CHAPTER 6

ETHAN:

I noticed the phone before I heard the click, which had become second nature lately. Every time I stepped outside, my attention went straight to reflections, windows, anyone holding a device just a little too carefully. It was automatic now, like checking traffic before crossing the street.

The guy stood with his dog halfway down the sidewalk, angled toward a shop window as if he were studying whatever was on display, but his phone kept creeping higher in his hand. He snapped one photo, then another, and didn’t even bother pretending after that. I kept walking at first, figuring he’d get what he wanted and move on like most of them did, but when he didn’t, I stopped, turned around, and headed back.

Up close, he looked like he’d been caught doing something he couldn’t explain his way out of.

“You planning on filling your storage,” I said, keeping my tone light, “or are we good?”

His face drained of color. “Oh. God. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said, and I meant it more than I expected to.

He lowered the phone so quickly it nearly slipped from his hand. “I just… are you Ethan Brooks?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually stop.”

“Well,” I said with a small shrug, “now I have.”

I left him there and kept walking. He’d post them. They’d be online before I made it to the next block. It didn’t bother me the way it had a few days ago. Maybe I was just done reacting to everything.

My phone buzzed before I reached the corner. Noah.

“Morning,” I said.

He skipped the greeting. “Did you call Olivia?”

“Yeah.”

A pause, then a sigh that carried more weight than the question. “Ethan…”

“I’ve been trying since last week.”

“Her lawyer says you threatened her.”

I let out a short laugh, dry even to my own ears. “I figured.”

“So you didn’t?”

“No.”

“Another sponsor pulled out this morning,” Noah said.

“I expected that.”

“They won’t be the last.” He hesitated just long enough for me to know what was coming. “People are talking about your captaincy.”

I slowed my pace, glancing up at the clear sky as if it might offer something useful. It didn’t.

“Figures.”

“You doing anything tonight?” I asked.

Noah snorted. “Watching our game from the bench like every injured player.”

“I’m coming to the arena.”

There was a beat of silence. “Seriously?”

“I’m still captain. Or I’m supposed to be. I want to see what that actually means right now.”

“Ethan—”

“I’ll call you after.”

I hung up before he could talk me out of it.

By evening, I was pulling into the arena parking lot in jeans, a black jacket, and a navy cap. I hadn’t bothered with a hoodie or sunglasses. If people wanted to stare, they were going to stare anyway.

They spotted me almost immediately.

“Ethan!”

“Did you threaten Olivia?”

“Any comment on the allegations?”

I didn’t slow down or look over. I’d made it through this gauntlet a hundred times before, back when the noise on the other side of the door meant something good was waiting. I told myself this wasn’t any different.

It was.

Marcus was working the players’ entrance — same guy who’d waved me through that door for six years, who knew my coffee order better than I did some mornings. He saw me coming, and his face did something I’d never seen it do before. Not surprise. Discomfort.

“Ethan.”

“Hey, Marcus.”

He didn’t open the door.

“I need you to hold on a second,” he said, already reaching for his radio.

“Hold on for what? I’m just heading in.”

“I’ve got instructions.” He wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Nobody with your status is supposed to have facility access right now. I’m sorry, man. This isn’t me.”

Status. Like I’d become a line item.

“I’m not asking to skate,” I said. “I want to watch the game from the bench. I’ve done it every time someone’s been hurt for six years.”

“I know. I just—” He keyed the radio. “I need someone from the front office down here.”

I stood there while people walked past me into a building I’d spent a decade treating like it was mine, and for the first time since this started, the calm I’d been holding onto all day cracked a little.

The GM came down five minutes later, flanked by someone from communications I didn’t recognize. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

“Ethan, this isn’t the time.”

“I haven’t been charged with anything,” I said. “I haven’t even been questioned. You suspended me based on a headline.”

“We suspended you to protect the organization while this plays out. You know that.”

“So I’m guilty until it’s convenient for you to say otherwise.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Neither is this.”

The comms woman stepped in, her voice careful in the way people get when they’re managing a situation instead of talking to a person. “If there are cameras outside and you’re seen walking into the building tonight, it undoes every message we’ve been putting out about taking this seriously.”

“So the message matters more than whether it’s true.”

Nobody answered that.

“I’m still captain of this team,” I said. “Or I was, last I checked. I’d like someone to tell me straight whether that’s still true, instead of finding out from a guy at the door who feels bad about it.”

The GM’s jaw tightened. “We’re not making any decisions about the captaincy tonight.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Ethan—”

“Forget it.” I stepped back from the door before he could finish. “I’ll watch it on TV like everyone else.”

I was halfway back to my car when a voice stopped me.

“You could’ve called me first.”

My father stood near the far end of the lot, dressed like he’d come straight from somewhere that mattered, his driver waiting a polite distance away. I hadn’t even clocked his car.

“What are you doing here?”

“Damage control. Same as usual.” He said it flatly, like it wasn’t an insult to both of us.

“I don’t need you handling this.”

“You need someone to. You’re not exactly making it easy from the inside, are you?” He nodded back toward the building. “Arguing with the GM in a parking lot isn’t the comeback story we want.”

“We?”

“Ethan.” Something shifted in his voice, more careful now. “I need to tell you something before you hear it somewhere else.”

I already didn’t like where this was going. “What?”

“I met with Olivia’s lawyer this week.”

The parking lot noise seemed to drop away. “You did what?”

“I wanted to see if there was a number that made this go away. Quietly. Before it costs you the season, the captaincy, the sponsors you already lost—”

“You tried to pay her off.”

“I tried to protect you.”

“Without telling me.”

“Because I knew you’d say exactly what you’re saying right now.” He held my gaze, unflinching, the way he’d looked at boardrooms his whole career. “There are things money can fix faster than the truth can, Ethan. I’ve built a career understanding that.”

I thought about her voice on the phone. You know how to make this disappear. She hadn’t been guessing. She’d already been talking to him.

“She said that to me,” I said quietly. “On the phone. That I knew how to make this disappear. She meant you.”

My father didn’t deny it.

“I’m not paying anyone to believe I didn’t do this,” I said. “If I do that, I’m not innocent anymore. I’m just rich.”

“You’re naive if you think the truth wins on its own.”

“Maybe. But it’s the only version of winning I’ll take.”

He studied me for a long moment, something unreadable behind his composure. “You’ve never made anything easy.”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t.”

I got in my car before he could say anything else, and sat there for a minute with my hands on the wheel, not driving anywhere yet. Somewhere behind me, the arena lights were still on, a game starting without me in the building for the first time in six years.

They could take the ice time. They could take the captaincy, if it came to that.

But I wasn’t going to let my father buy my name back for me. If it came back, it was going to be mine.

Tomorrow morning, I was going to ask Emma if she knew somewhere nearby I could skate. Somewhere that wasn’t theirs to take away.