Calculated Risk

Chapter 3: Calculated Risk

Atlas Kane

"Out. All of you step into the hall right now."

The nurse froze mid-step, glancing at Dr. Keller, like he might override me. He didn't. He looked up from the chart with the expression of a man deciding whether this was a fight worth having, weighing it, and finding the scale already tipped against him.

"Mr. Kane, I still need to check his vitals and adjust the—"

"You checked him ten minutes ago." I didn't raise my voice. I never needed to. Volume was for people who hadn't learned that stillness worked better. "Whatever's left can wait outside this room."

"Sir, hospital protocol requires a nurse present for—"

"I'm aware of protocol. I sit on the board that funds this wing, Doctor, and I can have someone else's name on that chart in the time it takes you to argue with me." That landed the way I expected it to. Keller's mouth thinned into a hard line, but he nodded once, curt, and ushered the nurse out ahead of him. The door eased shut behind them with a soft, final click.

Silence dropped into the room like a weight.

Hunter hadn't moved from the bed. Of course he hadn't. He stood over Cody like a wall built specifically to keep the rest of the world out, shoulders squared, jaw tight enough to ache.

I stepped further into the room, unbuttoning one cuff, then the other, folding each sleeve back with the same unhurried precision I'd use, closing a deal worth nine figures. It gave my hands something to do besides what they actually wanted, which was pry his fingers off Cody's wrist one at a time and remind him whose patience he was testing.

"You need to leave," Hunter said again, lower this time, like repetition might finally make it true.

"I heard you the first time." I closed the last two feet between us, close enough that he had to tip his head up slightly to hold my eyes. He didn't back down. I hadn't expected him to — Hunter had never once backed down from anything in his life, which was either admirable or exhausting, depending on the day. "Put your hands in your pockets, Hunter. You're not going to like what happens if a doctor walks back in and sees bruised knuckles wrapped around a patient's wrist."

His jaw worked. He didn't let go.

My phone buzzed against my hip. Harlan's name lit the screen, and I answered it without stepping away from the bed, without lowering my voice either.

"Not now, Coach."

"Kane, I need a statement before the press conference in twenty minutes, and I need it to sound like the organization has this handled—"

"There's no statement." My voice stayed level, but something under it sharpened. "Reyes hit him blind-side with no play on the puck at all, and if the league doesn't suspend him through the rest of the season, I will personally make sure every sponsor on that arena wall hears exactly how the front office let it happen."

Silence on the other end. I let it stretch.

"Call me when you have something useful," I said. "Otherwise, don't call this room again."

I hung up before he could answer.

Hunter watched me through the entire exchange, something ugly and grudgingly impressed, fighting for space behind his eyes. "You always talk to people like they're line items in a spreadsheet."

"It's more effective than yelling," I said, glancing down at his hand, still curled around Cody's wrist, thumb pressed flush over the pulse point like he was counting every beat personally, cataloguing proof of life one thud at a time. "You should ice those knuckles before they swell shut, and you can't hold a stick for a week."

"I'll live."

"I wasn't asking out of concern for you." I moved to the foot of the bed, eyes tracking the monitor — heart rate steady, oxygen fine, numbers I'd learned to read faster than most doctors could explain them, back when I'd first decided Cody Brennan was worth watching this closely. Then I let my gaze drop to his face, pale against the pillow, gold hair damp at the temple, lips parted slightly around each shallow breath.

I reached over and adjusted the blanket where it had slipped off one shoulder, smoothing it flat with a hand that lingered a beat longer than the task required.

Hunter's whole body went rigid across the bed.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what." I didn't look up. "Tuck him in?"

"Touch him like you have a right to."

"I have exactly as much right as you do." I finally met his eyes, unblinking, unhurried. "The difference is I'm not pretending this is anything but what it is."

Neither of us said the word. We didn't need to. It sat in the room with us, heavy as the silence Keller had left behind.

"The press already has Reyes's version of tonight," I said instead, flatter now, the part of me that ran contingencies for a living taking over from whatever had just happened at the edge of that blanket. "By morning, they'll have photos of this room if we let him stay here another night. Reporters, team PR, half the league office — none of them are equipped to keep him safe, and I don't trust a single one of them to try."

"So what, you've got a plan."

"I always have a plan." I checked my watch, more habit than need. "He's not going back to his apartment. Not with a lock a teenager could pick in ten seconds and a lobby camera that's been broken for three weeks running."

Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Where, then."

"My house. Private road, private security, no press within half a mile of the gate." I let that sit a moment before finishing it. "And you're not staying behind to guard the door from a distance, Hunter, because I know exactly what you'd do with that kind of unsupervised access — you'd have him moved into your building by Thursday and call it protection."

His grip on Cody's wrist tightened, and jaw working like he wanted to argue purely on principle, purely because agreeing with me cost him something he wasn't ready to name.

On the bed, Cody's brow twitched, a small furrow forming between his eyes, his fingers curling faintly against the sheet at the sound of both our voices pitched low and hard above him, fighting over him like he was territory instead of a person who might wake up any second and hear every word.

"He comes home with me tonight," I said, final, watching that flicker of consciousness pass over Cody's face and disappear again, "and if you want to guard him, you sleep on my couch."