Chapter 16
Mauricio POV
The collar of my dress shirt felt like an iron band welded around my throat.
Ten minutes after Lindqvist’s heavy steps faded down the gallery hall, I stepped out from behind the velvet drape, leaving Kiyomi with enough clearance to circle back toward Table Four without drawing suspicion.
The grand foyer of the Cumberland Club was beginning to thin as the midnight hour approached, the clinking of crystal flutes muffled by the thick Persian rugs running between the marble columns.
A sharp draft cut beneath the oak front doors, carrying the smell of salt ice and freezing exhaust from the valet line outside.
I turned toward the coat check, my fingers loosening my silk tie by a fraction of an inch, when a figure glided out from behind the stone hearth to block my path.
Julian Cross.
The scout was wearing a charcoal cashmere overcoat draped over his tailored tuxedo, holding a half-empty glass of bourbon.
Flanking him was Leland Scott, a prominent regional booster who wrote seven-figure checks to the athletic foundation, and an Eastern Conference scout I recognized from the draft combine seminars.
Cross smiled. It was the greasy, practiced smirk of a loan shark outside a payday window.
"Leaving early, Captain?" Cross asked, his voice smooth, projected just loud enough to turn the heads of two university regents waiting by the brass coat rack.
"I figured you'd want to stay for the silent auction.
They're taking bids on a framed sweater from the ninety-eight championship team.
Might be the only way a Leal touches professional hardware. "
The blood in my veins turned to slush.
My teeth ground together until a sharp ache flared behind my right ear. I didn't shift my weight. I stood planted in the center of the marble runner, six feet, four inches of absolute, immured stone, keeping my hands resting flat against my thighs.
Cross took a sip of his bourbon, leaning in closer, his eyes narrowing with toxic, calculated malice.
"I took a look at the police reports from Scarborough three years back, Mauricio," Cross murmured, letting the names carry across the marble floor.
"An unsanctioned pond scrimmage. An aggressive, undisciplined defenseman who couldn't control his stick, driving his own half-brother into an exposed timber piling.
Left the kid in an electric chair for life. "
A brutal, suffocating pressure slammed into the center of my breastbone.
The room went dead silent. The crackle of the fireplace sounded like dry bones breaking. Leland Scott looked down into his champagne flute, uncomfortable but unwilling to intervene, while the NHL scout watched me with cold, measuring detachment.
"You're a blunt instrument, Leal," Cross continued, his voice dripping with condescension.
"You come from dock workers and unpaid hospital tabs.
You play with violence because you don't possess the intellect to read a transition lane.
The second you step into a professional camp with that temper and that cracked leg you're hiding, they're going to chew you up and spit you right back to the Scarborough mud. "
Every instinct screaming in my marrow told me to drive my fist through his teeth.
I wanted to take Cross by the throat and smash his head into the carved marble mantle until the smirk was wiped off his face.
I didn't move a muscle.
My knuckles stayed flat against my slacks.
My jaw locked so hard the masseter muscle burned like an open flame.
If I touched him, Arthur Vance would pull my eligibility before the valet brought my truck.
The ninety-five-thousand-dollar bonus would vanish, the four-thousand-two-hundred-dollar monthly transfer to the Scarborough clinic would bounce on Friday, and Rafael would lose his bed.
I had spent my entire life taking the hit. I took the checks against the boards so my wingers could score; I took the twelve-hour shifts on the loading docks so my mother could pay the heating bill; I absorbed the guilt of Rafael’s ruined spine every time I laced my skates.
I lowered my chin, cold dead resignation settling into my ribs, preparing to swallow the insult in silence.
* * *
A rustle of emerald silk cut through the dead air.
"The only thing being chewed up in this room, Mr. Cross, is your credibility."
The voice was cool, crystalline, and razor-sharp, slicing through the foyer like a diamond wheel through sheet metal.
Kiyomi stepped out from behind the marble column.
She didn't hesitate. She didn't look at the regents or the scouts watching from the coat check. She walked straight into the circle, her head held high, the green silk of her gown skimming the marble floor, and planted herself squarely between my chest and Julian Cross.
She put her back to me, using her slender five-foot-four frame as an immovable shield between me and the venom in front of us.
The air seized in my constricted lungs.
Cross blinked, his smirk faltering as he looked down at her. "Miss Blake. This is a private conversation between athletic personnel."
"This is a public foyer, Mr. Cross, and you are an independent scout operating without a registered NCAA compliance credential on St. Jude property," Kiyomi said. Her voice didn't rise; it remained steady, carrying the devastating, icy authority of a federal judge reading an indictment.
She took a half-step toward Cross, forcing the older man to shift his footing on the polished stone.
"Furthermore," she continued, her honey-brown eyes blazing with pure, lethal focus, "under NCAA Bylaw 12.
3.1, third-party agents attempting to solicit representation agreements through coercive harassment of student-athletes are subject to immediate, permanent disassociation from all conference-affiliated facilities.
I have the compliance documentation logged on the department server, including the three unprompted emails you sent to Mauricio's personal inbox offering unauthorized financial incentives. "
Cross’s face turned an ugly, mottled gray. "Now see here, young lady—"
"I am not finished," Kiyomi cut in, her tone sharp enough to draw blood.
Leland Scott took a hasty step backward, distancing himself from the scout, while the Bruins scout pulled out a small black notepad, his eyes fixed on Cross.
"You questioned his hockey intellect," Kiyomi said, stepping another inch into Cross's personal space, her chin tilted at that furious, magnificent angle.
"Mauricio Leal leads the Eastern Conference in defensive zone exit efficiency at ninety-two percent.
Over the last four weeks, his lateral decision-making has reduced Sentinel odd-man rushes by eighteen percent, and he has logged zero penalty minutes in three consecutive games against ranked opponents.
His biomechanical load processing ranks in the ninety-ninth percentile of all collegiate defensemen in North America. "
She paused, letting the silence crush the foyer, before delivering the final blow straight to Cross’s throat.
"He is playing through burdens that would break your spine in half, Mr. Cross.
He does it with honor, he does it for his family, and he does it without crying to boosters for a handout.
You aren't fit to lace his skates, let alone speak his brother's name.
Now get out of this building before I have Director Vance call campus security to escort you to the curb. "
The silence that followed was absolute.
Cross stood there, his mouth slightly open, the glass of bourbon shaking in his fingers.
The Bruins scout gave a single, dry nod of approval, turned on his heel, and walked out the front doors without looking back.
Leland Scott cleared his throat, muttered an excuse about his coat, and vanished down the hall.
Cross looked at Kiyomi, his eyes venomous, but he had nowhere left to turn. He shoved his hands into his cashmere pockets, sneered at the floor, and marched out into the freezing night.
* * *
My chest felt hollow, like a cannonball had passed clean through my ribs.
I stood behind her, my hands shaking at my sides, my heart hammering a wild, deafening rhythm against my breastbone. The breath scraped against the back of my throat, hot and dry.
My whole life, I had been the wall. I had taken the hits, absorbed the violence, and stood in the doorway so the people I loved didn't have to see the blood.
Nobody had ever stood in front of me.
Nobody had ever looked at the world, bare-handed and furious, and decided that Mauricio Leal was something worth defending.
Kiyomi stood there, her small shoulders rising and falling rapidly beneath the emerald silk, her fingers curling into tight fists at her sides as the adrenaline began to wash out of her blood.
I didn't think. I couldn't.
My right hand shot out, my large, calloused fingers closing gently around her slender wrist.
I didn't look at the regents staring from the coat check. I pulled her through the heavy mahogany French doors, leading her out into the raw, biting darkness of the harbor terrace.
The December wind hit us like a wall of ice, whipping off the black water of Casco Bay, tossing dark strands of her hair across her face.
I backed her against the stone balustrade overlooking the frozen harbor. In one violent, fluid motion, I stripped off my heavy suit jacket, wrapping the warm, cedar-scented wool around her bare shoulders, pulling the lapels closed against her throat.
Then my hands came up.
My large palms framed her face, my fingers tangling in the soft silk of her dark hair, my thumbs resting on the burning, wind-chapped curves of her cheekbones. My hands were trembling—a hard, uncontrollable shudder that I couldn't suppress.
I leaned down until my forehead rested against hers, our breath mingling in thick, frantic clouds of white mist.
"Why did you do that?"
The words were a ruined, gravelly rasp, torn from the bottom of my lungs.
"Cross could have gone to Hayes," I whispered, my thumbs smoothing over her trembling lips. "He could have filed a complaint against your grant. You put your entire fellowship in the crosshairs for me, Kiyomi. For a broken enforcer."
Kiyomi looked up into my eyes.
The emerald dress was swallowed by my black wool jacket, her small frame dwarfed by my hands, but her honey-brown eyes held an unshakeable, terrifying clarity that pinned my soul to the stone beneath our feet.
She brought her hands up, her cold fingers wrapping around my wrists, anchoring my palms to her face.
"Because you're worth protecting, Mauricio," she said softly, her voice steady against the howling Atlantic wind. "And I will never let anyone treat you like you're disposable."
The words struck my chest like an axe through rotten wood.
Every defense mechanism, every cynical rule, every iron wall I had spent twenty-two years constructing collapsed into dust.
I stared down at her mouth, my throat thick with an ache so violent it brought tears to the back of my eyes. I was ruined. I was utterly, irrevocably at her mercy.
I pulled her into my chest, burying my face in the hollow of her neck, my arms locking around her waist like iron bands as the freezing storm rolled in from the sea.