Chapter 29
Kiyomi POV
The high leaded windows of the university library’s fourth-floor rotunda shuddered under the lash of freezing sleet.
Ten in the morning on Friday. The archival wing was dead quiet, smelling of aged rag paper, drying hide glue, and old lemon oil. Dust motes drifted through the pale gray light that fell across the thirty-foot mahogany study tables, undisturbed by the few students buried in the lower stacks.
Across the river at the St. Jude Ice Arena, Mauricio was locked in closed-door team walkthroughs for tomorrow’s regular-season finale against Boston Commonwealth.
I sat alone in the corner alcove, my laptop open beside two open textbooks on dynamic skeletal kinetics. On the screen was the final draft of my United States Olympic Training Facility application. Eighty-five percent complete.
My stomach gave a sudden, violent heave.
A cold, greasy wave of nausea rose into the back of my throat, forcing my teeth apart in a sharp, silent intake of air. My vision swam with dark specks; my palms broke into a sudden film of icy sweat.
I reached for my stainless-steel bottle, taking two careful swallows of water, holding the liquid against my tongue until the sour convulsion in my esophagus receded.
My right hand dropped from the table, sliding beneath the heavy ribbed knit of my charcoal sweater, coming to rest flat and motionless over my lower abdomen.
Seventy-two hours had passed since the calendar math in the auxiliary basement.
I hadn't bought a test. I hadn't driven to a pharmacy.
I had clung to the irrational shelter of denial, telling myself that thirty days of eighty-hour workweeks could delay a menstrual cycle, that chronic sleep debt could cause the tenderness aching in my breasts and the persistent, racing thud of my resting pulse.
Deep in my blood, the truth had already taken root.
The heavy brass latch of the double doors at the end of the rotunda clicked open.
The sound was sharp, carrying across the quiet room. Heavy, leather-soled shoes struck the parquet floor runner with slow, unhurried precision.
I pulled my hand back from my stomach, placing it flat on the edge of the mahogany table, my spine locking into rigid, defensive alignment.
* * *
Julian Cross stepped around the tall oak card catalog.
He had removed his wet cashmere coat, draping it over one arm, wearing a dark bespoke three-piece suit that set off the predatory, narrow cut of his features. His silver hair was brushed back with slick perfection, smelling of expensive Turkish tobacco and damp wool.
He didn't ask for permission. He pulled out the heavy mahogany armchair across from mine, the brass casters groaning against the floorboards, and sat down.
He placed a slim black digital tablet flat on the polished wood between us.
"Miss Blake," Cross said. His voice was smooth as warm paraffin, quiet enough to stay beneath the library’s ambient hush. "You're a difficult woman to find without two hundred and twenty-five pounds of hockey captain hovering over your shoulder."
My throat was dry as sand, but I didn't reach for my water. I looked at him with an expression of carved flint.
"This is a quiet study floor, Mr. Cross," I said, my voice clipped, flat, and sharp. "And you have sixty seconds to remove yourself before I have campus security escort you to the perimeter gate."
Cross let out a short, mocking breath through his nose. He tapped the glass of the tablet with a manicured index finger, sliding it two inches across the table toward my laptop.
"I'd hold off on calling security, Kiyomi," he murmured. "Unless you want Director Vance and the NCAA infractions committee to review the contents of your department cloud drive."
The screen was already lit.
My heart slammed against the wall of my ribs with a single, sickening jolt that made the air freeze in my lungs.
The first file displayed high-resolution diagnostic motion-capture scans of Mauricio’s lower right leg from Week 5. The unmistakable hairline fracture along his lateral fibula was highlighted in bright red vector lines, bearing my electronic department signature and timestamp across the margin.
The second tab showed six high-definition telephoto images. Mauricio’s gravel driveway off Cottage Road. Me walking down the porch steps at seven in the morning wearing his faded Sentinel hockey hoodie. Mauricio catching my jaw, tilting my face up, kissing my mouth before I got into my sedan.
"Remote server breaches leave very clear audit trails, Miss Blake," Cross whispered, his eyes glittering with cold, venomous satisfaction.
"You didn't upload his structural bone scans to the conference medical clearinghouse.
You held them on a localized departmental partition while certifying his weekly force-plate symmetry as uncompromised. "
A sharp, violent pulse hammered behind my eardrums. My fingernails bit into the edge of the mahogany table, the wood groaning beneath the pressure.
"You stole university property," I whispered, the words trembling with suppressed rage.
"I obtained evidence of systemic academic and athletic fraud," Cross countered, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the wood, his face inches from mine.
"Tomorrow morning at eight, the regional NCAA compliance director arrives at the arena.
If I hit send, this file lands on his desk, on Arthur Vance's monitor, and in the hands of every NHL scout in the press box. "
He paused, letting the silence crush the space between us.
"Mauricio will be placed on immediate provisional suspension.
He won't skate against Boston Commonwealth.
The injury disclosure will drop his draft projection straight into the middle rounds, costing his family hundreds of thousands of dollars in guaranteed bonuses.
And you, Miss Blake, will be expelled for academic misconduct, your research grant frozen, your fellowship recommendation to Colorado revoked before lunch. "
* * *
The room seemed to shrink to the width of the table.
The trap was absolute. Clean, vicious, and lethal.
Cross had taken the data I gathered to protect Mauricio’s body and turned it into the blade that would cut both of our throats.
"What do you want, Julian?" I asked, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper that barely carried across the tablet.
"I want you gone," Cross said, the smile vanishing from his face, replaced by a cold, calculating malice.
"I want a signed statement of medical resignation on Dr. Hayes's desk by five o'clock today, citing personal academic conflicts.
I want you off his compliance ledger, out of his apartment, and off this campus before the puck drops tomorrow night. "
"And if I leave?"
"If you leave, the file stays in my vault," Cross said. "Mauricio plays tomorrow. He enters the draft combine in Buffalo as a projected top-ten pick. His brother’s clinic bills get paid, and your precious little fellowship stays intact. You stay, and I detonate both of your lives before breakfast."
My hands were shaking beneath the table, but I forced my chin up, holding his gaze with diamond-hard defiance.
"You're a pathetic parasite, Cross," I said, each word a slow, measured strike. "You couldn't make it as an agent, so you try to extort an athlete who built himself with his own blood. What you're doing is criminal extortion under Maine Title 17-A. It carries a five-year prison sentence."
Cross sneered, rising from the armchair, picking up his tablet, and sliding it beneath his cashmere coat.
"Good luck proving that to an integrity board, Miss Blake," he said quietly, stepping back onto the parquet runner. "You have until five o'clock. Choose whether your pride is worth his entire life."
He turned on his heel and walked toward the double doors, his footsteps fading down the long, empty hall until the latch clicked shut.
The second the door closed, my body gave out.
My knees buckled. I caught myself against the edge of the mahogany table, my forehead pressing to the cold polished wood as a violent wave of nausea surged straight into my throat.
My vision blurred with black spots. A high, deafening ringing filled my ears, my lungs starving for air as my ribs heaved in ragged, dry sobs.
He had twenty-four hours until the Commonwealth game.
The draft, his family, Rafael’s medical bills—everything Mauricio had bled for was poised on the edge of an abyss, and I was the match Cross intended to light.
I reached into my satchel with shaking fingers, pulling out my wallet.
Tucked inside was the cash for the pharmacy across town.
I needed to confirm the truth in my body right now. Because before I decided how to save him from Cross, I had to know if I was protecting one life—or two.