Chapter 40 Chapter 40

Chapter 40 Chapter 40

The Dirksen Federal Building felt less like a courthouse and more like a gallows. The air was thick with the scent of floor wax and the low, predatory hum of a hundred whispering reporters. Every camera lens was a cold, glass eye tracking our every movement, waiting for the stumble, the flinch, the moment the "Golden Boy" and his "Ice Queen" finally dropped the facade.
Arthur Van Doren didn’t enter the courtroom; he manifested within it. He was a mountain of tailored charcoal wool and generational arrogance, flanked by a phalanx of attorneys whose briefcases cost more than the Academy’s annual budget. Sloane sat beside him, her violet dress replaced by a sharp, ivory suit that screamed "purity" and "victimhood." She didn't look at me. She stared at the back of Iris’s head with a focused, surgical malice.
"All rise," the bailiff intoned, but the room didn't just rise; it held its breath.
Judge Halloway, a woman with a face like etched granite, peered over her spectacles. "This is a preliminary hearing regarding the emergency injunction and freeze of assets. Mr. Sterling, proceed."
Arthur’s lead attorney stood up, his voice a smooth, practiced baritone. "Your Honor, the facts are simple. My client, the Van Doren Sports Group, purchased the complete intellectual property estate of Nikolai Volkov. We have documented evidence that the recovery protocols being marketed by the North Star Academy are direct derivatives of those trade secrets. This is a clear case of industrial espionage masked as a 'charitable' endeavor. We are asking for the immediate closure of the facility to prevent further irreparable harm."
Iris sat beside me, her knuckles white. I could feel the tremors through the wood of the table. Every word they spoke was a theft—a robbery of her father’s legacy, her own pain, and the countless hours she’d spent in physical therapy clinics trying to find a way back to the light.
"Your Honor," our lawyer, a scrappy firebrand named Elena, stood up. "The 'trade secrets' in question were never Nikolai Volkov's to sell. They were stolen from Dr. Lin Chen, Iris Chen’s late father. We have the journals, the correspondence—"
"Correspondence that was never verified, Your Honor," Sterling interrupted smoothly. "And from a witness—Mila Romanov—whose credibility is, shall we say, compromised by her documented history of psychological instability following her injury."
Mila, sitting in the front row of the gallery, let out a soft, choked gasp. I saw her shrink back, her eyes darting toward the exit. They were going for the throat. They were going to dismantle her before she even took the stand.
"Is that so?" a voice boomed from the back of the courtroom.
The double doors swung open with a heavy, rhythmic thud. It wasn't a lawyer. It wasn't a witness. It was Marcus Larsen. But he wasn't alone. He was followed by three of my former teammates—the enforcers, the guys who had protected my back on the ice for a decade. They were dressed in suits that struggled to contain their shoulders, looking like a wall of muscle and silent fury.
"Mr. Larsen," Judge Halloway barked. "This is a closed hearing. What is the meaning of this?"
"I apologize, Your Honor," Marcus said, walking down the aisle with the swagger of a man who owned the city. "But as the General Manager of the Chicago Blackhawks, I felt it was my duty to hand-deliver a piece of evidence that was recently discovered in our team’s historical medical archives. It pertains to a certain... sponsorship agreement the Van Dorens had with the Volkov Institute ten years ago."
Arthur Van Doren finally turned, his eyes narrowing. "Larsen, sit down. You have no standing here."
"I have the standing of a man who just found a paper trail of kickbacks, Arthur," Marcus said, dropping a thick, manila envelope onto our table. "Records that show the Van Doren Sports Group wasn't just 'buying' research. They were funding Volkov's experiments on American soil. On my players."
I grabbed the envelope, my heart hammering against my ribs. I pulled out a single, yellowed sheet of paper. It was a contract from 2016. My first year in the league.
My blood turned to liquid fire.
"Your Honor," I said, my voice cracking through the courtroom like a whip. I didn't wait for my lawyer. I stood up, my body vibrating with a rage so pure it felt like a physical weight. "This isn't just about research. This is about me."
I held up the paper. "This is a rider on my rookie contract. It’s signed by Arthur Van Doren. It authorized a 'supplementary medical program' provided by Nikolai Volkov. It was mandatory. I was eighteen years old, and I was told this was how I’d stay on the top line."
I turned to look at Arthur. The mountain was starting to crumble.
"You knew," I hissed. "You knew what he was doing with the sensors. You knew he was using us as lab rats for his 'Bio-Feedback Loop' so you could sell the technology to the highest bidder. You didn't buy the research from Volkov, Arthur. You commissioned it. And when Iris found a way to use that science for healing instead of profit, you tried to bury her because she was proof of your own crimes."
The courtroom erupted. Reporters were shouting, the judge was pounding her gavel, and Arthur Van Doren’s face had turned a sickly, bruised shade of purple.
Sloane stood up, her mask finally shattering. "Reid, shut up! You don't know what you're talking about! That was a standard performance agreement!"
"It was human experimentation, Sloane!" I roared over the noise. "And I have the scars to prove it!"
Iris stood up beside me. She didn't shout. She didn't need to. She looked at Sloane, then at Arthur, her eyes cold and clear. "You thought you could buy the truth. But the truth isn't a trade secret. It’s the blood on the ice. It’s the pins in my knee. And it’s the voice of every skater you tried to silence."
Judge Halloway’s gavel finally slammed with the force of a thunderclap. "Silence! Order in this court!"
She looked at the papers Marcus had provided, her eyes moving rapidly over the signatures. She looked at Arthur, then at me. The air in the room was electric, the tension so thick it felt like it might spontaneously combust.
"The injunction is denied," Halloway stated, her voice echoing in the sudden, deafening quiet. "And the freeze on the North Star Academy’s assets is lifted, effective immediately. Furthermore, I am referring these documents to the Department of Justice for a full investigation into the Van Doren Sports Group's medical practices."
Arthur slumped back into his chair as if he’d been hit by a puck at a hundred miles an hour. Sloane was staring at the floor, her ivory suit looking like a shroud.
I didn't wait for the celebratory cheers. I turned to Iris, pulling her into my arms right there in the center of the courtroom. She was shaking, her face buried in my chest, sobbing with a relief that had been years in the making.
"We got them," I whispered into her hair. "We got them, baby."
We walked out of the Dirksen building into a frenzy of flashing lights and screaming questions. But for the first time, I didn't feel like the "Golden Boy" under a spotlight. I felt like a man who had finally stepped out of the shadow.
The legal siege was over. The Van Doren dynasty was bleeding out on the sidewalk. And as I looked at the three teammates standing guard at the bottom of the steps, I realized that the real victory wasn't the court order.
It was the fact that for the first time in our lives, the ice was finally, truly ours.

TheVan Dorens are in freefall. The DOJ is circling.