Chapter 28
Justin POV
The television camera lights mounted on the metal trusses above the media room were hot enough to bake the grease on my forehead.
Ten microphones were taped to the scarred wooden lectern in front of my chest, branded with regional network flags from Burlington, Albany, and Boston.
Shuttered camera lenses clicked in a continuous, deafening cadence, fifty sports reporters packed shoulder-to-shoulder on metal folding chairs, their breath smelling of damp winter wool and bad cafeteria coffee.
Forty-seven days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
My right hand rested flat on the laminate surface, my knuckles bruised and stiff from an hour of live-contact board drills against our second line.
Beneath my black Garrison varsity polo, the rigid strapping tape held my clavicle secure, but my jaw muscles were aching from an hour of clamping my teeth shut against the noise.
A reporter from the Boston Globe stood in the third row, pointing a digital recorder at my throat.
"Ibarra, Raymond Cole has been spotted in the director's box for three consecutive weeks," the man called out, his voice sharp and aggressive.
"There are reports Boston is preparing a maximum Entry-Level Contract the morning after the national tournament.
Are you signing with the Bruins, or are you testing free agency on August fifteenth? "
A thick vein throbbed behind my left temple, the pulse heavy and violent against the bone.
"My focus is on Clarkson this Saturday," I said, my voice coming out in a flat, deadened monotone that gave the room nothing. "What happens in April belongs to my agent."
A beat writer from Plattsburgh leaned forward, his eyes hungry for a headline.
"You took eighty-four penalty minutes as a junior, Justin.
Word out of the league office is that officials are watching your net-front play closely.
Can an enforcer lead this program to an ECAC title without drawing a major misconduct that costs your team the season? "
The room went quiet, waiting for the crack in the stone. They wanted the brawler from Green Bay. They wanted the kid who put opposing wingers through the glass and kicked water bottles into the tunnel.
I looked the reporter dead in the eye, letting the cold silence stretch until the man shifted in his seat.
"I play sixty minutes of disciplined hockey for Garrison University," I rumbled, the gravel in my voice cutting cleanly beneath the hum of the audio monitors.
"My penalty minutes are down by seventy percent.
If you want to talk about defensive-zone coverage, ask a question. If you want drama, buy a ticket."
The reporter’s mouth twitched, but he sat back down without another word.
Coach Bradley Hauer stepped up to the side of the dais, tapping his watch with a blunt forefinger. "That's all for the captain, gentlemen. Clear the runway."
I pushed away from the lectern, my shoulders broad and unbending under the glare of the flashbulbs, and stepped through the double fire doors into the quiet of the athletic administration corridor.
* * *
Hauer didn't walk toward the locker room.
His thick fingers clamped around my left bicep with an iron grip that pulled me three paces to the right, toward the private administrative wing.
"Coach?"
"Third floor," Hauer muttered, his jaw tight as a drawn bowstring, not looking at me. "Dean Sterling wants us right now."
The private executive office of Dean Arthur Sterling was suffocatingly warm, smelling of cedar polish, radiator steam, and old paper. The blinds were drawn against the gray Adirondack twilight, casting the room in dim, amber shadows.
Dean Sterling sat behind his massive mahogany desk, his wool suit jacket discarded over a chair, his silver hair disheveled. Standing by the window, staring down at the frozen campus quad with his arms crossed, was Dr. Marcus Vance.
On the center of the leather desk blotter lay a single sheet of paper stamped with a red border: OFFICE OF ATHLETIC COMPLIANCE - FORMAL INQUIRY.
My stomach dropped into an icy, bottomless pit.
"Shut the door, Bradley," Sterling said, his voice stripped of its usual booster-greeting warmth.
Hauer clicked the latch shut, leaning his heavy back against the wood.
I stood in the center of the Persian rug, my feet planted shoulder-width apart, my face a mask of carved granite.
Sterling picked up the document with two fingers, sliding it across the mahogany toward my beltline.
"This was faxed to the athletic director's office and NCAA compliance at eleven-thirty this morning," Sterling said, his eyes hard behind wire-rimmed glasses. "An anonymous formal complaint. Two specific allegations, Justin."
The blood in my ears began to roar, a high, deafening whine.
"First," Sterling continued, "an allegation that you accepted thirty thousand dollars in undeclared, illicit booster stipends through an assistant coach during your junior career with the Green Bay Gamblers to cover family medical expenses.
If verified, that is a retroactive violation of amateur status under Bylaw 12, resulting in immediate forfeiture of your collegiate eligibility. "
Wade Kozak.
The name hit my skull like a lead pipe. The bastard hadn't left town. He had pulled the pin on his grenade.
"The second allegation," Sterling said, leaning forward, his gaze cutting into mine with bureaucratic venom, "is an ethics violation under NATA Section 3.
An allegation of an improper, consensual romantic relationship between our senior captain and his assigned lead student biomechanical researcher. "
Dr. Vance turned slowly from the window. His rimless spectacles caught the amber lamp light, his expression grave, disappointed, and cold.
"Penny Correa," Vance said softly, the name echoing in the quiet room like a gunshot.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
Every muscle in my neck corded, the veins standing out like heavy wires against my skin. The violent, animalistic urge to tear the building apart surged into my limbs, but I locked my masseter muscles until my back teeth groaned under the pressure.
Protect her.
The command hammered through my ribs with savage clarity. If an official NCAA investigation was opened, Bylaw 10 mandated an immediate provisional suspension for me. I would sit out Lake Placid. Boston would walk away.
Worse: Vance would be forced to pull Penny’s clinical placement to save his department from an accreditation audit. Her Vanderveer Fellowship nomination would be revoked before sunset.
They would destroy her life to balance their compliance ledger.
"The Green Bay claim is extortion," I rasped, my voice a low, lethal vibration that cut straight across the desk.
"It comes from Wade Kozak, an assistant coach who was fired for negligence five years ago.
The funds were an emergency medical loan signed off by the team physician, and my mother paid back every cent when she sold our home.
I have the bank records in my apartment. "
Sterling didn't blink. "And the allegation regarding Miss Correa?"
"It's a lie manufactured to derail this program before the postseason," I said, staring directly into Dean Sterling’s eyes without a microscopic flicker of fear.
"Penny Correa is a researcher assigned to my shoulder rehabilitation by Dr. Vance.
Every single hour of the one hundred and twenty has been logged in Lab 04, signed by Vance, and submitted to your desk.
There is no relationship. There is a blueliner trying to win a championship and a researcher doing her job. "
The lie tasted like ashes and broken glass on my tongue, but I delivered it with absolute, immovable conviction.
Vance exhaled a slow, heavy breath, looking back toward the snow outside. "Correa’s telemetry work on his AC joint has been verified by the Bruins medical staff, Arthur. She’s an exceptional academic. If we suspend her based on an anonymous rumor, we invite a massive Title IX grievance."
Sterling rubbed his temples, staring down at the red-stamped paper.
"The compliance committee meets on Tuesday," Sterling said, looking up at me with cold warning.
"I can delay the formal inquiry for five days, Justin.
But if hard proof surfaces—if a single photograph or an eyewitness confirms fraternization—I will strip your sweater, bench you for the tournament, and terminate her clinical credits before the morning skate. Am I understood?"
"Understood," I said.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the office, the air leaving my lungs in a burning, ragged hiss.
* * *
The athlete parking lot was shrouded in a bitter, sub-zero twilight, the Adirondack wind whipping snow off the frozen hoods of forty parked trucks.
I marched across the salt-stained asphalt, my hands jammed into the pockets of my black wool varsity jacket, my keys gripped so tightly inside my fist that the brass bit into my palm.
My vision was blood-red at the edges. Kozak had crossed the line. He was sniffing around Penny, and Garrett Shaw was probably the rat feeding him the room numbers.
I reached the shadowed overhang near the private players' exit.
A figure was standing against the industrial brick wall, sheltered from the freezing wind by the concrete lintel.
Penny.
She was wrapped in her oversized black Garrison parka, the hood pulled low, a thick cream scarf wound twice around her neck. She looked small against the massive foundation of The Forge, her shoulders slightly hunched, her breath pluming in faint, rhythmic puffs against the dark.
Beneath the down fabric of her coat, her left hand was resting still, flat, and protective over her lower abdomen.
Her face was pale as river ice, her hazel eyes shadowed with an inexplicable, bone-deep exhaustion that made my chest seize with an agonizing, breathless terror.
The red haze of my fury vanished in a single heartbeat.
The NCAA compliance inquiry, Wade Kozak, Raymond Cole, the ECAC Championship—all of it evaporated into meaningless static.
There was only her.
I covered the twenty feet between us in three long, desperate strides.
Penny looked up as my boots crunched on the gravel, her lips parting around a soft, startled breath. "Justin—"
I didn't let her finish.
I caught her beneath the arms, lifting her hundred and twenty-two pounds off the icy concrete, kicking open the passenger door of my idling truck. I set her onto the high leather seat, climbed in immediately behind her, and pulled the door shut, locking the latch with a heavy, definitive click.
The cab was warm, smelling of cedarwood, old leather, and the dry heat pouring from the dashboard vents.
I didn't move to the driver’s seat.
I hauled her across the center console, pulling her body flush against my chest until she was seated sideways in my lap, her boots resting against the passenger door, her thighs bracketed by mine.
My arms wrapped around her back in a crushing, desperate hold, pulling her so tight against my sternum that I could feel the rapid, frantic flutter of her pulse through her down coat.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck, my forehead pressing into her pulse point, inhaling the sweet almond scent of her skin like a man who had been suffocating underwater for hours.
"Justin," she gasped, her hands coming up to clutch the collar of my wool coat, her fingers trembling against my jaw. "Justin, what's wrong? What happened upstairs?"
A violent shudder ripped through the corded muscles of my shoulders.
I couldn't tell her about the compliance fax. I couldn't tell her that Dean Sterling was five days away from tearing her Vanderveer Fellowship to shreds.
I just tightened my arms, holding her against my heart, holding her like the world was crumbling outside the frosted glass.
"Stay right here," I rasped against her skin, my voice raw, broken, and thick with an unhinged, feral possession. "Good girl. Let me hold you. I've got you, Penny. I've got you."
Penny let out a long, trembling breath, her head dropping forward onto my shoulder, her fingers tangling into the short hair at the back of my neck.
Beneath her coat, her small hand remained resting against her belly, warm and still.
I closed my eyes in the dark truck, holding my entire universe in my arms, and made a silent, lethal vow to the shadows gathering over Lake Champlain:
They could come for my contract. They could come for my sweater.
But if anyone tried to touch Penny Correa, I would burn this entire city to the ground before I let them lay a finger on her.