trophy display.
The glass case rattled behind her head.
"Back up," she whispered, her voice tight, the words clipping off her tongue.
I didn't back up. I stepped in, crowding her until the heat radiating off my chest pushed through the thin space between us. My shadow blotted out the overhead sconce, swallowing her completely.
"You think you’re smart, Wagner?" I dropped my head until my mouth was inches from the shell of her ear, my voice scraping low enough to vibrate against her collarbone. "You think you're going to use my body to buy yourself a ticket to Colorado?"
Her chest rose and fell in fast, shallow hitches, her nipples pressing against the fabric of her shirt under her jacket. Her breath hitched, catching in the back of her throat, but she didn't look down. She forced her eyes up, locking onto mine, her pupils blown wide in the dim hall.
"I don't need to use you for anything, Guzman," she said, her voice shaking slightly before she locked it down with iron control. "I earned that fellowship. You're just the broken piece of equipment I have to keep running so Miller doesn't pull my grant."
The word broken hit the raw nerve beneath my sternum, lighting a fuse that had been dry for five years. My hand left the wall and gripped the wood trim right beside her temple, my knuckles grazing the loose strands of her auburn hair.
"Listen to me very carefully," I rasped, my breath stirring the hair at her forehead.
"You go back in that office. You tell Miller your course load is too heavy.
You tell him you can't handle the hours.
Because if you step into the Vault with me tomorrow morning, I will make every single minute of your life a waking hell until you break. "
I waited for the flinch. I waited for her eyes to fill with tears, for her posture to crumble, for her to realize that she was an ant standing in front of a freight train.
Instead, Nola Wagner took a half-step forward.
Her chest hit mine, the contact sending a sharp, unexpected jolt straight through the bruises on my ribs. She didn't drop her gaze. She tilted her head back, her lips parting just enough for me to see the wet gleam of her teeth.
"0600, Captain," she whispered, her voice steady as a scalpel. "Don't be late. Or I'll log your refusal before the Zamboni even finishes the morning cut."
She ducked under my arm before I could stop her, her shoulder brushing hard against my injured side, and disappeared down the concrete stairwell.
I stood alone in the dim corridor, my fists clenched so hard my fingernails bit into the calluses of my palms, staring at the empty landing.
She wasn't going to break.
And having her hands on my bare skin twice a day was going to tear me apart from the inside out.