Secretly Sleeping With My Hockey Rival

The Decision

JAMIE

The charity event is a wall of noise. Music pumps through speakers mounted in the ballroom ceiling, laughter bounces off marble floors, champagne glasses clink, and expensive shoes shuffle. Donors in designer suits and their wives in gowns that cost more than most people's rent. Everyone is smiling and everyone is pretending.

I stopped pretending an hour ago.

My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket again. I pull it out, glance at the screen.

Unknown: Hartford. We need an update.

Unknown: The Kovač situation. What do you know?

Unknown: We saw him go down tonight. How bad is the injury?

Unknown: You have 24 hours to get us something useful.

Unknown: Remember what's at stake. Your brother is counting on you.

My stomach turns. I shove the phone back in my pocket without responding.

‘Your brother.’ Two words that keep me on a leash.

The ballroom feels suffocating. Too many people pressing in, too many voices asking questions I can't answer honestly. A woman in diamonds approaches, probably a donor's wife, her smile bright and expectant. I can see her mouth moving but I can't hear what she's saying over the roar of blood in my ears.

I excuse myself from a conversation I haven't been listening to for the past ten minutes. A donor is talking about his yacht, or maybe his second yacht. I nod, smile, shake his hand, and disappear toward the hallway before he finishes his sentence.

My tie feels too tight. I loosen it as I walk, needing air, needing space, and needing to think without someone watching me perform the role of Jamie Hartford, captain and golden boy.

The hotel bar is off the main lobby, tucked around a corner where the noise from the event fades to a low murmur. I push through the door and the air changes immediately. Everything is quieter, and darker, the kind of amber lighting that makes everything feel softer, easier to breathe.

I need a drink, I need to think and I need to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.

The bartender looks up as I approach. Late thirties, tired eyes, the kind of person who's seen everything and judges nothing. Perfect, just exactly what I needed right now. I didn't need anyone to judge me.

I ordered whiskey, settled onto a barstool and took a sip and let the burn spread through my chest.

My phone vibrates again, I ignore it this time. The bar is mostly empty at this hour. A couple of business travelers at a corner table, laptops open, and ties loosened. A woman alone at the other end nursing what looks like vodka. Nobody who cares about hockey or recognizes my face.

I take another sip. The whiskey helps. Not enough to erase the guilt, but enough to dull the edges.

Liam's face flashes through my mind. The way he looked three weeks ago in my apartment, shaking so hard he couldn't hold his phone. The bruises on his ribs from where one of the loan sharks had "sent a message." The terror in his eyes when he told me how much he owed, who he owed it to, what they'd threatened to do if he didn't pay.

'Fix this, Jamie, please. You always fix things.'

And I am fixing it. That's what I keep telling myself. I'm protecting my brother, keeping him safe and doing what family does.

The fact that it requires me to become someone I don't recognize, to betray the integrity of the sport I love, to sell information to gamblers who don't give a s**t about the game beyond what they can profit from it, that's just the price and that's what I keep telling myself.

It doesn't make the whiskey taste any better.

I stare into the amber liquid, watching the way it catches the low light. My reflection wavers in the surface, distorted and unfamiliar.

That's when I saw him. Marcus Kovač..Sitting at the far end of the bar like he's trying to disappear into the wood paneling. Hood up on his jacket, shoulders hunched, his right arm tucked against his body in a way that looks wrong. Protective like he's guarding something broken..Three empty glasses in front of him and a fourth halfway gone.

My chest does something complicated at the sight of him. Not sympathy exactly, but something sharper, something that makes my hand clench around my glass hard enough that my knuckles go white.

This is it.

This is the opportunity they've been demanding. The opening I'm supposed to exploit.

Get close to him, strike up a conversation, find out how bad the injury really is, get the medical details they need to place their bets, to manipulate the odds, and to profit off his pain. A simple matter except nothing about this feels simple.

I watch him from across the bar. He takes another drink, and I notice his left hand does all the work. His right arm hasn't moved once since I spotted him. It just hangs there, held against his side, fingers curled loosely around nothing.

The injury is bad, I already knew that from the way he went down tonight, but seeing him now, seeing the careful way he's holding himself, the pain etched into every line of his face even as he tries to hide it,.it's much worse than I thought.

My phone vibrates again. I know without looking it's another message. Another demand for information, another reminder of what's at stake if I fail. I could leave right now, walk out of this bar, go back to my room, tell them I never saw him and that there was no opportunity to get close but they'd know I was lying.and then what? They'd cut me off, expose Liam's debts to everyone who's looking for him. My brother would be dead within a week.

The math is simple. Brutal, but simple..One man's career versus my brother's life..There's no real choice here.

So why do my hands feel unsteady as I pick up my glass? Why does my stomach turn at the thought of walking over there, of using his vulnerability against him, of becoming the kind of person who preys on someone at their lowest point?

Marcus lifts his glass with his left hand, dains it and sets it down with more force than necessary, and the sound carries across the quiet bar. The bartender glances over but doesn't approach.

He looks completely wrecked, dark circles carved deep under his eyes. Jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping even from here. His whole body wound tight with pain he's trying and failing to hide and suddenly I'm not thinking about the information I need to gather. I'm thinking about the way he looked on the ice tonight. The way his body gave when I hit him, like something fundamental finally broke after being held together too long. The way he tried so desperately to get back up, to keep playing, even though his shoulder clearly wasn't functioning anymore.

The pride, the stubbornness and the refusal to quit even when quitting was the only sane option. I recognize it because I see the same thing in my own mirror every morning.

My phone vibrates again, insistent and demanding.

‘Your brother is counting on you.’ I thought to myself. So, I made a decision. Maybe it's the right one, maybe it's the worst one I've ever made and maybe I'll regret it for the rest of my life but I pick up my glass and stand.

My footsteps are quiet on the carpeted floor as I cross the bar. Marcus doesn't look up until I'm right there, settling onto the barstool next to him. Closer than strangers would sit. Close enough that I can smell his cologne—cedar, and underneath it, clean soap from his post-game shower. Close enough to see the way his jaw is clenched so tight the muscle jumps.

"Is this seat taken?”