Page 65 of Shattered Ice
His eyes go flat, turning to chips of ice. “Let her wait. She’s a distraction. A liability. Your priorities are the team, the donors, and this family’s name. In that order. Do you understand me?”
I flinch. A small, almost imperceptible movement, but I know he sees it. The words are a cold, brutal slap, a reminder of the cage I live in. He’s not just telling me what to do; he’s telling me what I am allowed to want. And Clara is not on the list. Rage boils in my chest, the urge to tell him to go to hell so strong I can taste it. I feel the eyes of my teammates on my back, their pity and their fear. But I see the look in his eyes—the unwavering certainty, the absolute control. And I know this isn’t a fight I can win. Not here. Not now.
He turns and gestures for me to follow, the silent command as absolute as a chain around my neck. And I obey. Because that’s what I’ve been trained my entire life to do.
I spend the next hour trapped, a performing seal in a suited world, smiling and nodding as my father parades me around. My face aches from the fake smile. My hand aches from shaking hands. But my mind is elsewhere, consumed by a fury so profound it makes my hands shake. He did it on purpose. He waited until I was at my highest, until I had something that felt real and pure—her smile from the stands—and then he deliberately crushed it, just to remind me who was in charge.
When I finally escape, the hallway where she was supposed to be is empty. The air is cold, still smelling faintly of her perfume, a ghost of a promise. Of course it is. I pull out my phone. No texts. No missed calls. She wouldn’t. She has too much pride.
The rage at my father curdles into a sick, hollow self-loathing. He was right about one thing. I'm a liability. And I just made her the collateral damage. I dragged her into the heart of my storm only to abandon her the second my father snapped his fingers. She doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in his sick games. Declan’s warning echoes in my head:You keep pushing like that, you’re going to break her, or she’s going to break you.
I can’t face her. Not like this. Not when I’m still choking on the taste of my father’s control. Not when all I’ll do is bring this poison into her world.
With a curse that tears from my throat, I turn away from the exit and storm back into the empty locker room, slamming the door behind me. The silence is a suffocating accusation. The half-empty bottle of champagne sits on the bench, the bubbles gone flat.
She was waiting for me.
And I let her down.
Chapter 38
Adrian
Thesilenceinmydorm room is a suffocating accusation. It’s been twenty-four hours since the Greystone game. Twenty-four hours since I scored a goal for her and then walked away on my father’s command like a well-trained dog.
I haven’t left this room. The walls feel like they’re closing in, the air thick with the ghost of her scent on my sheets and the fresh, bitter stench of my own self-loathing. I pace the length of the expensive rug, a caged animal in a space designed to look like a pinnacle of success. I replay the sequence of events in a relentless, punishing loop: the triumph when I saw her in the stands, wearing my name; the satisfying crack of my fist against Greystone’s captain; the ice-cold dread as my father appeared, his presence erasing it all in an instant.
He didn’t have to yell. He just had to remind me of the leash around my neck. And I, in front of my entire team, let him pull it.
The rage at my father curdles into something uglier: a deep, profound shame that crawls under my skin and makes it feel too tight.I am a coward.I promised her no one would speak that way about her again, and when my own father did it, dismissing her as a liability, I stood there and took it. Then I abandoned her to go shake hands with men who see me as nothing more than a stock ticker.
I look at my phone, at her name in my contacts, the screen a bright, accusing rectangle in the dark. I’ve typed and deleted a dozen messages.I’m sorry. He’s an asshole. It wasn’t about you.All of them are lies. It was all about her. And it was all about me being too weak to fight for her.
Declan’s warning echoes in my head.You’re going to break her, or she’s going to break you.
My father is trying to break her, to erase her from the equation. And I’m letting him. I am the storm, the chaos, and I just dragged her into the heart of it. The only way to protect her is to cut her loose. To go dark.
With a final, decisive movement, I pick up my phone. It feels impossibly heavy, like a weapon I'm about to turn on myself. I send a one-line email to the Academic Center, citing a “team matter” and canceling our next session. The words feel like a betrayal. I turn my phone off and shove it in a drawer, the sound of it sliding into the dark a final, hollow thud. The silence that follows is absolute.
But the quiet doesn’t last. The noise is inside me now. I can’t breathe. I grab my gear bag and head to the one place that makes sense. The rink.
The arena is a cavernous tomb at this hour, the only sound the low hum of the refrigeration units. The air is cold and clean, smelling of ice and steel. A relief. But as I get closer, I hear it: thesolitary, rhythmic slap of a puck hitting the boards, followed by the clean hiss of skate blades carving a hard turn.
I’m not alone.
A single figure is on the ice, moving through a drill with a relentless, punishing precision. It’s Declan. He’s not just practicing; he’s exorcising something, skating with a controlled fury I recognize instantly because it’s the same fury that lives in my own gut.
I lace up my skates without a word and step onto the ice. He finishes his lap and glides to a stop in front of me, breathing hard, his face set in grim lines.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I say. Not an excuse; a confession.
“Funny. Me neither,” he says, his voice flat. He looks like shit. There are dark circles under his eyes I haven’t seen before. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen his mask crack. He’s fighting his own war, too.
“Family stuff?” I ask, knowing the answer.
He just nods, his jaw tight. Then he turns it back on me, his eyes sharp. “You’re the one who just went to war with your old man.”
“I handled it,” I snap, a defensive reflex.
