Chapter 5 Liam
LIAM
Detective Harris clears his throat. “Mr. Callaghan, appreciate you taking the time. We’ll keep it short. You remember anything about your attackers?”
I shift against the pillows, wincing. “Two guys. Came out of nowhere.”
“Can you describe them?” Ruiz asks, clicking his pen like it personally offends him.
“Middle-aged,” I say. “White. Both were wearing dark leather jackets. Worn, like something from a pawn shop.”
“Names?” Harris presses.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Seen them before tonight?” Ruiz again.
“No.”
They look at each other doubtfully.
Harris glances down at his notebook. “Any idea why they might target you specifically?”
“Could’ve been random,” I lie easily. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“You don’t think they were waiting for you?”
I shrug. “No clue.”
“Did they say anything? Make any threats?” Ruiz asks, watching me too closely.
I keep my eyes on the monitor beeping beside me. “Just yelled. I don’t remember words.”
Ruiz leans back. “You’re a big guy, Mr. Callaghan. Didn’t think to fight back?”
I let out a humorless laugh that hurts my ribs. “Hard to fight when you’re half-drunk and they’ve got bats.”
Harris’s eyebrows go up. “So you’d been drinking.”
“Yeah. Out with teammates. Walked back to the arena to sober up. Figured I’d crash in my car if I weren’t good to drive.”
Ruiz closes his notebook. “And you have no idea why these men attacked you.”
“Nope.”
“Nothing at all,” he presses.
I look him dead in the eye. “I said no.”
They share another glance before Harris pockets his pen. “All right, Mr. Callaghan. We’ll let you rest. If anything comes back to you, give us a call.”
“Sure,” I huff, because what else can I say?
They leave, and the room sinks back into sterile stillness except for the rhythmic beeping at my side. I stare at the ceiling, jaw clenched, breathing through the sharp aches that flare with every movement of my ribs.
Yeah. Like I’m about to tell them what really happened.
Two Irish bastards who crawled out of the shadows to give me the worst hangover of my life for what my fucking father did.
No way in hell I’m handing that story to anyone.
The press already has enough.
“A professional hockey player was brutally assaulted in the team parking garage.”
My swollen, bloodied face has been plastered across every news feed since I hit the ER. Reporters crawling all over it, fans demanding answers, the team issuing vague statements about ‘players’ safety.’
There’s even talk about city leadership cracking down on crime again.
Chicago’s been drowning in crime since the pandemic. Organized, random, desperate, it doesn’t matter. Violence is good headline currency, and apparently, I’m the new poster boy.
Lucky me.
Not exactly the legacy I was going for.
I flip through the news channels on the tiny hospital TV. Every station’s got a variation of the same story, my name, my bruises, my so-called “assault.”
It’s exhausting
But I’m too damn bored to turn the TV off.
And every headline makes my jaw tick harder.
Of course, I know who jumped me.
Browning Family lackeys.
Chicago’s favorite flavor of Irish mafia scum.
Not the slick, movie-quality kind with velvet suits and cigars.
No. These guys are the bargain-bin version.
Big, dumb, loud.
Like playground bullies who grew up and never figured out how to be anything other than dangerous morons shaking down people weaker than them.
They prey on addicts.
They push them deeper, keep them hooked, and desperate.
My dad, for example.
He was a gambler—an addict down to the bone.
I knew it was bad when my parents were still together, but after Mom kicked him out for pawning her wedding rings, it got worse. He swore he’d clean up, promised he’d move to Chicago, find work, start fresh.
Fresh meant new bookies.
New debt.
New holes he couldn’t crawl out of. Literally.
When I moved to the city on my rookie contract, I saw him slip again.
What started as one night at a casino became two… three… whatever he could get away with.
Then he was betting and losing, betting and losing, like he was sprinting toward rock bottom with no brakes.
Every once in a while, he’d hit a hot streak, pay back a chunk, and feel invincible again.
Then he’d blow it all in one night, and the hole would widen.
By the time it crashed, he was under for millions.
And then he started asking me for money.
Ten thousand here, five thousand there.
Just until payday. Just until the next win.
Just help me out, son.
But trying to fix his mess was like trying to fill a sinkhole with a spoonful of dirt.
My salary barely covered my own bills, and my agent back then couldn’t negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag.
Even after my contract was renewed, it still wasn’t enough.
Not nearly enough for the debt he carried.
Not when the hole he’d dug was big enough to bury both of us.
My dad died a year ago.
Things should’ve gotten better after that.
I know that sounds cold, but honestly, when the police showed up and told me he was gone, all I felt was relief. For the first time in years, I could breathe.
No more late-night calls, no more begging for loans I couldn’t afford.
No more waiting for the next disaster.
Except it turns out, disaster doesn’t just die with the man who caused it.
The Brownings apparently believe in a ‘family plan’ for debt, and my old man’s tab was so steep they decided it should roll right over to me.
Generational trauma meets organized crime—how poetic.
So here I am, paying off millions of dollars I never borrowed, stuck cleaning up the mess of a man who never cleaned up a damn thing in his life.
Add in the fact that I’m also footing the bill for my mom’s care, and you start to understand why I drive a Honda that’s older than some of my teammates.
The door opens, breaking through my thoughts.
“Mr. Callaghan,” the doctor says as he scans his badge and clicks through the tablet at the foot of my bed.
I clear my throat. “Uh, just Liam, please.”
He glances up. “Sure, Liam.”
Mr. Callaghan.
That’s what the Irish fucks called my dad.
“I think we can get you out of here today at some point,” he announces. “You don’t seem to be struggling for breath, so I think the lung will heal up just fine. I need you to give yourself about six weeks to heal before you hit the ice again.”
“Six weeks?” I ask, my eyes going wide. “I’ve never missed more than a week, ever.”
He lifts his shoulders and gives me a sympathetic look. At least, I think it’s sympathetic. He could be giving me a ‘well, don’t go out and get drunk and then get beat up’ look, but what do I know?
“Six weeks,” he repeats. “Those ribs need time to heal.”
Hockey is literally the only thing that brings me any level of happiness these days, and now I have to sit on the fucking bench like a goddamned lump, being fucking miserable one-hundred-percent of the time, instead of, like, eighty-percent.
Fuck my life.
I’m pouting and feeling sorry for myself when Emma comes in.
“Brooding has always been your look,” she comments, sitting down on the guest chair by the window.
She’s backlit by daylight. Out of her scrubs and dressed in a black tank top, jeans, and pink Adidas Sambas. Her hair is loose and wild around her shoulders, and she’s wearing clear-framed glasses I’ve never seen before.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” I blurt out—and instantly regret how dumb it sounds. I clear my throat. “They, uh… they look really good on you.”
She gives me a small, soft smile and bites her bottom lip. It’s still the same nervous habit that used to undo me in high school. Her fingers drift to her cuticles, picking at them just like she used to when she felt awkward.
It hits me right in the chest how much of her is the same, and how much I’ve missed every bit of it.
“Thanks for coming by,” I say. “I’m set to spring this joint later today, I think.”
She nods. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be in here long. They kick people out pretty fast these days.”
I nod, unsure what else to say. I mean, I have a lot of questions. I just don’t know how to ask them.
I finally settle on, “How have you been?”
It sounds lame even to my own ears.
“Um, good,” she says. “Busy. Life is busy.”
I try to peer at her hands. I don’t see a wedding ring. In fact, she wears no jewelry. No makeup either, just her fresh-faced, real, and so damn beautiful it hurts to look at her.
She’s always been like that. Effortless.
And she’s even more attractive for not knowing how gorgeous she is.
“How’s your family?” I ask, wanting to hear more about her life, about the time since I last saw her.
“They’re good,” she says. “My mom’s got some big position at the university now. My dad still travels a ton. Talia’s here with me. We share an apartment, and we’re both nurses.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
Talia. Christ.
That woman hated me with the fire of a thousand suns.
I manage a faint smile. “Bet she was thrilled to hear my name again.”
Emma lets out a quiet laugh. “You could say that.”
The sound hits me square in the chest.
“How are you feeling?” Emma asks. “How’s your pain?”
I smirk a little. “You’re not on duty, Emma.”
She blushes, and my body betrays me instantly.
I’m sore everywhere, beat to hell, wearing nothing but a flimsy hospital gown that doesn’t hide a damn thing, and still, somehow, my brain short-circuits just looking at her.
I shift under the blanket, trying to play it off, but it’s useless.
Even half-broken and pumped full of IV fluids, Emma Reyes still turns me on like flipping a switch.
I clear my throat and look away, pretending to read the heart monitor like it’s fascinating, hoping she doesn’t notice.
But whatever.
“Still,” she finally says, pointedly not looking at the bulge where my cock is. “Are you okay?”
“I’m off ice for six fucking weeks, which sucks, but I’ll be fine.”
“Who did this to you?” she asks.
“Thugs,” I say. Not a lie.
“Did you deserve it?” she asks.
I choke back a laugh. Such an Emma thing to ask. “No, I didn’t.”
This seems to relax her a bit, like she was bracing herself to find out that I was still the reckless teen she knew six years ago, picking fights to get the aggression out.
“Did you move here to be closer to your dad?” Emma asks. “Talia reminded me that he moved here after your parents’ divorce.”
I frown. “Uh, no. I mean, the NHL sends you where they want you to go.
She hesitates, then asks again. “How… how is your dad?”
I exhale, “He… actually died last year.” Then glance up briefly. “He, uh… took his own life.”
Her face falls, and she puts a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Liam. I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, “Don’t be. He was a piece of shit, Em.
I wanted to think we could have something close to a real relationship when I got drafted here.
And for a little while, we did. But he was an addict, and he got himself into more trouble than he could handle, so he took the easy way out.
I, uh, live in his old house, though. It’s nothing special. ”
“Oh, I figured you’d live in one of those fancy condos near the arena or something, especially after you told me your face is two stories tall on the side of the building.”
I huff a humorless laugh. “Nah. My contracts haven’t been that great, and I had some other financial obligations.”
She looks concerned, or maybe confused. “I thought pro hockey players made, like, millions a year.”
“Some do. Elite players, which I’m not.”
“You’re a starter, though,” she says, then she blushes again, and my cock does that jerky thing again.
“Were you looking me up, Emma Reyes?” I ask.
“On the train, I...” she hides her face in her hands.
“But never before that?” I ask, opening the door to a real conversation, the conversation I should be having with her.
She sits back in her seat.
Licks her lips.
Good lord, how do little things like that make my body go crazy?
“It seemed...better...if I didn’t look you up.” She blows out a long breath that flutters her curly bangs. “I didn’t want to be tempted.”
“To find me?” I ask.
She nods, looks off into the distance. “Did you finish your degree at Minnesota?”
“Did you go to art school?” I counter. She doesn’t just get to ask me questions without answering mine.
“No,” she says. “No, I didn’t.”
“Me neither,” I say. “I did two years then left for the draft.”
“Do you regret that?” she asks.
I narrow my eyes.
“What?” she asks.
“I just...I don’t want to talk about college, Emma.”
“Well, then, what do you want to talk about?”
I level her with a stare, and she starts picking at her cuticles again.
“Emma, why did you leave?”
She doesn’t answer me. At first, I think she’s considering how to answer the question. But then she stands and says, “I’ve got to go. I just wanted to come check in on you.”
“Emma,” I say.
“I’m sorry, Liam. I’m glad you’re well enough to get out of here. I was worried. It was good to see you.”
And then she leaves.
She fucking leaves, just right out the door.
I let out a frustrated growl and hit my call button. When the nurse comes in, I ask her to gather my belongings. “I’m going home.”
“Liam, the doctor hasn’t signed off on your release paperwork yet.”
“I don’t care,” I say. “I need to get the fuck out of here, and he said I’d probably go home later today anyway.”
“I advise against—”
“Thank you,” I say. “But please get my things.”
“Well, your shirt was cut when you—”
“Fine. Get me what you can. Please.”
It must be that final plea, because she nods once and slips out of the room.
Twenty minutes later, I’m free of tubes and wires, wobbling on my feet as I pull on my jeans and lace my shoes. I’m still shirtless when a nurse comes in, blinking at the mess of bruises across my chest and shoulders.
She clears her throat and hands me a folded t-shirt. “I grabbed this from lost and found.”
“Thanks.”
The shirt’s snug across my chest, but it’ll do.
I grab my phone and call an Uber.
“It’s been real,” I mutter to the nurse as I head out, trying to sound casual, trying to look like I’m fine.
Like it doesn’t hurt at all.
Like Emma Reyes didn’t just walk back into my life and rip open a wound I’ve spent six years pretending had healed.