Chapter 24
Justin POV
The underground loading tunnel beneath The Forge was a concrete trench of freezing drafts, exhaust sulfur, and damp road salt.
Above my head, the mechanical whine of the arena's central ventilation grid hummed through the exposed iron ductwork, vibrating down the foundation into the soles of my winter boots. Outside the roll-up service gate, a freezing Adirondack drizzle coated the asphalt in a greasy, gray skin.
Sixty-three days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
I had just walked out of a forty-minute defensive zone video debrief with Coach Hauer.
My right AC joint felt solid, carrying none of the stabbing ache that had plagued me in November.
My canvas gear bag hung from my left shoulder, my truck keys looped around my forefinger, my mind already forty blocks south on Cumberland Avenue where Penny was waiting with her thesis notes.
I rounded the rusted steel support column beside the compressor intake.
A figure stepped out from the shadow of the electrical alcove, blocking the narrow runway to the player parking exit.
"Still taking the inside lane, aren't you, Ibarra?"
The voice was like a wire dragged across rust.
My boots stopped on the slick concrete.
The air left my lungs in a sharp, dry hitch. My vision narrowed down to a brutal, suffocating tunnel, the peripheral concrete blurring into black edges as the blood behind my eardrums surged with the concussive roar of an engine block seizing.
Wade Kozak stood four feet in front of me.
He had aged five years into bitter ruin.
His frame was bloated around the middle, draped in a worn imitation leather jacket reeking of stale menthol tobacco, damp wool, and gin.
A thin gray comb-over was plastered to his forehead by the freezing mist, his yellowed eyes carrying the same predatory malice they had worn five years ago in Wisconsin.
Assistant Coach, Green Bay Gamblers.
The architect of my personal graveyard.
A sickening, phantom weight slammed into my breastbone, cold and suffocating.
Five years ago. October twenty-eight.
Kozak had been the one screaming into my ear on the bench, demanding blood after a clean hit on our center.
Kozak had shoved me over the boards, ordering me to take the opposing winger’s head off after the whistle.
I had taken the retaliatory misconduct penalty because I was seventeen and stupid enough to listen to him.
And while I sat in the box, locked behind glass, Kozak sent Mateo onto the ice for the ensuing face-off.
The sound of my seventeen-year-old brother’s neck snapping against the unlatched bench gate echoed in my ears, fresh as an open fracture.
"You're trespassing, Kozak," I rasped, my voice dropping into a flat, deadly register that vibrated off the concrete.
Kozak chuckled, a wet, rattling cough that ended in a smirk. "Public university facility, Justin. Just came to see how Boston’s second-round investment was looking before the holiday tournament."
He took a slow step forward, his hands shoved into the pockets of his cheap jacket.
"Saw Raymond Cole leaving the rink an hour ago," Kozak continued, his eyes glittering with grease. "Word on the scouting wire is you're holding out for a direct NHL roster slot. Nine hundred and fifty thousand base salary. Ninety-five thousand signing bonus upon execution in April."
My jaw locked so hard my back teeth ached. "Get out of my way."
"Not so fast, kid," Kozak sneered, his voice dropping into a venomous, calculated whisper.
"You remember that night in Green Bay? You remember the emergency surgery Mateo had at St. Vincent's?
Your mother didn't have the forty thousand dollars for the spinal decompression hardware.
But the Gamblers' booster club had a discretionary cash drawer, didn't they?
And I was the one who handed you the envelope behind the arena dumpster. "
The metallic tang of old copper flooded the back of my tongue.
"That wasn't a booster payout," I growled, my left fist balling inside my coat pocket until the knuckles turned white as bone. "It was an emergency medical loan. Every cent was paid back when my mother sold the house in Massena."
"The receipt doesn't say loan, Justin," Kozak whispered, tapping his temple with a dirty fingernail.
"The paper in my storage locker says illegal collegiate cash inducement.
Direct violation of NCAA Bylaw 12. You took booster money while you were an amateur.
You hand that to the compliance committee, and your senior year vanishes.
Your records get stripped. And Boston voids the contract before you ever touch pro ice. "
* * *
The tunnel air turned suffocating, thick with sulfur and old blood.
Kozak smiled that greasy, rotting smile.
"Thirty thousand dollars, Ibarra. That’s all it takes for that paper to disappear into a burn barrel.
You wire thirty grand to my account before the Lake Placid tournament, and you get to wear the Bruins sweater.
You refuse, and I send a copy to Dean Sterling and Raymond Cole on Monday morning. "
A red haze burned behind my eyes.
I let my canvas gear bag slip from my shoulder. It hit the wet concrete floor with a heavy, muted thud.
I took two slow, deliberate strides forward.
At six-foot-four and two hundred and twenty-eight pounds, my frame completely swallowed Kozak’s shadow. I towered over him, my shoulders locking, my chest expanding as my pulse hammered against my ribs like a sledgehammer.
Every nerve ending in my body screamed to take him. To drive my right fist straight through his bridge, to pin his throat against the concrete wall and squeeze until the poison stopped leaking from his mouth.
I could kill him in thirty seconds in this empty tunnel.
Control the room.
The thought tore through my skull, cold and brutal.
If I threw a punch, Kozak went straight to the campus police.
An assault charge meant an instant suspension from Dean Sterling.
It meant Raymond Cole tore up the contract.
It meant Mateo’s five-day-a-week physical therapy in Watertown was terminated before the New Year.
My masseter muscles knotted so hard a violent tremor ran through the side of my neck. I forced my hands to remain inside my pockets, my fingers digging into my own palms until the nails bit through the skin.
"You don't have a damn thing, Kozak," I rasped, the gravel in my voice thick with suppressed fury.
"That paper was signed by the team physician.
It was cleared by junior compliance five years ago.
You're a broke, washed-up drunk looking for a handout because you got fired from every junior barn in the Midwest."
Kozak’s smile didn't fade. It curdled into something far more dangerous.
He pulled out a damp match, striking it against the concrete wall, lighting a bent menthol cigarette before shaking the flame out.
He blew a stream of sour gray smoke into the space between our faces.
"Maybe the paper holds up, maybe it doesn't," Kozak murmured, his yellowed eyes narrowing. "A formal NCAA investigation takes six months, Justin. Boston isn't waiting six months to sign an unsigned senior. They'll let your rights lapse on August fifteenth and pick up a free agent."
He tilted his head, his gaze sliding past my shoulder toward the service tunnel leading down to Subterranean Lab 04.
"And while compliance is digging through your files," Kozak whispered, the venom coating every syllable, "maybe they look into that pretty little brunette student trainer you've been keeping locked in the basement. Penny Correa, right?"
My world stopped moving.
The concrete, the hum of the compressors, the smell of grease—all of it dissolved into a single, blinding pinpoint of pure, feral rage.
"What did you say?" The words weren't loud. They were a razor sliding across an artery, stripped of all humanity.
"I've been in town for three days, Justin," Kozak chuckled, taking another drag of his cigarette.
"I know how to watch an arena. I saw her walking out to your truck on Monday. I saw her in that emerald dress at the hotel. Wonder what Dr. Vance and the ethics committee would do with an anonymous tip about their star blueliner sleeping with his assigned medical researcher. She’s up for that forty-five-thousand-dollar Vanderveer fellowship, isn't she?
Be a real shame if her academic standing got flushed down the toilet with your career. "
He crossed the line.
I didn't throw a punch.
I moved with the terrifying, explosive speed of a defenseman closing a gap at thirty miles an hour.
My left hand shot out from my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the greasy collar of his leather jacket. In a single, violent surge of momentum, I drove Kozak backward four feet, slamming his spine hard against the rusted steel support column.
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs in a wet, choking wheeze. The lit cigarette flew from his lips, hissing into a puddle on the floor.
I leaned in until my face was an inch from his, my forearm pressed across his throat, pinning him to the steel with enough pressure to bruise the cartilage.
"Listen to me, you miserable parasite," I whispered, the gravel in my voice so low, so unhinged and cold, that the yellow bravado in Kozak’s eyes instantly vanished, replaced by pure, naked terror.
"You don't speak her name. You don't look in her direction.
If you ever come within a mile of Penny Correa, I will not call the police. I will not call an agent."
I leaned closer, my teeth bared, my hot breath washing over his pale, sweating cheek.
"I will track you down," I promised, each word an iron nail driven into his skull.
"I will break every bone in your body, and I will leave you where nobody will ever find you.
You have one hour to get out of Plattsburgh.
If I see your face in this county again, you won't live long enough to cash a check. "
I released his collar.
Kozak slid down the column, his knees buckling, his boots splashing in the muddy runoff as he choked for air, his hands clutching his bruised throat. He looked up at me, his face drained of all color, staring at a predator who had completely stopped playing by the rules of society.
He didn't say a word. He scrambled to his feet, stumbled past the electrical alcove, and broke into a frantic, limping run out the loading dock into the freezing rain.
* * *
I didn't remember driving down Cumberland Avenue.
The wipers scraped uselessly against the windshield, smearing freezing drizzle across the glass. My hands were locked onto the steering wheel at ten and two, shaking with an uncontrollable, violent tremor of pure, suppressed adrenaline.
My chest heaved in ragged, uneven hitches, my lungs pulling in the dry heat of the cab, but I couldn't get enough air. The walls were closing in. Five years of burying the guilt, five years of paying the bills, and the past had crawled out of the ditch to put its filthy hands on Penny.
She's up for that fellowship. Be a real shame if her standing got flushed.
The words echoed in my skull like hammer blows.
I pulled into the gravel drive of the carriage house, killed the engine, and practically tore the truck door off its latch.
I took the porch steps in two strides, my key trembling as I jammed it into the brass lock.
I shoved the heavy timber door open and stepped inside.
The sensory contrast hit my chest like blunt trauma.
The apartment was warm, lit by the gentle, amber glow of the birch hearth. The air smelled of cedarwood, lavender soap, and hot peppermint tea.
Penny was curled up on the leather sofa, wearing my gray Ironclads hoodie, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulders as she looked up from her biomechanics binder.
When she saw me, her face lit up with a soft, radiant smile that cut straight through the black poison choking my throat.
"Hey," she said, her voice warm and sweet. "You're back early—"
I didn't answer.
I let my truck keys drop to the floorboards with a sharp clatter.
I crossed the living room in three long, predatory strides.
Before she could stand, I reached down, caught her beneath the arms, and hauled her hundred and twenty-two pounds clean off the leather cushions into my chest.
Penny let out a small, startled gasp, her hands flying up to clutch my shoulders as I pulled her flush against my body.
I buried my face into the warm crook of her neck, my forehead pressing into her pulse point, my arms locking around her waist in a crushing, desperate grip that pulled her feet off the floor.
I held her like she was the only solid thing left on a collapsing earth.
My entire frame shuddered against hers, my breaths coming in ragged, shallow gasps against the smooth skin of her throat.
"Justin," she breathed, her voice softening instantly, her hands moving to cradle the back of my head, her fingers tangling in my dark hair. "Justin, what happened? You're shaking."
I couldn't tell her. I couldn't taint her with the filth of Wade Kozak, or the debts, or the threat hanging over her fellowship. I had to bury it alone.
I just tightened my grip, holding her until our heartbeats collided through the fleece of our clothes, breathing in the scent of her skin, desperate to drown out the smell of menthol tobacco and wet concrete.
"Don't leave me, Penny," I rasped, the words tearing out of my chest, raw, ruined, and completely stripped of pride. "Don't ever leave me."
Penny didn't ask another question.
She just wrapped her arms tighter around my neck, holding the enforcer in the dark, her heart beating a steady, fearless rhythm against mine as the storm raged outside our door.