Chapter 61

Chapter 61
Alicia

The first thing I became aware of was sound. Not a voice. Not words. Just a steady, rhythmic beeping, like someone tapping lightly inside my skull. Then there was the smell... antiseptic, cold, unmistakably hospital-like. It clung to the air, sharp enough that even in my half-conscious fog, I knew exactly where I was.

I tried to open my eyes. They felt heavy, like someone had tied weights to them. When I finally managed it, the ceiling above me came into focus in slow, blurry waves. White tiles. Fluorescent light. A faint shadow moving at the corner of my vision. And then her.

Alicia.

She was sitting beside the bed, her head resting on her folded arms, her fingers still wrapped around my wrist like she was anchoring me in place. Her hair spilled over her shoulder, her breathing soft and uneven. I realized then she had been crying. My chest tightened at the sight. I hated being the reason her eyes ever looked like that.

My voice cracked as I spoke, barely more than a rasp. “Alicia.”

Her head shot up instantly. Her eyes widened, dark with worry, relief crashing into them at the same time. She stood so fast her chair scraped the floor. “Damon.” My name came out like a prayer she had been repeating for hours.

“Hey,” I whispered, trying to smile. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

She let out something between a laugh and a sob. “You passed out in the locker room. They brought you in unconscious. You scared me.”

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. My body ached, especially my head, a deep throb pulsing behind my skull. But none of that mattered the moment she touched my face. Her fingers trembled against my skin. I leaned into the warmth of her palm.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

The memory hit slowly, like flashes of light in the dark. I remembered rounding the bases after the hit. I remembered the crowd roaring, the adrenaline burning through my veins. I remembered Nathan staring at something beyond me, his expression shifting from smug to startled. I remembered walking into the locker room, grabbing my things, and then...

A figure behind me. A sharp pain. The floor rushing up.

But when I tried to piece the rest together, it dissolved like smoke.

“I don’t know,” I said. And that scared me more than anything.

Alicia exhaled shakily. She tried to compose herself, but I could see the fear still clinging to her. I squeezed her hand as best I could. “I’m okay,” I murmured. “Alicia, I’m right here.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re not okay. Damon, someone hurt you.” Her voice cracked, and her grip on my hand tightened. “And I think it was Nathan.”

The name hit me like a cold splash of water.

Nathan.

The betrayal. The game. The way he’d looked at the stands instead of me. The way he’d smirked like he’d already won something bigger than a scoreboard. And now this. Him leaving the Titans for the Denver Hawks had been a punch to the gut, but I hadn’t expected him to be this reckless. This obsessed. This dangerous.

My jaw clenched. “He wouldn’t dare touch me in a stadium full of cameras.”

“He didn’t have to,” Alicia said. “There are blind spots. There are crowds. And he knows exactly how to disappear before security even realizes.”

I stared at her. “You think he planned this?”

She hesitated, but the look in her eyes said everything. “I think he’s been planning something. And I think this is only part of it.”

My pulse spiked under the bandage on my arm where the IV was taped. I forced myself to breathe slowly. Nathan wasn’t just angry, or jealous, or competitive. He had always lacked a line he wouldn’t cross. But even I didn’t think he would go this far.

Alicia took a breath, steadying herself. “The doctors said you have a mild concussion. No brain bleed, but they want to keep you under observation for another twenty four hours.”

“Mild concussion,” I repeated softly. “So I’ll miss practice tomorrow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Damon.”

“I’m joking,” I said, though my voice was still weak. “Mostly.”

“You scared me,” she whispered. The vulnerability in her voice twisted something inside me. “You were lying here, completely still, and I thought...”

I raised a hand and gently pulled her closer until her forehead rested against my cheek. “I’m here,” I said quietly. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

She leaned into me, her breath shaky. It felt like the only right thing in the world...Alicia in my arms, even if one of those arms felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

But even in that moment of stillness, my mind kept circling back to the same question.

Why?

Why had Nathan targeted me like this? Why wait until the game? Why the secrecy? Why leave the Titans with no warning and jump to the Hawks after signing a contract none of us saw coming? What was he chasing?

The answer came with a heaviness that settled in my chest.

Me.

He wanted to take everything I had. My position. My reputation. My career. My peace. And now, he was dragging Alicia into this without even touching her.

“I’m going to find out who did this,” I said, my voice low, steady, and far too calm for the storm inside me.

Alicia pulled back enough to look at me, her eyes narrowing in worry. “Damon...”

“No,” I said. “Listen. If Nathan is behind this, I will find out. And I’ll make sure he never comes near you again.”

Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she brushed her thumb lightly under my eye, staring at me like she could see every thought passing through my head.

“You don’t have to protect me from him,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “But I’m going to anyway.”

She let out a small breath and sat on the edge of the bed again, refusing to let go of my hand. I watched the way her fingers curled around mine, how she kept her thumb over my pulse as though making sure it kept beating.

Then she asked the question I had been avoiding.

“Do you remember anything? Anything at all from the moment you collapsed?”

I thought back harder this time. The locker room. The quiet. The turn of my head. A shadow. A figure. The faint sound of footsteps. Then the blow.

But it wasn’t the memory that made my heart stop. It was the last image... the one burned into my mind like a flash.

The smell of Nathan’s cologne.

A very specific, very expensive scent he always wore. The kind that filled every hallway he walked through. The kind you didn’t forget.

Alicia saw the change in my expression. “What is it?”

I swallowed slowly. “I think it was him.”

Her face paled. “Damon…”

“I can’t prove it,” I said. “But I know what I smelled. He was there. I’m sure of it.”

Alicia stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. Not for herself. For me. For what this meant. For what I might do with that knowledge.

Before either of us could say anything more, the door opened slowly.

A shadow filled the doorway. Someone stepped into the room and Alicia’s breath caught sharply, her fingers squeezing mine like a warning.

I turned my head toward the door and everything in me went cold because standing there, expression unreadable, was Nathan Graves.