Chapter 36 Chapter 36

Chapter 36 Chapter 36
The news didn’t break with a whisper; it hit like a blindside hit in the neutral zone.

I was in the Academy’s equipment room, sharpening a pair of goalie skates, when the silence was shattered by the frantic chime of my phone. It wasn't just one notification. It was a deluge. A digital landslide.

TMZ SPORTS: GOLDEN BOY BACK IN THE PENTHOUSE? REID CARTER SPOTTED AT SLOANE VAN DOREN’S PRIVATE RESIDENCE.

I dropped the skate. The steel clattered against the concrete floor, a sharp, ugly sound that echoed the hollow feeling in my gut. I swiped the screen open. There it was. A grainy, high-angle shot from a security feed or a long-lens camera across the street. It showed me entering the Van Doren Tower at noon.

But it was the second photo that made the room tilt.

It was a shot through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. It was blurry, distorted by the glass and the distance, but the silhouettes were unmistakable. Sloane’s silk robe was draped open, her hands were locked behind my neck, and our faces were inches apart. From that angle, with the way she had leaned into me, it didn't look like a confrontation.

It looked like a homecoming.

"Reid?"

The voice came from the doorway. It was quiet, brittle, and stripped of the "Ice Queen" armor.

I turned. Iris was standing there, her tablet in her hand, the screen glowing with the same image that was currently incinerating my reputation. Behind her, the morning practice had ground to a halt. The students were whispering, their eyes darting between us and their phones.

"Iris, let me explain," I said, stepping toward her. My hands were shaking, covered in a fine layer of steel dust. "I went there to talk about the lease. She threatened the school, Iris. She said she’d have the demolition permits signed by Monday."

Iris didn't move. She looked at the tablet, then at me. Her eyes weren't filled with the hot, explosive anger I expected. They were filled with a weary, bone-deep disappointment that hurt worse than a punch to the ribs.

"You went alone," she whispered. "I told you it was a trap. I told you she wanted to prove she still owned a piece of you. And you went anyway."

"I went to save this place!" I roared, my frustration boiling over. "I went so you wouldn't wake up on Monday morning to a pile of rubble where your dream used to be!"

"My dream was us, Reid!" Iris’s voice finally broke, a sharp, jagged sound. "I didn't care about the building! I cared that for the first time in three years, you didn't trust me to fight a battle by your side. You went to her. You stepped back into that world of lies and backroom deals, and you let her put her hands on you."

"She grabbed me, Iris! I pushed her away!"

"The camera doesn't show you pushing her away, Reid. It shows you standing there. It shows a man who looks exactly like the 'Golden Boy' I met at Northfield—the one who thought he could play every side of the board and never get dirty."

She turned and walked out of the equipment room, her footsteps echoing in the sudden, suffocating silence of the Academy.

By 2:00 PM, the chaos had escalated into a full-scale siege.

The sidewalk in front of the North Star Academy was blocked by news vans and paparazzi. The parents of our students were calling in, their voices tight with concern. Is the Academy closing? Is Mr. Carter involved in a scandal? Should we find another rink?

I sat in my small office, the lights off, watching the shadows of the reporters dance against the frosted glass of the door. My phone was blowing up with texts from Marcus Larsen and Quinn, but I couldn't bring myself to answer. I felt like I was back in the "Ice and Fire" nightmare, except this time, the villain wasn't a coach in a suit; it was my own arrogance.

A soft knock came at the side door—the one that led to the alley.

I stood up, half-expecting a process server or Sloane herself. Instead, I saw Mila. She was wrapped in a heavy coat, her face grim.

"The back exit is clear for now," she said. "But the city building inspector just arrived at the front. He has a cease-and-desist order for 'structural safety violations.' Sloane wasn't lying about the permits, Reid."

"She’s moving fast," I muttered, rubbing my face with my hands. "She wants to isolate me. She wants to make sure I have nowhere to go but back to her."

"Where is Iris?" Mila asked.

"She’s at her father’s place. She won't take my calls."

Mila stepped into the office, closing the door behind her. She looked at the photo on my desk—the one of Iris and me on the pond. "Sloane Van Doren doesn't understand people like us, Reid. She thinks we’re assets. But she also doesn't understand that a distorted photo is just a shadow. You need to show Iris the light."

"How? She won't talk to me."

"Don't use words," Mila said, a small, knowing smile touching her lips. "Use the one thing that never lies. The one thing that Sloane can't buy or doctor."

I looked at the rink through the observation window. The ice was dark, the cooling system humming a low, lonely tune.

"The server," I whispered. "The one I took from Volkov."

"What about it?"

"I didn't just delete the skating logs, Mila. I kept the biometric files on me. The ones from the nights I spent at the Institute. The ones that show my heart rate, my stress levels, my cortisol. If I can get into the cloud backup, I can prove exactly what my body was feeling when I was in that penthouse."

It was a long shot. It was technical, cold, and calculated. But in a world of doctored images and violet-scented lies, maybe a data point was the only truth left.

"Get Quinn," I said, reaching for my keys. "We’re going back into the digital dark. And Mila? Tell the building inspector he can take his permits and shove them. We aren't leaving this ice."