Chapter 2

Stanley Cup Final. Ten Years Later.

ETHAN

I’ve been tracking Cal Mercer’s career for a decade.

You don’t have to like a man to know his numbers, his habits, the arc of his reputation. In this league, some players become unavoidable, not because they’re particularly talented or brilliant, but because they're loud and demand attention. Cal has always been loud in all the ways that sell this sport: hits that rattle glass, penalties that make highlight reels that get a million likes, a body built to look dangerous even when he’s standing still.

Violence photographs well, after all.

I’ve known exactly what he would become since I first laid eyes on him back at training camp. The league loves a monster that it can point at, coaches love a weapon that they can unleash, fans love rage that they don’t have to carry themselves and can simply observe from their own living room, or from the arena seats. Cal delivers all of it reliably, every single time he hits the ice.

Across from me tonight, standing there in his Seattle Panthers jersey, he looks exactly like the Enforcer that he’s been shaped into – massive, furious, vibrating with energy that has nowhere productive to go. The crowd feeds off it, roaring every time he throws his punishing weight around like the building itself wants to feel the impact.

I don’t react. I never do. I approach games against Cal’s team with more preparation than most, not because I fear him, but because I enjoy what happens when I don’t give him anything to push against. He wants escalation, and resistance, and most of all, he wants the game to tilt toward chaos where size and fury matter most... and I deny him all of that every time.

When he slams into his first hit of the night, the crowd loses its mind. When he takes his first penalty, they howl even louder, thrilled by the promise of more. He skates to the box rigid with anger, body coiled like he’s been wronged.

I don’t look at him; I’m already busy re-organizing the ice.

My voice carries easily, clean and controlled, and the men around me respond without hesitation. This is the part that Cal has never learned, never will learn: power doesn’t need to announce itself. It doesn’t need to strike first or loudest. It only needs to be trusted.

We score while he’s sitting in the box for an idiotic roughing penalty. From the corner of my eye, I register Cal watching me intently, shoulders tight, black eyes burning, rage nowhere to go. I note it the way that I always do: as confirmation that my plan is working, that he's being manipulated and controlled by me... and he has no idea.

Cal hates being ignored, and that’s the lever. Cal has always been at his most dangerous when he thinks he’s being dismissed, when his size and rage aren’t treated as decisive. Ten years of rivalry have taught me that better than any scouting report ever could. He’s predictable in the way that men who rely on brute force always are.

And truthfully? I fucking enjoy controlling him.

I enjoy the contrast – his brutality against my restraint, his fury against my calm. I enjoy knowing that the louder he gets, the quieter I become, until the space between us feels cavernous and unbridgeable.

The fans call it hatred. Coaches call it motivation. Ownership calls it rivalry.

Another truth is that our bitter conflict has been good for all of us. For ticket sales, for headlines, for the neat binary of violence versus control that people like to believe in. Management talks about me and Cal like assets, like opposing forces that justify each other’s existence.

When the final horn sounds, the building erupts. Champagne sprays, I raise the Cup over my head, cameras crowd in, teammates slap my back. The age-old story completes itself neatly: the golden-haired Captain is victorious, the dark-eyed Enforcer is defeated, universal balance is restored.

Across the ice, Cal stands motionless, fury etched into every line of him, his body still demanding attention even in loss. I don’t give it to him: I’ve beaten him like this before, and I’ll beat him like this again.

Whatever raw power he carries, whatever chaos he brings with him onto the ice, it's never been enough to override my structure. And watching him strain against that truth  – watching him burn himself out against something that he can’t even begin to understand – has always been deeply, deeply satisfying.

Because men like Cal are only dangerous when no one tells them where to stand, when nobody informs them just where the hell their place is... and I’ve always been very good at deciding that for him.