61. Bite me for Christmas #2
Dyers’s family claim these publications are not only slanderous, but proof he is the victim of a hate campaign.
The NCAA announced late last week they’d be investigating the veracity of these claims, but the first step in that investigation appears to have led to the termination of Ridley’s contract.
The entire situation began with Dyers’s arrest at the beginning of Christmas break, thanks to his assault of an NYPD parking agent. As video footage of his arrest spread online, stories trickled out of the forward’s behavior on campus. Some were difficult to confirm, others less so.
Photographic evidence of Dyers’s repeated use of drugs before games as well as at parties and events at his fraternity, Rho Beta Epsilon, were published on social media by an anonymous account born in the aftermath of Dyers’s arrest. Acting as a whistleblower, this account is feeding revelations to the wider public of the college student’s volatile behavior and criminal activities.
Dyers’s counsel claims that these pictures are not proof, just AI deep fakes, but more stories have trickled forward of Dyers’s time on and off the ice. Abuse of women, both physical and sexual, alongside verbal intimidation of teammates.
To make matters worse for the forward, these “activities” line up with his father, Brutus Dyers, Consul General of the US Consulate to Edinburgh, UK, donating a substantial amount of money to the college.
Last year, Dyers was spotted snorting cocaine with a woman alleged to be a prostitute—two days later, his father paid for a new endowment. The donation of a state-of-the-art gym at the campus’ hockey facility followed Dyers’s bullying of a fellow frat brother.
If this is a smear campaign, it’s cleverly executed and systematically carried out. Clearly, it has bite. Ridley covered up several complaints by Dyers’s teammates—a school spokesperson has confirmed that he will no longer be working with the Dukes.
Is there enough evidence to permanently suspend Dyers? The NCAA’s investigation will hopefully uncover the truth.
“Who sent you that?” I stroke my hand over Victoria’s shoulder.
“Callan.”
My lips purse. “He’s a strange one.”
“I think he’d say the same about you. You made him jump out of his skin when he knocked on my door last week and you walked out.”
“Can I help that he’s jumpy?”
“He’s gone to the extremes for us,” she corrects. “You need to be nice to him.”
“All these men you’re collecting. Do I have to be nice to every single one of them?”
“That’s what happens when your wife has friends,” she teases. “Oooh, you haven’t seen this yet.”
“What is it?”
“Denver, Callan, and Uncle Conor’s plan of action. It’s what led to the article being published.”
“Ahh, the car situation.”
From a doorbell camera, I watch as the son of a bitch I met at the Veronian lodge runs out into the street as a police officer tickets his car.
At least, that was my initial impression.
“Can’t you read?!” Dyers yells. “I have a permit!”
“This isn’t about a permit, sir,” the NYPD officer drawls, ignoring Dyers as he goes about attaching the chains to the Lamborghini. “You owe over fourteen thousand dollars of unpaid parking tickets to the City of New York. This is the authorization to tow form and a receipt—”
Things go from strange to crazy when a bunch of pedestrians fall into a flash mob.
A bunch of characters from The Rocky Horror Picture Show dancing to Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango” overwhelm the small camera, and the music blasts choppily in time to the jerky movements that the camera’s resolution is too slow to keep up with.
When they disappear as swiftly as they appeared, hollering, “He had it coming!” into the distance, Dyers’s Lambo is a disaster. Not only has it been keyed, but the word RAPIST is tagged onto the fender.
“This is your fault! Are you even a cop?! Why aren’t you going after them? They should be arrested for defacing private property!”
That’s when the moron’s entitlement overtakes common sense.
Dyers grabs ahold of the officer’s collar and shakes him.
“Holy shit!” I bark.
She might’ve seen it before, but she still cascades into delighted giggles. Giggles that switch into outright laughter when Dyers is quickly shoved aside, twisted, and planted onto his hood so he can be cuffed.
When a cop car shows up that he’s dumped into, a patch of bright green paint from the “S” splattered onto his cheek, his own ride’s towed…
“I was wrong about that kid,” I agree with a wry chuckle.
“That was all Denver. I think Uncle Conor just got Callan into the social security system.”
I whistle. “No small feat.”
“And so begins Dyers's public humiliation, that rapist piece of shit.”
“Before he dies?”
“The Veronians haven’t killed him yet,” she points out with a moue.
“My bloodthirsty bride.” I let her feel the effect her mean streak has on me.
“What he did to Denver was unnecessarily cruel. He deserved to be cut down to size for that alone. Knowing he raped Lex’s sister?” she scoffs. “Taking away hockey, outing him as a sex pest, and shaming the administration weren’t enough of a punishment. Now, I can’t wait until he’s in the ground.”
I slot my fingers with hers. “I feel the same way about rapists.”
She arches a brow. “I doubt it. Women feel it differently than men.”
“Sexism, pchelka?” When she pulls a face, I murmur, “I saw Nikolai be hurt in such a way when I was very young. It can’t be said that the other encounters were…
consensual. Not at his age. But he’d say they were because he needed the money.
On this occasion, it wasn’t. I had to take him to a doctor.
He fought it too. We were more strapped for cash than usual.
” I glance at her. “You can’t say a word to him. ”
“Of course not!”
“It was before he joined the Bratva.” My gaze turns distant. “Knowing what he did, some men misunderstood. The boys in his house, they assumed…” The words fall from my lips in a staccato burst. “One day, they tried to catch me. Once he joined the Bratva, that never happened again.
“Then, remember, Misha was almost abused as a child before we escaped the orphanage where we all met.”
“You poor boys.”
Taking note of the tears in her eyes, tears for us, I use my free hand to swipe over her cheek. “Do not cry for us, zaya. We are not forgotten anymore.”
“Thank goodness for that!”
“But men know the pain of rape too. That’s all I’m saying.” Hesitantly, I tack on, “Once, long before us… I dated a woman who had issues. I couldn’t blame her. The spiral is intense and difficult to free yourself from.”
“What do you mean?”
“She liked certain things. To hurt.” I hesitate. “To bleed. For me to make her bleed.”
“Why?”
“She was one of Abramovicz’s favorites.” Her eyes flare wide. “I should not be discussing this on Christmas.”
“Tell me.”
I wince. “I always hated him, but he treated the whores atrociously. I earned a reputation for… pleasure. This particular woman—”
“Say her name. She has a name.”
“Alyona. He’d be particularly brutal on her. Often, she’d come to me for pleasure and pain. Sex has always been twisted in my head, and sleeping with her fucked things up even more. She pressed for more. Always more. But she consented, zaya. You must believe that—”
“Of course I do! What happened to her?”
“She killed herself.” I bury my face in her throat. “Abramovicz used a knife on her. When he took you, blyad, I wanted to slice him from mouth to balls, Victoria. I couldn’t have… If I let you get hurt by that animal on my watch, I’d never have forgiven myself.”
Her fingers stroke through my hair. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Only by the grace of God. I never want you to be afraid of me, Victoria. You must tell me—”
“Hey! Shush.”
“You must!”
“And I will. I know where the knives are, Maxim.” She presses a kiss to my temple. “I’m not afraid to use them.”
“Good,” I bite off. “Always get first blood, katyonok. Even with me—always.”
The truth sinks between us but so does her acceptance. For a while, she continues petting my hair, then an alarm on her phone sounds and she heaves a sigh. “It’ll be a Christmas miracle if you make it out of an O’Donnelly family Christmas without getting into a fight with Brennan and Eoghan.”
I hear the teasing in her voice and make an effort to shove the past aside. It’s difficult but this is our first Christmas together and I won’t let anything spoil it. “I can hold my own.”
“Oh, I know you can. But you can’t hurt them—”
“You’re tying my hands behind my back?!”
“They raised me, Maxim. So you have to be nice.”
“All this ‘be nice,’” I jeer. “You do know I’m a monster, kotik. It isn’t good for my soul to be nice to so many people.”
She pats my cheek. “You mean mobster.”
“I got it right the first time.”
“I have ways of saying ‘thank you.’”
“Oh?”
Her smile turns devious. “You haven’t opened any of your presents yet…”