The video looped. And again.
“How many?” I asked, my voice steady in a way that didn’t match the way my pulse had started to climb.
Char didn’t hesitate. “No one.Yet.”
Below us, the puck dropped. The sound of it cracked clean across the ice, the game snapping into motion like nothing above it mattered.
Like nothing was unraveling in real time.
“You have to bury that,” I whispered.
“I have it contained,” Char replied evenly.
I stopped. Turned. Holding her glare and matching her fire. “You videoed that didn’t you,” I said, my voice controlled.
“Don’t ask questions you do not want answers to,” she state flatly. Like she was telling he to tie my shoes.
I turned back to the tablet, rewinding the clip, isolating the moment, the angle, the timing.
“I’m not letting this turn into something it’s not,” I growled, my voice steady in a way that took effort now.
“It already is,” she replied. “People don’t care what it is, Bea. They care what it looks like.”
Below us, the Mountaineers pressed hard into the zone, bodies colliding along the boards, sticks clashing, momentum shifting in a way that was impossible to stop once it started.
“You’re too involved. Too emotional. And you don’t even see it happening.”
I blinked at her.
“Stop caring,” she added, almost conversationally. “Your life will get significantly easier once you learn how to do that.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked.
All she did was shrug.Fuck her.
“Stopped caring?” I continued, my mind racing are it clicked the last piece to the puzzle into place. “Is that howyou got like this? Turn yourself into a self-serving cunt because feelings are too hard?”
“You think this is about me?” she asked.
“No,” I chuckled, holding her gaze. “I think you want it to be.”
Below us, the crowd surged, a roar building as the Frosthawks pushed back, the sound rising and crashing against the glass in waves.
“You’re going to get burned,” Char hissed finally.
“Maybe.” I blew out a breath, then handed the tablet back to her. “And maybe I’ll still be standing here when it’s over.”
She didn’t respond. She just eyed me for a second longer, something unreadable passing through her expression before she turned and stepped back into the controlled chaos of the PR box like nothing had shifted at all.
Below us, Alois drove into the boards, clean, controlled, the impact echoing up through the structure.
CHAPTER 23
BEA
SIX WEEKS LATER
The cold pressed against the windows in thin, pale sheets of ice.