Chapter Nine

COLE'S POV

Paulson is in his office after practice, door half open, game tape running on his laptop with the sound low. He's been coaching for twenty-two years and he watches tape the way other men read — constantly, quietly, like it's where he goes to think.

I knock once and he waves me in without looking up.

"Close the door," he says.

I do. He lets the tape run for another thirty seconds then pauses it and leans back.

"I wondered when you were coming," he says.

I sit down across from him. "You knew I would?"

"You've been distracted for three weeks. Different kind of distracted than usual." He folds his arms. "What's going on Cole."

I've run this conversation in my head a dozen times. Every version starts with careful framing and controlled information and protecting the parts that don't need to be exposed yet. I sit in his office and look at the man who pulled me off the ice at twenty-two after a game where I played angry and told me privately that the best players use pain as fuel not as a weapon — and I skip all of the careful framing.

"The organization is running a financial structure that redirects donor and operational funds through a subsidiary network," I say. "My father built it four years ago. Theo Wren executes it. There's a media contact running cover from inside a sports publication." I pause. "I've been documenting it for eight months and I'm working with a journalist who has the full chain. She's filing a protected submission within the week."

Paulson doesn't move.

"Lena Park filed with the league oversight office yesterday," I add. "Once that inquiry is active it doesn't matter what we have — the story gets buried in process and my father's lawyers run the clock out."

The room is very quiet. Outside the office I can hear the distant sound of the locker room clearing out, skates on rubber flooring, someone's music.

"How long have you known?" he asks.

"Suspected for two years. Certain for eight months."

"Why didn't you come to me."

"Because I didn't know where your line was."

He absorbs that without taking offense, which tells me something. He knows exactly what I mean — the organization is full of people who know enough to be complicit and have chosen comfort over confrontation and he has been one of them in the way that quiet people become complicit. Not by acting. By not acting.

"What do you need from me," he says.

"On-record source. Someone with operational knowledge who can confirm the financial approvals weren't standard procedure. You've sat in budget meetings for six years. You've signed off on facility contracts that ran through the same subsidiaries." I keep my voice level. "You don't have to know everything. You just have to confirm what you witnessed."

"If I go on record I end my career."

"If the league inquiry runs its course without the story breaking first, the organization gets restructured quietly and everyone inside it gets managed out anyway. The difference is whether you chose your side or had one chosen for you."

He looks at me for a long time. Twenty-two years of coaching means he's very good at reading what people are actually saying underneath what they're saying.

"Who's the journalist?" he says.

"Someone I trust."

"Connected to the publication running the cover?"

"She's filing around her editor. Protected submission directly to legal."

"That's a significant risk for her."

"She knows."

He stands up and walks to the window that looks out over the empty rink. The ice is fresh-cut and bright under the overhead lights and he stares at it for a while.

"Garrett knows too," he says quietly. "About some of it. Not the full structure but he's seen the contracts. He came to me eight months ago and I told him to leave it alone." He pauses. "I told him the same thing your father's been telling everyone. That it wasn't his problem and the team came first."

"Garrett will talk to me."

"Yes. He will." Paulson turns around. "Give me until tomorrow morning. I need tonight to think."

"Tomorrow morning is fine."

"And Cole." He looks at me with the particular directness he reserves for the things that matter. "When this lands it's going to be loud. Your season, your contract, the franchise value — all of it is going to take a hit before it gets better."

"I know."

"You're sure about this."

"I've been sure for eight months. I'm just not alone in it anymore."

He nods once. I stand and he shakes my hand and I leave.

---

I text Vera from the car.

*Paulson is thinking. Garrett is a yes. Come to the rink tonight — there's a side entrance on the east end, I'll leave it unlocked. Nine o'clock.*

She replies in under a minute.

*Why the rink.*

*Because it's not the house and we need to talk without cameras.*

A pause. *Richard has cameras?*

*Front door, back garden, driveway. No interior. But the garden is covered.*

Another pause, longer.

*Nine o'clock.*

---

She arrives at nine-oh-two which for her is essentially early. I hear the side door and then her footsteps on the rubber walkway and she appears at the rink boards and stops.

The ice is empty and the lights are dimmed to the overnight setting — low and blue-white and very still. I'm standing at centre ice in my skates because I came here after Paulson and I stayed because sometimes this is the only place that makes sense.

She looks at the ice, then at me. "You've been here since practice?"

"Off and on."

"Paulson?"

"He'll give us his answer tomorrow. Garrett is already willing — I'll connect you directly." I skate to the boards and stop in front of her. "There's something else."

She waits.

"Nadia called me tonight. She knows about the submission. Not the details but she knows you're close." I watch Vera's face tighten. "She's going to Richard if we don't move by Thursday."

"That's four days."

"Yes."

She grips the board between us. "Can you hold her off?"

"Until Wednesday. Not longer."

We are very close. The boards between us and the cold air off the ice and four days to do something that should take four weeks.

"Then we move Thursday," she says.

"Thursday," I confirm.

She doesn't step back. Neither do I.

"You should go home," I say quietly.

"I know," she says.

She stays another moment anyway. Then she goes.