Chapter 9 Gio
Gio
I’m halfway through taping my stick when my phone vibrates against the bench. Once.
I ignore it.
Tape tightens under my fingers. Pull. Tear. Smooth. The routine works because it always has. Control lives in repetition. Noise stays out if you don’t give it a seam.
Morning skate is brutal on purpose. Earlier than anyone needs. Earlier than anyone wants. Coach calls it discipline. I call it containment.
The rink lights are too bright for how early it is, the building still half-asleep outside these walls.
The vibration hits again. Twice this time.
“Rossi.”
Adrian’s voice doesn’t carry. It doesn’t have to. He’s on my left like a shadow with a heartbeat, eyes on my hands, not my face.
I keep taping. A beat.
Then he adds, quieter, “Check it.”
“I’m busy,” I say.
He doesn’t respond right away. Quiet is his language. It sits on my shoulder like weight.
Then, almost like he can’t help the precision, he nods at my stick. “You’ve taped that thing three times.”
I stop. Look down.
He’s right. The blade’s already sealed. Clean. Perfect.
Fuck.
I pick up the phone.
Unknown group chat. Someone added me five minutes ago. No intro. No context. Just a screenshot sitting at the top like a corpse.
It only takes one asshole with my number and a platform that doesn’t care what I consent to.
A campus account. The Briarcliff Whisperer. Anonymous handle. Text post, stark white against black.
Guess which star hockey player has a secret DUI arrest that his rich daddy swept under the rug? #BriarcliffWhisperer
Overnight.
Of course it’s overnight.
My throat goes tight. Recognition hits first.
This is worse.
“Jesus,” Adrian mutters, leaning in before I can stop him.
“Don’t,” I snap.
He straightens immediately. No apology. No pushback. Just a clean retreat like he touched a hot wire and decided he likes his skin. “Alright.”
The chat starts moving.
Who is it?
Rossi?
No way.
Money talks, I guess.
My jaw locks. I don’t type. Don’t react. Don’t give it oxygen.
Silence has always been the rule in my family. The first one. The only one that mattered. You protect people. You protect the name. You take the hit and keep your mouth shut because it gets handled above your head.
Except it doesn’t feel like handling anymore.
It feels like handing them the leash.
The locker room door opens, and Dante walks in, gear bag slung over his shoulder. He slows when he clocks my posture. Assessment—like he’s checking for blood he can’t see.
Cole follows, quiet, eyes sweeping once across the room and landing on me like a measurement.
Declan drifts in a second later, silent, gaze sharp as he takes in the tension radiating off the wall.
No one asks what’s wrong first.
They look for who else is watching. Who’s listening. Who’ll use it.
Dante flicks his gaze to my phone. “That the Whisperer thing?”
I don’t answer.
Cole’s chin tips toward the door. “Coach is headed this way.”
That lands cleaner than an invitation. A warning. A staff text I didn’t see. A ripple that reaches the office before it reaches the rink.
Declan’s voice goes low. “What the hell is going on?”
Adrian’s eyes cut to my face like he’s reading the answer off it. He doesn’t say anything this time. He just watches.
“It’s worse,” I say.
I stand, shove my phone into my locker hard enough to rattle the door. The sound carries. A couple heads turn. I don’t care.
I hate that I do care.
Both can be true.
Dante’s mouth twitches like he almost smiles and decides against it. “You gonna tell us what just lit you up, or are we guessing?”
“You don’t want to guess,” I say.
Cole’s voice comes low and flat. “Try me.”
Dante points his chin at my locker. “Random hate account decide you’re today’s entertainment?”
Adrian steps in front of me just enough to block sightlines from the rest of the room. Tactical. His shoulder cuts off angles. His presence tells everyone else: not here.
He doesn’t speak.
I feel him anyway. Like pressure behind the eyes.
My jaw tightens. “I’m fine.”
Declan’s mouth twitches. Not amused. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“You want a play-by-play?” I ask. “Get a fucking subscription.”
Dante lets out one short sound through his nose. Not laughter. A blade. “There he is.”
Cole’s gaze narrows. “If this is about the rumors going around—”
I snap my head up. “Don’t say it in here.”
The room shifts. A few guys go still. The air changes.
That’s the thing about a locker room—privacy isn’t a door. It’s consent.
And I just revoked it.
Declan’s stare doesn’t move. “You’ve got all of us standing here, and you’re still acting like you’re alone.”
“I am alone,” I say.
No one argues with volume. They don’t need to.
Dante’s voice goes hard. “No. You’re choosing it.”
That hits cleaner than it should.
Because it’s true in the way that makes you want to break something.
Before I can answer, the locker room door opens.
Coach Addison steps in.
Conversation dies on impact. Automatic. Like a switch flipped. He doesn’t scan the room. No voice lift. Just a look at me like I’m a problem he’s already decided how to solve.
“Rossi,” he says.
Not loud. Doesn’t need to be.
I meet his eyes.
He holds up his phone. Doesn’t show me the screen. He doesn’t have to.
“Explain what I’m looking at,” he says.
I don’t rush it. Count a breath. Two. Three.
The air in the room thins.
Because I’m used to being the one who decides when I move.
And right now, he’s the one holding the timing.
“It’s a lie,” I say, voice steady. “Old drama. Wrong context.”
My stomach twists like it remembers being sixteen. Like it remembers my father’s hand on the back of my neck—firm, casual, ownership disguised as guidance.
Family protects family. Don’t embarrass us. Keep your mouth shut, and I’ll keep my promises.
I can’t explain it. If I tell him the truth—that the report exists, that the arrest happened, but it wasn’t me behind the wheel—I detonate everything my father built on top of it. I blow a hole through a deal I never agreed to and a name I’ve been forced to wear like a sentence.
Coach’s face tightens. Disappointment edges in first. Like I just dodged him on purpose.
“That’s not how it’s being framed,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “It’s being weaponized.”
“Good,” he says. “Then you understand the problem.”
“I understand it fine.”
“You don’t,” he snaps, and that’s the first real crack of heat. Not emotional. Territorial. “Because if you did, you’d stop treating me like I’m the enemy.”
That lands.
Silence hits the room like a puck to the ribs. One beat. Two.
Declan’s voice breaks it, quiet but lethal. “Coach’s not wrong.”
Coach doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t need to. His eyes stay on me, surgical.
“I care if it’s true,” he says, and the correction is immediate, clean. “If somebody got hurt, I don’t protect you from consequences. I protect this program from rot.”
My pulse jumps. A recalibration.
Reckless isn’t his style. Blind isn’t either. The man just isn’t gentle.
“But I also care about what it does while we figure it out,” he continues. “Because right now it’s the first thing scouts see when they Google your name. Silence won’t cut it this time, Rossi.”
Coach’s eyes flick once—permission and warning at the same time—then back to me.
“You’re skating on thin ice. And you’re dragging attention with you.”
He’s not talking about my feelings. He’s talking about the rink, the roster, the donors, the recruiters—the machine that eats boys and spits out headlines.
Jurisdiction.
That’s what this is.
He’s reminding me who owns the ice when my name becomes a liability.
“I’m not letting it touch the ice,” I say.
“You don’t get to decide that alone anymore,” he replies. “Honesty. With me. Or I handle it like I handle any liability.”
“Coach—”
He cuts me off. “You want me in your corner? Stop lying by omission.”
Then he turns and leaves.
The door shuts.
The quiet that follows is expensive.
For a second, I just stand there with my hands at my sides like I’m waiting for permission to move.
I hate that.
I hate it more than the post.
Dante runs a hand over his mouth like he’s holding himself back from saying something dumber. He doesn’t.
Good.
Cole looks at my locker, then back at me. He doesn’t offer comfort. He offers a fact. “He’s pissed because he gives a shit.”
Declan’s arms cross tighter. “That account’s already getting traction.”
I nod once. That’s all they get.
Adrian’s presence shifts—half a step, and suddenly he’s in my peripheral again, a reminder that he saw all of it and didn’t flinch. He doesn’t ask. He waits.
“And you’re not responding,” he says.
“No.”
Dante’s voice is dry. “So what are you doing?”
I don’t answer right away. Because something already changed and I can feel it in my skin.
When Coach walked in, the room went quiet. When the post hit, the campus got loud.
Different arenas. Same rule.
Silence isn’t containment anymore.
It’s permission.
And the problem isn’t the rumor. It’s who the rumor gets to touch while it spreads.
I see it in flashes instead of explanations.
A recruit’s mother Googling my name. A donor deciding we’re not worth the optics.
A teammate’s highlight reel getting framed by my scandal.
Declan’s future getting threaded to mine because we share a locker room.
The program taking the hit and resenting me for it.
And then— Zoe Barnes.
She moves through this campus like a verdict. No stains. No donor blood to resent. Just competence and a reputation people defend without realizing they’re doing it. Approval isn’t the currency here. Respect is.
That’s harder to poison.
My first instinct is to put my hand on that anyway.
It tastes wrong in my mouth. Like stealing. Like debt.
Saving me isn’t the point.
She’s the one person on this campus who won’t accept omission. She doesn’t let people hide behind noise. She names what she sees and makes you either own it or choke on it.
That should make me stay away.
It doesn’t.