Chapter 1

ETHAN:

By the time I stepped off the ice, I had already lost three sponsors, my starting position, and the woman I thought I loved. I just didn’t know it yet.

Practice had run long, the kind that leaves your legs heavy and your lungs working harder than they should. My jersey clung to my back, damp and familiar, and the rink carried its usual noise. Skates cut across ice, pucks slammed into boards, guys joked about nothing. It felt like any other day, the kind you don’t think twice about because you expect tomorrow to look the same.

I pulled off one glove as I walked into the locker room, already thinking about food and whether I had time to call Olivia before heading home. My phone lit up before I even sat down. Mom. Dad. My agent Mark. Missed calls stacked one after another, enough to make me pause.

My mom didn’t call during practice.

“Ethan.”

Coach Wilson stood in the doorway, his voice cutting through the room in a way that didn’t match the end of a normal practice. Conversations dropped off around me. A few guys avoided looking at me. Others stayed busy with their gear.

“We need you in my office.”

There wasn’t urgency in his tone, but there wasn’t anything casual about it either. Something in my stomach tightened as I followed him down the hallway, the sounds of the locker room fading behind us.

Inside his office, the atmosphere felt wrong before anyone spoke. The GM sat behind the desk, shoulders tense, while the team’s lawyer stood near the window and the head of communications leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. No one smiled.

She stepped forward first and slid a phone across the desk. “You should see this.”

I picked it up, expecting something minor. Instead, Olivia’s face filled the screen. For a second, my brain didn’t process anything beyond that. Then I noticed the bruise. Another photo followed, her wrist this time, marked in a way that made my chest tighten for a different reason.

Then I read the caption.

“I stayed quiet because I loved him. I won’t stay quiet anymore.”

I read it again, slower, like the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense. They didn’t. The comments underneath were already piling up. Abuse. Manipulation. Violence. Control. My name tied to all of it.

“This isn’t real,” I said.

No one answered right away. The GM rubbed his face. “Three sponsors dropped you in the last twenty minutes.”

“The league’s been notified,” the lawyer added.

Coach met my eyes. “You’re on indefinite leave.”

The words didn’t hit the way they should have. No panic. Just a quiet sense that something had shifted and there was no fixing it.

“I didn’t do this.”

“We hear you,” the GM said, but it sounded practiced.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t do any of it.”

Silence settled over the room again. My phone rang in my hand, breaking through it. Mom.

I answered without thinking. “Mom?”

She was crying. “Ethan… tell me.”

“I didn’t touch her,” I said, steady even if everything else felt off.

“I know,” she said immediately. “I know my son.”

I closed my eyes for a second. “I swear.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

There was a brief shuffle before my dad’s voice replaced hers, calm in a way that meant he was already in problem-solving mode. “Where are you?”

“At the arena.”

“Stay there. Legal team’s on the way. This is bigger than hockey now.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“I heard you,” he said. “Do exactly what the lawyers say.”

The call ended, and for a moment I just stood there with the phone still in my hand, the room waiting for something I didn’t have.

Two hours later, I was sitting in a conference room downtown, surrounded by people who spoke in careful sentences while sliding documents across the table. My father sat across from me, composed as ever, while Mark leaned forward beside him, tension written all over his face. Screenshots covered the table, printed and highlighted, each one worse than the last.

A lawyer pushed a folder toward me. “She’s prepared.”

Inside were messages I didn’t recognize, conversations that looked like mine but weren’t, recordings cut and rearranged into something convincing. Photos, paperwork, timelines. It was thorough.

“All fake?” I asked.

“We believe so,” he said. “But proving it will take time.”

Mark exhaled sharply. “Public opinion already decided.”

“You can’t fight this online,” someone from PR added. “Anything you say right now will make it worse.”

I leaned back in my chair. “So what do I do?”

“You disappear.”

The word hung there. No interviews. No statements. No appearances. They would handle everything, build a case, dismantle hers piece by piece. It could take months.

Months.

By the time I got back to the arena, it didn’t feel like the same place. The noise was gone, replaced by something quieter, more distant. I packed my gear without thinking, moving through the motions out of habit. My stick leaned against the bench, and I hesitated before grabbing it.

Noah sat down beside me, giving me a moment before speaking. “I don’t believe any of it.”

I nodded. “She’s desperate. We told you to leave her.”

“I know.”

“But this?” He shook his head. “This isn’t you.”

I looked at him. “I never touched her. Haven’t even seen her in over a week. I don’t know where any of this came from.”

“I know,” he said again, and this time it landed differently.

He stood, grabbing his jacket. “Come stay with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll follow you,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “I’m not dragging anyone else into this.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” I adjusted the strap and headed for the door. “I need somewhere no one’s looking.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you when it’s over.”

Outside, reporters had already gathered, cameras pressed against the glass, waiting for a glimpse of something they could turn into a headline. Mark had arranged a side exit, and a car waited there, engine running. I didn’t look back as I got in.

The apartment was small, rented under my middle name, the kind of place no one would think to check. Quiet. Anonymous. Temporary.

As the car pulled away, the city blurred past the window, familiar streets suddenly feeling like they belonged to someone else. For the first time since I was drafted, I didn’t have a plan, didn’t have a next step that made sense.

And one thought kept circling.

This wasn’t going away.