THE PENALTY BOX

Julio's POV

I've watched myself knock a man unconscious forty-one times since sunrise.

Here's the sick part.

I'd do it again.

* * *

Twelve hours earlier, all I wanted was to go home.

I hate this club. I hate the purple neon that makes everyone look like a bruised corpse. I hate the cheap gin, the damp velvet, the bass rattling my fillings. Most of all, I hate that I let my team drag me here on a Tuesday night, when I have a seven a.m. skate tomorrow and when my knee feels like broken glass.

"Cap! One more round!"

Toby, our nineteen-year-old rookie center, is clinging to his third gin and tonic like a life raft. His eyes are glassy. His knuckles are white. And he keeps glancing at the VIP booth like something in there might bite him.

"You're done," I say. "Drink the water or I'm carrying you out over my shoulder."

"I'm fine, Cap. Just getting used to the scene."

He's not fine. He's terrified. Kids like Toby think you have to act untouchable off the ice, too. Nobody warns them this city will chew them up and spit out a headline.

"Five minutes," I tell him. "Then we're gone."

"Well, well. The Golden Boy and his little shadow."

Shit.

I don't have to turn around. That voice is sandpaper and tequila-laced, and it's been trash-talking me for two seasons.

Ketz.

Northern State's enforcer. Six-four, fifty pounds heavier than me, and he plays hockey like he's trying to commit manslaughter on ice. He steps out of the VIP booth with two linemates and half a bottle of silver tequila, grinning like he's been plotting this.

Toby freezes solid.

I slide left and put my body between them. "Back off, Ketz. Not tonight."

"Relax, Hayes. Just welcoming the freshman." He takes a swig and steps closer. "What, you don't let your bench-warmers talk to real players?"

Keep a low profile, Julio. My agent's voice, rings in my skull like a warning bell. The draft is three months away. Do not give them a reason.

"We're leaving," I say. Calm. Easy. Boring as hell.

"Yeah. You always run." Ketz's smile turns ugly. "Just like Daddy taught you. Alexander Hayes only shows up because you pull twenty minutes a night, right? You're a show dog, Julio. Something he parades at alumni dinners. Take away the jersey and what's left?"

My jaw locks so hard my teeth ache.

He isn't guessing. He's aiming. Right at the bruise I keep hidden behind my ribs, the one nobody's supposed to know is there.

But I breathe. I count to three. I grab Toby by the jacket.

"Walking away," I tell him. "Now."

I turn my back on Ketz. I actually take two steps toward the exit sign. Two steps.

I give the scouts, my agent, and my father exactly what they want from me.

Restraint.

Then glass shatters behind me.

I turn. Ketz has Toby by the shirt, and he throws him into the marble bar. Toby's skull cracks against the stone. He slides down, dazed, blinking, blood at his hairline, and Ketz pulls back his fist to do it again.

Everything in my head goes white.

Restraint dies.

I don't yell. I don't think. Fifteen years of ice and blood and bad decisions take over, and I cross the distance in a heartbeat and throw the cleanest right hook of my life.

Crack.

Ketz's head snaps sideways. His eyes roll back. He drops to the floor like wet concrete.

The whole club goes silent.

For one beautiful second, nobody moves.

Then the flashes start.

Twenty phones rise into the air. Twenty little red lights. Twenty glowing eyes recording my heaving chest, my split knuckles, and Ketz unconscious at my feet.

I look at the wall of cameras. The cameras look right back.

Oh, fuck.

* * *

"Six million views, Julio."

Vance doesn't turn around. He's standing at his office window with his back to me, watching freezing rain slide down the glass. Behind him, on the mahogany desk, his iPad plays the video on a loop. My face under the purple lights. The pivot. The punch. Ketz folding like a lawn chair.

The caption reads: NHL TOP PROSPECT JULIO HAYES UNLEASHES IN NIGHTCLUB BRAWL.

"Turn it off," I say. My right hand is taped up under my sleeve, knuckles swollen and throbbing.

"Boston pulled their scout from Friday's game. Minnesota dropped you off their top-five board. The league is opening an inquiry into player conduct." Now he turns. Tie loose. Eyes bloodshot. "They don't see a captain protecting his teammate. They see a violent liability who can't handle a drunk at a bar."

"He threw Toby into marble, Vance! The kid's nineteen. I walked away. I got two steps—"

"The video doesn't show the two steps."

The words land like a slap.

He's right. The cameras caught the punch. They didn't catch the part where I tried to be the good guy.

My phone buzzes against my thigh. I pull it out.

27 missed calls.

14 texts.

And at the top, from a contact I don't even have saved, because he doesn't use personal phones:

Office of Alexander Hayes: Your father requires you at the estate by five. Do not make him ask twice.

My lungs forget how to work.

My father doesn't call when I score hat tricks. He doesn't call when we win titles. He calls when his investment is damaged. He owns my summer training facility. His lawyers own my image rights. If I slip out of the first round, he won't just be angry. He'll strip away every last piece of my life I still control.

I'm not a son to him. I'm a franchise.

"Fix it," I say, hoarse. "Put out a statement. Put Toby in front of a mic—"

"A statement looks like an excuse." Vance yanks open a drawer and slides a thick navy binder across the desk until it thumps against my arm. "This is how we fix it."

I flip it open. Twelve pages of legal language. Clauses. Curfews. Scheduled public appearances.

"A behavioral contract?"

"A girlfriend."

I laugh. Then I see his face, and I stop.

"You're joking."

"Not even a little." Vance leans back. "Sweet. Smart. Respectable. Someone who makes the world go, Oh, he can't be that bad, look who he's dating. No models. No influencers. No girl who ends up in your bed on I*******m Live."

"So you want me to hire a fake girlfriend."

"We hired a law student. Four-point-oh GPA. No social media. Two jobs. She hates sports culture with a passion."

"Then why would she agree to—"

"She said yes." One brow lifts. "You'll hold her hand. Take her to galas. Smile like a man who traded his temper for a future. And you'll follow every rule she sets, or I walk, and your father takes the wheel. You know what that looks like."

I do.

That's the worst part.

I stare at the blank signature line. I think of my father's cold eyes. The scouts closing their notebooks. The ice turning its back on me for good.

I grab the pen and sign my name in jagged, furious strokes.

"When do I meet her?"

Vance checks his watch, and for the first time all morning, he smiles. It isn't a nice one. "Tomorrow at nine. And Julio? Try not to make her quit in the first five minutes."

"Come on. I've never made a girl leave in five minutes."

"That's exactly what worries me," Vance says. "You've never met this one."