Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike

Additional Tags:

Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Hurt Shane Hollander, I'm Bad At Tagging, My First Work in This Fandom, My First AO3 Post, Major Character Injury, Temporary Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Psychological Torture, Torture, Blood and Injury, a lot of it, Shane Hollander Whump, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, References to Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not Beta Read

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-20 Updated: 2026-03-06 Words: 31,452 Chapters: 10/?

desperate things

Summary

Shane Hollander was smart. Shane Hollander was strong. But when Shane Hollander's defenses are down, he is surprisingly easy to kidnap, if you are stupid enough to do so.

Notes

This fic was inspired by this thread. The title is from the song "Desperate Things" by The Killers. I have a HollaNov angst playlist that I listen to while writing this fic, that I may share in the future. This is my first fic that I have posted online so I'm a bit nervous!
Nothing crazy happens in this chapter, other than a TW for references to vomiting. It will get more messed up as we progress, I swear. Please feel free to give me constructive feedback and criticism, as this is my first real fic and I would love to improve more.

Lastly, the chapters will be a little short and probably far between--I'm in school full time, but I will have a lot of time next month to pump out more! Thanks for your patience.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

The moment that the door fell shut behind Shane, the condo fell uncomfortably quiet. Ilya felt as though his bones had been filled with molten steel—burning hot with desperation yet too heavy to move. The only thing Ilya could hear over the roaring of blood in his ears was the incessant ticking of the wall clock. He couldn’t stand it. Sweats still shucked around his hips, Ilya fought against the steel in his limbs and forced himself to stand, half-stumbling across the living room to yank the clock off the wall and pull the batteries out. The ticking stopped, and so did the pulse in his ears, leaving him alone in a deafening silence so different and disorienting from the warm clarity he found in quiet with Shane. 

Ilya knew that he should have expected this. People like him and Shane, in situations like these, didn’t do “couple things”. They didn’t do domesticity, didn’t cuddle on the couch after lunch. He knew such lavish fantasies were unattainable, but often he felt like an orphaned lamb, seeking normalcy in the warmth of his flock to fill the hole in his heart that had been gaping since he was twelve years old. 

But Ilya had known, maybe since before he was twelve years old, that flock wasn’t enough. He sought to soothe his ache in the impossible and craved what he could not have without harm—he’d found in his youth that the wolves offered comfort like no other. He found his wolves in sex, alcohol, maybe a bit of drugs when he was younger. Shane was his wolf. Shane was warm and supple and licked Ilya’s wounds; but Shane bit. He bit Ilya’s chest, strong jaws crushing ribs and sternum and teeth sinking into the warm, pumping flesh within. 

Ilya snapped out of his thoughts only partially when he heard rain begin to fall outside, pattering against the windowpane and rolling down in fat rivulets. Shane would have to get home in this weather. Maybe I should call him. He might still be waiting. I could drive him. But Ilya knew that Shane was stubborn and convicted, even when that conviction was a double-ended blade that pierced them both down to their very souls. With this in mind, Ilya silenced his phone and slumped back on the couch. Despite the inherent dreariness of Boston weather, the rain provided a much-needed relief from the Shane-less silence of the apartment. He heard a car door outside, and absently watched Shane’s Uber pull out into the rainy streets through the window.

Their plates were still on the coffee table. Ilya’s was spotless, despite a few crumbs, and Shane still had half of his sandwich left, save for a bite out of the corner. Shane never finished his plate, unless he felt it to be rude—and when he did, he’d force himself to eat until he felt sick—this was something that Ilya had learned in his eight years of close yet subtle observations of Shane Hollander. Maybe this meant that Shane was beginning to trust him with more than just his body; it was such a menial thing, but Ilya felt an overwhelming surge of adoration at the thought of Shane trusting him enough to leave his plate half-empty. But that thought quickly came tumbling down, spilling out of the cusp of his conscience, when Ilya thought vividly of the way that Shane had fled his apartment, like a spooked animal. 

Maybe Ilya was the wolf, and Shane the frightened lamb. 

——— 

It had felt longer than it was, but Ilya ended up spending about five minutes staring blankly at his text thread with ‘Jane’, hoping something would pop up. Maybe Shane would change his mind. He would text Ilya, “Can I stay longer?” and he would be at Ilya’s door, damp from the rain, bangs plastered to his forehead, cheeks and lips flushed from the cold. Ilya would kiss that cold away and hold him like he was something more than a fuck-buddy. They would bask in one another’s warmth, as two lambs huddled in the warmth of their shared stall, something more than an impossibility at the cusp where pasture met the woods. 

It didn’t take long for Ilya to shake himself out of his reverie. It was unrealistic, he knew, maybe selfish, to think there was any possibility Shane could stay. Ilya tossed his phone on the couch, face down, and scrubbed his hands over his face, rough palms scraping over the stubble that’d grown overnight. “Ебать.” He needed to get his shit together. This couldn’t go on. But he wanted Shane, so badly. He wanted to keep him all to himself, keep him away from anyone or anything else. Maybe he could kidnap him, he thought sardonically. Who was stupid enough to try to kidnap Shane Hollander?

Before he could begin to spiral, the silent room was pierced by the brash buzz of the intercom, mounted by the front door. It was probably a delivery, Ilya thought, only half-willing to go answer it. He hauled himself off the couch, trudging sluggishly across the room to press the button to speak. “Yes? If it is package, leave it with the receptionist,” he said into the speaker, not really trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“Oh, no, I’m the Uber driver, here for Mr. Hollander?” responded the thickly-accented voice of a young Bostonian man, Ilya supposed. It would make sense, given their locale. “Sorry for the delay. Also, you are Ilya Rozanov, yeah? My brother is a big fan–”

“Shane left in Uber fifteen minutes ago,” Ilya interjected, his voice coming out far more harsh than he intended. What fucking car did Shane get into? 

——— 

Shane had stood at the bottom of the stairwell of Ilya’s condo for five minutes, gasping like he had run a marathon. His mouth was uncomfortably dry, but he was certain that he’d start dry heaving if he had any water. He was whiteknuckling the stair railing, brows pinched so tight his head was starting to pound. What a fucking joke I am, Shane thought miserably, finding it so pathetic he almost laughed. He couldn’t believe he’d done that. What kind of loser was he, to flee Ilya’s apartment, on the brink of throwing up, simply because Ilya had called him by his fucking name? He’d fled like a jumpy animal, mind racing and blank all at once; all he could hear was the blood in his ears and the voice in his head screaming get out, get out, get out, get out. 

It shouldn’t be this scary. Shane Hollander wasn’t a chicken. Shane Hollander took hits on the ice like a champ, finished games with bloody noses, and dealt with the slews of reporters asking him borderline-invasive questions about his personal life and what it felt like to be a mixed hockey superstar in a world full of sparkling white. But when Shane Hollander’s fuckbuddy of eight years called him Shane, in a voice all too soft, he was filled with a terrible feeling that began in the pit of his belly and seized his heart, like claws had torn through his chest to rip out the muscle within. It pushed up into his throat, hot and sour and sharp, overwhelming him with its intensity.

But there was also a softer warmth, something heavy but soothing, like the weighted blanket Shane’s mother had gotten him when he was a child, that he still sleeps with to this day. It was a pleasant pressure, seeping into his limbs, his chest, and Shane let himself think for a moment that maybe this could be. He could be Shane on Ilya’s lips, he could be Shane in Ilya’s throat, in his mind. He could be more than something to fuck, more than something that was pushed aside the next morning and saved for later. He could be more than cold leftovers—but that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Shane knew that Ilya wasn’t that kind of man, and they didn’t live in that kind of world.

Shane needed to get out of this fucking building. He felt suffocated by the stale warmth of air circulating through the stairwell; it was arguably a far nicer stairwell than the one in his apartment, but it felt just as stifling. He used his shoulder to push through the door. It was pouring rain, even though it had been sunny just hours ago. What a treat, he thought, squinting through the downpour. He checked his phone; the app said his Uber was twenty minutes away. Fucking great. Shane knew that if he even dared to look up at the condo, at Ilya’s window, he wouldn’t be able to fight that overwhelming, painful urge to run back up those stairs, dripping wet from the rain, and stumble into Ilya’s warm, dry embrace. 

Shane hated how much it hurt to be away from Ilya at that moment. For nearly a decade, he’d spend months apart from Ilya—of course, it hurt then, and it was frustrating how much Shane missed not only Ilya’s touch, but his company. But now, after fleeing Ilya’s apartment, leaving him with eyebrows furrowed and worried, Shane felt a pain so sharp that he could’ve mistaken it for a heart attack. 

He startled out of his thoughts when a car pulled up, a black minivan with heavy tinted windows. The Uber had gotten here early. The driver’s side window rolled down, and a man probably five years older than Shane popped his head out. He was wearing sunglasses, which was an odd fashion choice in this weather, Shane thought, but he had seen worse. “Hi, uh… are you here for Shane? Hollander?” Shane asked awkwardly, feeling stupider than he had all day. 

“Yeah. Get in,” the man said gruffly. The van was missing a front plate, but Shane assumed it had a back plate, and chose not to comment out of fear of coming off as rude. He slid into the backseat of the van, pulling his hood off. His bangs were dripping and plastered to his clammy skin. “Back to your hotel, yeah?”

“Yes, please, uh, the address is—” Shane began, but he was quickly cut off.

“I know where it is.” 

Shane swallowed thickly. That sounded odd, but maybe it was just an offhand comment, maybe a joke. He was famous after all, he supposed. People were bound to know where he was staying. He rested his temple against the cool windowpane, of which was tinted so darkly that it painted the outside world in a strange hue of twilight. It was disorienting, but so was everything else Shane had experienced today. 

The silent drive gave Shane the unwanted opportunity of drowning in his thoughts. Thoughts of Ilya, of his big, rough hands, of his perfect lips and mole-spotted skin. Of the way he’d attentively made him a sandwich, given him a cold ginger ale—even though Shane knew Ilya hated them—and how he’d so gently said his name, a whispered secret between the two of them; a secret just like everything else they shared. He desperately craved that domesticity, that little sliver of normalcy in the mess that was them. He craved to curl into Ilya’s side, inhale the scent of him, share his warmth and taste him. He craved gentleness, but he too wanted to bite. He wanted to bite into Ilya’s skin, his neck, his heart, mark him as mine, mine, mine. To keep him all for himself, in the slice of a life they had cultivated yesterday, in the slice of a life they would never have. 

Shane spooked out of his fantasy when the van came to an abrupt stop. He looked out the window, squinting against the tint and the rivulets of heavy rain, realizing he didn’t recognize his surroundings one bit. “Uh, you might’ve taken a wrong turn, I know the neighborhood is confusing, I—”

The man in the driver’s seat opened his door, leaving it open as he rounded the car to open Shane’s. He was silent, sunglasses still obscuring his eyes. “Sorry, I–uh, is everything okay?” Shane asked dumbly, unable to hide the slight waver in his voice. His gaze flitted down to his phone in his lap, open to his and Ilya’s chat thread. Without thinking, he sent Ilya his location, quickly—right before the man with the sunglasses grabbed Shane by the wrists, wrenching his arms behind his back and hauling him out of the car. “What are you—fuck!” Shane couldn’t stifle the embarrassing, pain-induced voice crack that was torn out of him when his arms were yanked, shoulders pulling unnaturally. 

“Quiet. Keep quiet and this won’t be so hard,” the man murmured, breath hot and rank against Shane’s ear, with a voice that was too calm. 

Who was stupid enough to try to kidnap Shane Hollander?

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

The man crouched in front of him, pulling a phone from his pocket. It was Shane’s phone, cracked and dirty. “Smile,” he mocked, angling the camera down. “Actually—nah. You look pathetic enough.”
Shane turned his face away instinctively. A hand grabbed his jaw and forced it back.
Click.
Humiliation burned hotter than fear.
“There we go,” the man said. “Proof of life.”

Chapter Notes

okay so this one is kind of short too but i'm bad at writing long chapters! i also wrote on my phone because i forgot my computer at home so its edited even more poorly than the last. TWs for more description of wanting to vomit, mention of ilya's mom's suicide, violence (nothing too extreme yet) and generally shane being miserable.

What the fuck was Ilya supposed to do? He’d spent the better half of an hour pacing around the living room, occasionally stopping to check his phone, to stare blankly at that notification he’d ignored. It was from Shane, nothing more but his shared location. Ilya clicked on the link to open the map, embarrassed by how much his hands trembled, although there was no one there to see him. The little blue blinking dot, the only sign of life, had gone grey, sitting stagnant at what appeared to be some abandoned construction site a good fifty kilometres away from Ilya’s apartment. With this knowledge, and that dead grey dot in the centre of his screen, Ilya felt a cold, heavy fear set in, so far different from that molten steel of equal parts frustration and desperation that had filled him from the moment Shane had stepped through the threshold into the hallway, from the moment Shane’s frantic footsteps had faded into silence.

Ilya wasn’t used to fear. He was used to frustration, and anger, and a deep, festering resentment that had been eating away at his body since he was a child. But now, here, alone in his apartment filled with echoes of Shane and faced with the threat of losing him, Ilya was terrified. He was sad, and scared, and guilty. He hadn’t felt sad since he found his mother on the bathroom floor, and even then, it was more like anger; with himself for his inability to protect her, with her for deeming him too worthless to stick around for. Now, faced with the thought that something bad had happened to Shane, something that could be his fault, he felt something akin to a bone-deep terror; something that filled his body, something cold and horrific that rendered him useless. Like his marrow had been replaced with lead, and his heart filled with concrete, like a mould of a soul that had been left half-empty since he was twelve years old.

Shane had somehow managed to burrow within the rotting crevices of Ilya’s heart and make a home for himself there, not as an enemy or a distraction but as something terrifyingly close to a permanent fixture of his identity. Whether it be on the ice, within the privacy of one another’s bodies and hotel rooms, or in the broken pieces of their souls that fit together all too perfectly, Ilya had been defined by Shane since that morning in Regina, eight years ago, when they were budding young men innocent from the knowledge that they’d become carnally and impossibly entwined with one another.

Ilya couldn’t afford to get lost in himself right now. He had to do something. But part of him worried that this was a misunderstanding; maybe, in his panicked clumsiness, Shane had managed to call two Ubers, and one got here before the other. Maybe his phone had died in the car while driving past a construction site, and that’s why his dot had gone still. Maybe he’d forgotten to lock his phone, and while slipping it into his pocket, he’d accidentally sent Ilya his location.

But then that bone-deep, gut-wrenching terror seeped back in, and the what-ifs and maybes soon became darker. What if someone had taken Shane? What if they had tricked him? Was he hurt? Was his bleeding? Was he dead? Ilya began to pace again. He stupidly thought to call Shane. Maybe he would answer, ask him why he was calling. But the call didn’t even ring through, immediately going to voicemail:“Hi, this is Shane Hollander, I’m busy right now but please leave a message for me or my management and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” So professional and polite, Ilya thought for a moment, before that anxiety crept back in; maybe this was the last of Shane he had. Maybe this was the last time he’d hear his voice.

———

Shane quickly found that kicking and fighting was doing nothing. His arms had been wrenched behind him, shoulders almost touching, and wrists roughly bound together with duct tape. The cold rain beat down on his defenseless form, leaving him slippery and shivering as his captor dragged him through the mud. “What the actual fuck?” Shane bit out, wincing as a sharp rock caught on his hip.

“I told you to be quiet,” the man with sunglasses hissed, voice slightly strained with the effort that it took to drag a hockey player across unfinished ground. Shane bit the inside of his cheek, to both stop himself from snapping out a response and from whimpering when the branch of a dead shrub in the ground scraped down the length of his flank. He was sopping wet, smeared with mud, and certain that there was blood welling at the surface of his skin from the scrapes and scratches he’d accumulated from this agonizing trek over the upturned ground of the seedy construction site.

Shane allowed himself to dissociate, to ignore the cold and the harsh grip on the collar of his shirt, to pay no notice to the cuts along his leg and flank that were bound to get infected sooner than later. The man with sunglasses was cursing under his breath, saying more than offensive things about Shane and his supposed inability to cooperate. He was abruptly shoved through a doorway, into an abandoned home that smelled overwhelmingly like mildew and piss. His head hit the hardwood, and he was unable to stifle the groan that escaped him when stars exploded across his vision.

“Listen, Hollander. We’re gonna make this real easy, okay?” the man with sunglasses sneered, closing and deadbolting the door behind him. “You’re gonna keep quiet and not ask any questions, yeah?” He took a few steps forward, soon towering over Shane’s prone form on the floor. Shane was acutely aware of how small he felt, hair and clothes plastered to his skin, coated with mud and streaks of blood. He felt like he’d been hunted, a rabbit in a trap, or a lamb trapped between the strong, piercing jaws of a wolf.
Shane rolled onto his side, letting out a low wheeze when he did. “I just—who the fuck are you?” he managed, hating how thin and pathetic his voice sounded. “I don’t—”
Shane’s disobedience was punished by a sharp kick to his ribs. The man with sunglasses was wearing steel-toed work boots. “I said keep quiet, kid.” Hissing in pain, Shane curled in on himself the best he could with his arms behind his back. He felt like he could feel his shoulders slowly dislocating themselves from their sockets, and now there was an all-consuming pain radiating from between his ribs where he’d been struck. I’m not gonna make it out alive, am I? What’s my mom gonna think? What’s Ilya gonna think?

The man with sunglasses knelt down so he was at Shane’s level, although he still towered over him on the floor. Shane had never felt this kind of fear before—this anxiety, this helplessness, like this was the end. The man with the sunglasses reached forward and grabbed a fistful of Shane’s soaked hair, wrenching his head back so hard that Shane saw white.

“You’re worth a lot of money,” he said conversationally, like they were discussing hockey stats over a beer. “More than you probably even know.” Shane’s heart slammed against his ribs—against the rib that had just been kicked. The man wanted money; this wasn’t a random act of violence, Shane thought, somehow relieved, even as his heart pounded in his chest and the man’s grip tightened in his hair. He had money. People in his life had money—they could pay a ransom.

But would they?

The man released him abruptly, and Shane’s head smacked back against the warped hardwood for a second time. He swallowed against the nausea rising in his throat and the dizziness making his mind hazy and forced himself to breathe slowly through his nose. He was certain he’d puke if he breathed through his mouth. He forced himself to think, think, god dammit. It was getting harder and harder to think through the pain that got worse with every breath. Shane knew he was bigger than this guy, and stronger by a long shot. But his arms were bound tight behind him, shoulders screaming, wrists already burning from the adhesive biting into his skin. His phone—his phone was gone. It must’ve fallen into the mud when he’d been dragged, or worse, been taken by his captors for god knows what purpose.

He remembered, hazily, that he had texted Ilya moments before he was tied up and dragged like dead meat, like a sack of garbage. The thought hit him like a lightning strike through the fog. He’d sent it. He remembered the frantic tap of his thumb. He’d done it without thinking, on impulse. He could’ve texted his mom, but she was home in Ottawa—what would she do? Ilya had been the next best option. He was closer, or at least Shane thought so. He had no idea where he was. Ilya could help him—but Shane began to spiral. Maybe he would come. But only Ilya saw it. If Ilya cared. The fear twisted in Shane’s gut, something awful and mean and nauseated that burned through his chest and up his esophagus until he felt like he was going to puke again. Of course he cares, idiot. He just—
The man in sunglasses stood and paced once across the empty room. Rain battered against broken window frames, wind whining through gaps in unfinished drywall. The house looked half-built and half-rotted, like someone had started a dream and then abandoned it to mold. Shane thought maybe he too was going to meet the same fate. It had always been in the back of his mind—he’d flunk out of hockey, start disappointing people. He wouldn’t get packed stands or brand deals anymore. He’d fade away, and rot into nothing.

“You’re gonna sit tight,” the man said. “My associate’s making a call. Your team, your manager, whoever. We’ll figure out who pays faster.”

Associate, Shane thought stupidly. His stomach dropped. There were more of them. But, at that moment, all he could think of was how scared his mother would be. “Don’t,” he croaked before he could stop himself. “Don’t call my mom.”

The man barked out a laugh. “Kid, you don’t get to make requests.”

He disappeared into what might’ve once been a kitchen, boots thudding heavily against the subfloor. A low murmur of voices on the phone followed. Shane rolled carefully onto his back, every movement agony. His ribs protested sharply. Breathing hurt, and it felt a little ragged in his throat, like it was getting trapped in his chest. His ribs hurt more than any pain he’d ever experienced. Maybe they were broken, and they’d punctured his lungs, and he would aspirate on his own blood and die. Shane was terrified to realize that the thought brought him a little bit of relief.

He couldn’t be this way. Shane Hollander didn’t quit. Shane Hollander pushed through all of his differences and challenges and still came out on top. So, he flexed his wrists experimentally. The duct tape was tight, but it had been wrapped fast and sloppy. He twisted slowly, feeling the adhesive stretch minutely against wet skin. The rain had soaked him. The mud had slicked him, and he knew that wet tape doesn’t hold as well. He stilled when footsteps approached again.

The man crouched in front of him, pulling a phone from his pocket. It was Shane’s phone, cracked and dirty. “Smile,” he mocked, angling the camera down. “Actually—nah. You look pathetic enough.”

Shane turned his face away instinctively. A hand grabbed his jaw and forced it back.

Click.

Humiliation burned hotter than fear.

“There we go,” the man said. “Proof of life.”

Shane had never felt so pathetic and lost before. He felt like he’d been abandoned, left behind by his flock—even though he was the one that had run. If he hadn’t fled from Ilya like that, if he hadn’t been so stupid and anxious and scared to hear his own name on Ilya’s lips, he wouldn’t be here. He would be safe and warm and dry, and he’d be able to feel his hands. Oh god, what if Ilya thinks this is his fault?
He watched warily as the man in sunglasses paced back to the decrepit kitchen, grinning at something he must’ve found on Shane’s phone. “I think your friend Lily here will like the picture,” he called out, voice echoing thinly through the drafty house.
Shane wanted to curl up and die. He wanted Ilya.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

His head dipped again. The sedatives dragged at him mercilessly now. His thoughts slowed, slurred, smeared together.

The house creaked around him like something breathing. He had one chance. He rolled, slowly, onto his side—the uninjured side—and drew the shallowest breath he could manage. Even that felt like drowning. His fingers worked at the remaining tape.

Peel.

Twist.

Pull.

Chapter Notes

okay so stuff is happening!
TWs: dental injury, blood, implied overdose, graphic violence, severe injuries, generally a near death experience

Ilya saw red when he received the photo. Not metaphorically, nothing poetic about it. His vision genuinely narrowed until the world was reduced to a brutal wash of crimson and the blinding white of the screen in his shaking hand. He longed to sink his teeth into the neck of whoever had taken Shane, to wring them out and splatter blood on the walls, to match the red that filled his vision. The image loaded slowly—poor signal, maybe. A spinning wheel. A second that stretched into a lifetime. 

And then Shane filled his screen. He was soaked, mud-streaked, hair plastered to his forehead. There were little red spots seeping through his shirt, of which was rucked just high enough to show a terrible, blooming bruise across his flank. His head forced up by an unknown hand. His lip split. Eyes glassy, but furious. Alive, despite the red oozing from his temple and dribbling down the side of his face. 

Ilya’s lungs worked again in a violent, shuddering inhale that burned all the way down. His knees nearly gave out, and he braced himself against the kitchen counter, knuckles whitening.

Below the photo, a message from Shane’s phone:

$5 million. We’ll send instructions. Don’t call the police.

The text was clinical and detached, as if they were dealing with matters of delivering mail rather than matters of life or death for Shane. 

Ilya’s thumb hovered over the screen, tracing the outline of Shane’s face without touching it. He forced himself to look, to catalogue, but when he did, he felt sick to his stomach. Mud, thick, dark clay plastered all over him. Wood flooring—unfinished, a sickening red splotch beginning to seep in and stain. Exposed insulation behind him. A warped baseboard. Rain visible through a broken window in the background. It was undeniably that abandoned construction site, where Shane’s grey dot had gone still. Ilya inhaled again, slower this time. The red receded, replaced by something far more dangerous, something cold. The molten steel in his bones hardened into ice.

Five million dollars was nothing. He had it. He could liquidate investments in an hour. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that men who asked for five million dollars for Shane Hollander did not intend to let Shane Hollander walk away clean.

Ilya forced himself to breathe through his nose. In and out, like he’d watched Shane do before every game, after every hookup. He knew that rage was useless if it was loud. Rage was only useful if it was quiet.He zoomed in on the photo again. Shane’s pupils were equal. Good. He wasn’t concussed beyond coherence. There was blood at his temple, but it looked superficial—thin trail, not heavy flow. The bruise blooming across his ribs made Ilya’s jaw flex; that kind of spread suggested blunt force. A kick. Probably steel-toed, given the clean arc of discoloration.

He reopened the location Shane had sent. The dead grey dot sat stubbornly over a stretch of industrial outskirts. He switched to satellite view. A cluster of half-developed lots. Several skeletal homes. One looked further along than the others—roof done, siding incomplete. Shane had to be nearby—he probably wasn’t at the exact location where the dot had fallen stagnant, where the phone had gone offline; Ilya knew his captor wasn’t that stupid.  But he could get there. He had to. He couldn’t let Shane abandon him. He refused to find Shane on a tile floor, mouth foamy and eyes closed and peaceful. He refused to relive the guilt, the fear, the anger that death ignited within him.

Ilya refused to let someone else find him dead before he did. He wouldn’t allow the press and paparazzi to find his body and call it an “accident”. Ilya knew that these things don’t happen accidentally—he’d seen what it looked like, done intentionally. 

But what the fuck would he do? Sure, he could get five million dollars, but how? Where? In this time frame? Ilya began to pace again, white-knuckling his phone so hard he might be concerned that it would crack, if his mind had been fully there. He knew he had to call someone. Don’t call the police. The instructions had been quite clear, and Ilya didn’t want to find out what happened if he disobeyed. He couldn’t call Shane’s mother. He didn’t even have her phone number, and didn’t know where to find it. If he did, though, she’d panic, immediately get on the road, and put herself in danger. He didn’t know much about Yuna Hollander, but he knew that she’d give anything for her son—she had been for almost three decades. Ilya also knew that Shane would never forgive him if he let his mom get hurt. 

He mentally catalogued everyone he knew, anyone who cared enough about Shane to keep everything under wraps. The anxiety was creeping back in, wrapping its prickly tendrils around the fragile decay of Ilya’s heart, weaving in-between his ribs to prod at the tender flesh protected within. What if Shane’s flock found out that Ilya was the wolf? That he was the reason that Shane had been jumpy, flustered, anxious for the better part of a decade? Or, worse—what if Shane’s flock turned against him? He didn’t know the guys on Shane’s team very well. He knew that Shane didn’t hang out with anyone, except for—

Hayden Pike. 

Shane was supposed to be staying in a hotel, sharing a room with Hayden. He’d probably be wondering where Shane was by now, or at least Ilya hoped he was. Ilya had Hayden’s contact info for some reason, probably from some shoot or some press bullshit that he’d shoved out of his mind. Ilya would rather stub his toe than speak to Hayden Pike, but he would rather die than lose Shane. Shane, his other half. Shane, his home, his pack, his flock. His everything, he realized miserably. Everything I cannot have. 

——— 

Shane tasted copper. He didn’t know if it was from his split lip, or from somewhere deeper in his throat. Every breath was agony; when his lungs expanded, he felt something sharp and constricting, and each exhale pulled a heavy wheeze from deep within. But breathing meant he was still alive, and still alive meant he had options. He had a chance.

In the kitchen, a man—a different one than the first with the sunglasses—was arguing on the phone. “No, five. He’s worth five. Look endorsements alone—”

Shane rolled incrementally onto his hip, hiding the motion behind a groan. The man with the sunglasses was restlessly pacing the length of the room, back and forth, boots thudding rhythmically across the warped flooring. 

“Yeah, we’ll—yeah. We’ll send up a rendezvous point. Good idea. Thanks. I’ll talk to Chris and call you back in a few. Yeah, we’ll give him something to keep him quiet.” The man in the kitchen hung up the phone, and came into the main room to meet with the man in sunglasses—Chris was his name, Shane thought absently.  

The two went into a different room, and whispered to each other, too faint for Shane to hear anything but consonants. Shane tried to move a little more, but when he did, his ribs throbbed, pulling a low whine out of him. The man from the kitchen came into the main room, crouching down to get a good look at Shane. “Man, you look like shit,” he sneered, grabbing a hold of Shane’s face roughly, squeezing his cheeks slightly. “C’mon, open. We’ll get some water in ya, give you something to help with the pain.”

The thought of being given anything, even with the promise of water, made Shane’s stomach churn. He shook his head slightly, jaw clenching tight. The man from the kitchen didn’t relent, digging a thumb into the hinge of his jaw, forcing a finger between his lips and teeth to hold his mouth open. Shane let out a garbled sound of protest, drool pooling at the corner of his mouth. He tried to squirm and fuss when the man emptied a handful of pills into his mouth, but he only gripped his jaw tighter, so tight that Shane was certain it would bruise. The pills were followed by water, and Shane’s head was yanked back and jaw shoved shut so he had no choice but to swallow. The tablets scraped their way down his throat, a couple getting pasty and adhering to the roof of his mouth, the bitter taste filling his mouth and making him gag. 

“Keep that mouth shut, kiddo. Don’t want you spitting up and making a mess,” the man from the kitchen cooed, his voice dripping honey sweet. It made Shane feel even more sick to his stomach than the mystery pills that had been shoved down his throat.

The bitterness of the pills clung to Shane’s tongue like rot. He swallowed because he had to. Because his body was traitorous and alive and desperate to stay that way. The water forced down after them felt like drowning from the inside out. It burned. It scraped. It settled heavy in his gut like a stone dropped into a well. The man’s hand left his face, and Shane’s jaw throbbed where fingers had dug in, where skin would bloom purple by morning—if he made it until then. He didn’t know what time it was. 

“Good,” the man murmured, almost fond; disgustingly so. “That’s better.”

Better.

Shane let his head loll sideways, cheek pressing against warped hardwood sticky with rain tracked in from boots and mud and him. He tasted copper again. It pooled at the back of his throat, warm and metallic and familiar. He’d tasted blood before—on the ice, in locker rooms, in the split seconds after a bad hit. Blood meant he was still upright and still fighting. This didn’t feel like fighting.

This felt like being processed, like livestock.

The house creaked around him. Wind shoved itself through the ribs of the structure, making the plastic sheeting somewhere in the walls flutter like something gasping. Rain battered through broken panes. The world outside was grey and endless and indifferent.

His eyelids drooped. 

No.

No.

Stay awake.

He flexed his wrists, and the duct tape shifted.Not much. Barely a breath of movement. But it shifted, wet and weakened from the rain. He twisted slowly, carefully, feeling the adhesive strain against soaked skin. The motion sent a white-hot streak through his shoulders, and he nearly choked on the sound that tried to escape him. He swallowed it down with what was left of his pride.

In the kitchen, voices murmured.

“—five is non-negotiable—”

“—he’ll pay—”

“—send the next message in an hour—”

An hour. Shane’s pulse thudded weakly in his ears. He thought hazily of Ilya, of  the way Ilya had said his name.

Shane.

Soft and reverent, like something breakable.That was what had sent him running. That softness, that possibility. He’d been so afraid of being held that he’d thrown himself straight into the jaws of something that wanted to devour him whole.

His wrist shifted again. Another fraction. The tape tugged and peeled where rainwater had seeped beneath it. The pills were dragging him under now. His limbs felt weighted, like someone had poured cement into his bones. His thoughts swam, bumping into one another like debris in a storm surge.

Don’t sleep. If he slept, they could move him. If they moved him, Ilya would lose him. The thought of Ilya seeing that photo made something inside Shane twist. Mud-streaked, bloody and pathetic.  He imagined Ilya’s face when it loaded. The narrowing of his eyes. The stillness that meant danger, and the quiet that meant violence. Ilya wasn’t loud when he was furious. He went silent.

Shane almost smiled. If anyone was stupid enough to try to kidnap Shane Hollander, they were even stupider to think Ilya Rozanov would simply wire money and wait. The man in sunglasses stepped back into the room, boots heavy, deliberate. He crouched in front of Shane again, sunglasses still on despite the dimness, like he was afraid to be seen even here. “Still breathing?” he asked casually.

Shane forced his eyes open wider and forced focus through the fog. Let the fury show; let the hatred sharpen his gaze.

The man grinned. “There he is.”

He reached out and tapped Shane’s cheek, mockery soft and intimate. Shane memorized his hands, the scar across his knuckles, the oil ground into the creases of his skin. The smell of gasoline and cheap cologne.

If he got out—when he got out—he would remember.

The man stood again, pacing.

Shane rolled his wrists once more. The tape gave another millimeter. Pain flared through his ribs when he shifted his weight, sharp and blooming and terrible. Each inhale scraped. Each exhale rattled. Something in his chest didn’t feel right. Something loose. He ignored it—pain meant alive. 

——— 

Ilya stared blankly at his phone screen as the call rang through then went to voicemail for the second time. Hayden fucking Pike. Finally, by the fourth try, Hayden picked up. “Why the fuck are you calling me, Rozanov?!” he half-shouted, as the same time Ilya demanded, “Is Shane with you?”

Ilya could nearly hear the way Hayden’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No, he left the hotel last night. Said he was hanging out with a friend, so I figured he was with a girl—” 

“No,” Ilya cut in, voice flat and razor-thin. “Not girl.” 

There was a beat of silence on the other end, the ambient noise of a television somewhere in Hayden’s hotel room, the faint rustle of sheets. “What the hell are you talking about?” Hayden demanded. “Where is he?” 

“He was with me,” Ilya said. The admission felt like dragging glass down his own throat. There was no time for pride, but he hoped Hayden wouldn’t question why they’d been together or what they’d been up to. “He left, got in Uber. It was… it was not Uber.” His jaw clenched so hard it ached. “He sent me location, then this.” Ilya didn’t ask for permission. He sent the photo, where Shane was all muddy and wet, face lightly bruised and head being wrenched up by a stranger. 

“What the fuck,” Hayden breathed, and for the first time since picking up, there was no bravado in his voice, only naked alarm. “Is this a joke?”

“You think I joke about this?” Ilya’s tone was deadly calm. God, he wished he was joking about this. He wished it was a joke, a sick prank, that Shane had decided to fuck with him because he was mad at him about last night. He wished that the photo was AI, and that Shane was safe and warm, and that the sickening fear that Shane had joined Ilya’s mother somewhere was unfounded. 

Hayden paused again. Then, sharper: “Who did you tell?”

“No one.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No. They said don’t call. I don’t want to find out what they do if police are called.” 

Hayden exhaled hard. “But—the police. They’ll contact management, they’ll contact the team, and they’ll—they know what they’re doing, and—”

“They said no police,” Ilya interrupted. “They want five million. Said they’ll send instructions soon.”

“And you’re just going to what? Play hero?” Hayden snapped. “You think this is some action movie? I know you’re not going to pay five million dollars for him.”

Ilya’s vision went red again, but this time it was controlled, contained, a match instead of a wildfire. “You don’t know what I would do for him. You think I wait? No. I will find him.”

Hayden swore under his breath. “Jesus Christ. Do you even know where he is?” 

“Yes.” And he did. Not exactly, but close enough. Fifty kilometres out, an industrial sprawl, half-built homes rotting in the rain. He had memorized the satellite layout. Counted structures, noted access roads, dead ends, tree lines. 

“Send me the location,” Hayden said quickly. “I’ll call—” 

“No,” Ilya said, clenching his jaw. Who would Hayden call? The police? Shane’s parents? How would he explain that? “So Ilya Rozanov and your son spent the night together, and now your son is missing and probably kidnapped, and Rozanov called me and told me he’d do anything for him.” 

“You don’t get to make that call alone,” Hayden bit out. “He’s my best friend, you don’t get it—”
“I do.”

Silence, heavy and furious. Then, Hayden’s voice dropped an octave. “If you did something to him—”

“I did nothing. Nothing to hurt him, I would never. And I will make sure nothing bad ever happens to him ever again.”

It was not optimism. It was a vow. 

——— 

Shane knew that he was drifting in and out of consciousness. Maybe he was teetering on the edge of death. His vision blurred, doubled, tunneled and focused, all in a sickening loop that made him dizzy enough to gag. The room tilted sideways, then righted itself, then tilted again.

Stay awake.

His chest burned. Every breath was wrong. It wasn’t just pain anymore—it was as if something inside him had collapsed inward, like a tent with a snapped pole. When he inhaled, the air didn’t seem to fill him properly. It snagged halfway down, sharp and shallow. Exhaling took effort. There was a wet, faintly bubbling sound under the wheeze, subtle but unmistakable.

Something was very, very wrong. He forced himself to catalog it the way he would an injury on the ice. Ribs—definitely broken. At least one. Maybe more. The kick had landed too clean, too hard. He’d heard the dull, internal crack even over the rain. Lung—compromised. He swallowed hard. The copper taste was stronger now. Not flooding, not choking him yet, but it was sleeping. Present.

Don’t panic.

Panic wastes oxygen. His head lolled, but he forced it back up. The sedatives were sinking deeper into his bloodstream, thick and syrupy. His limbs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else. His fingers tingled. His lips felt numb.

If he slept like this—

No.

He flexed his wrists again. The tape shifted, not much, butt enough to hurt differently. The rainwater had done him a favor. The adhesive was loosening, the edges beginning to peel where it had been wrapped too fast. He twisted slowly. White exploded behind his eyes. His ribs screamed in protest, and his breathing hitched violently. For one terrifying second, nothing came in. He tried to inhale and got… almost nothing. A shallow drag of air that didn’t feel like enough. His pulse spiked.

Slow. Slow.

He forced himself to count in his head. One. Two. Three. A thin thread of air slid into his lungs. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

Across the room, Chris laughed at something his associate said. The sound was muffled and distorted, as though Shane were underwater. Maybe he was. His body was cold. So cold now. The rain had soaked him through earlier, and even inside the half-built house the chill had settled into his bones. Combined with the sedatives, it made his muscles sluggish. He couldn’t rely on strength—he only had patience left. 

He rolled his wrists again, smaller this time. Not fighting the tape—coaxing it. Twisting, easing, pulling against the weakest seam. The edge peeled a fraction more. Pain radiated from his side in a vicious arc, every micro-movement sending a jagged spike through his chest. His breathing stuttered again, ragged and uneven.

Don’t cough.

If he coughed, he wasn’t sure he’d recover from it. His head swam. He thought of Ilya; not the violent version. Not the silent fury. He thought of Ilya in the kitchen earlier—barefoot, shirtless, hair messy, muttering in Russian at a jammed drawer. The way his shoulders had relaxed when Shane sat at the counter. The way he’d said his name.

Shane.

Soft, like something worth keeping. His throat tightened—not from injury, but from something else entirely. You don’t get to die like this, he told himself. Not after running. Not after almost staying.

He flexed again, and the tape split, just a little, but enough that his right wrist could rotate more freely. Skin burned where adhesive dragged across it. He twisted harder before his body could give out. The room flickered. For a second, everything went black. He thought, distantly: This is it. Then his body jerked, dragging him back to the surface with a harsh, scraping inhale that felt like broken glass. Sound rushed back in. Rain. Footsteps. Voices.

“—he’s quieter now,” Chris said somewhere to the left.

“Good. Keep him that way.”

Shane forced his breathing to stay shallow, to stay small. Let them think the drugs were working. His right wrist slid halfway free. His left was still stuck. He shifted his weight a fraction of an inch. Agony detonated through his side. This time he couldn’t stop the sound—a thin, involuntary gasp that ended in a broken wheeze.

Footsteps paused.

“You hear that?” the other man muttered.

Shane let his head drop fully to the floor, eyes half-lidded, unfocused. He forced his body limp. Silence stretched, then boots resumed pacing.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s not going anywhere.”

They were wrong. He just needed time. His vision blurred again, the edges going dark. His heartbeat felt irregular now—too fast, then too slow. His chest tightened with each shallow breath. The wet sound inside it grew louder.

He was running out of time.

If his lung collapsed further, if pressure built—

Don’t think about that.

Think about Ilya finding you.

Think about surviving long enough for him to get here.

He twisted his left wrist with the last of his coordination. The tape tore. Not cleanly, far from it, but it was enough. His hands were still technically bound, but no longer immovable. He could move them an inch. Maybe two.

It felt like victory.

His head dipped again. The sedatives dragged at him mercilessly now. His thoughts slowed, slurred, smeared together. The house creaked around him like something breathing. He had one chance. He rolled, slowly, onto his side—the uninjured side—and drew the shallowest breath he could manage. Even that felt like drowning.His fingers worked at the remaining tape.

Peel.

Twist.

Pull.

His chest spasmed, and this time a cough tore out of him before he could stop it. It was weak—but it felt catastrophic. Liquid warmth filled his mouth, copper flooding his senses and dribbling down his chin. He felt the warmth at his upper lip, too; his nose was bleeding badly. 

Footsteps thundered toward him.

“Hey!”

Hands grabbed his shoulder, flipping him roughly onto his back. The movement sent a shockwave through his ribs so violent that white overtook his vision completely, and he spluttered, spitting blood dark and oozing onto the hardwood. 

“Shit,” Chris muttered. “He looks bad.”

“He’s fine,” the other man snapped. “Just drugged.”

Shane blinked through the haze.

Fine.

He almost laughed. He couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore. But through the fog, through the cold and the suffocating tightness in his chest, one thought burned steady:

Ilya will come.

And I will still be breathing when he does.

Delirious from the pain and drugs, he tried to shift again, rolling onto his side. That earned him a harsh kick from the other man, the one from the kitchen, the one without sunglasses. A kick to his ribs, to the ones already injured. More blood bubbled up his windpipe, and he coughed violently, trying to curl into himself protectively. He felt pathetic. Trapped. A hare in a bear trap, teeth digging into his weak body, tearing flesh from bone. He tried to fight. He was in too much agony to think rationally—all he could think was I need out, out, out. That fight earned him a sharp kick—this time, to his jaw. He felt a crack, teeth coming loose, blood overwhelming him. His head slammed into the hardwood in recoil. Everything went dark—all he could taste was blood, and all he heard was his weak pulse in his ears and the voice in his head, maybe his own, pleading Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

Shane coughed—wet, bubbling. He’d tried to laugh, but he couldn’t do much more than cough and wretch and wheeze now. “You really think… he’ll just let you walk?”

The other man—the one without sunglasses—snorted. “He’ll do what we tell him. He wants you back in one piece.”

Chapter Notes

this one is very short but i wanted to give you guys something to hold you over!!! because of school and work i won't be able to post much during the week but i'll try my best. enjoy :)

Rendezvous point. We will meet in the middle. Five million in cash.

No cops or he’s dead. 

Ilya felt his breath hitch when the notification pinged his phone, followed by a set of coordinates. It had been about six hours since Shane had been taken. Ilya had been counting. He’d just spoken to Hayden—and, still with an ounce of wariness, he forwarded the messages to him immediately. 

I’m going to get him. 

Don’t follow, don’t call police. 

Ilya felt sick. He felt that rotting muscle in his chest ooze and weep just a little more; every second that he was aware that Shane was hurting and scared ate away at that sour flesh. 

Six hours. Six hours since Shane had been dragged out of that van. Six hours since the photo. Six hours of imagining broken ribs, blood pooling where it shouldn’t, Shane alone and drugged and terrified. He had been counting.

Hayden called immediately. Ilya declined it. Five million in cash was unrealistic in this timeframe and they both knew it. But Ilya had done what he could—calls to his financial manager under the guise of an “urgent private acquisition,” promises of wire transfers, a scramble of liquidity. It didn’t matter. The kidnappers wanted a show of obedience. They wanted fear.

They would get something else. The coordinates made his stomach twist. They weren’t at the construction site anymore. They were north—farther out. Closer to where Ilya kept his house. His real house. The one buried in trees and long, winding back roads that twisted like veins through forest and rock. He’d chosen it for privacy. For isolation.

For safety.

“Суки,” he muttered under his breath.

He grabbed his keys.

——— 

Shane had dissolved into hysteria. He’d woken up, at some point. Had he? His wrists had been bound again, this time harsher, with zip ties that cut and burrowed into the tender flesh, blood oozing around them. He was in the back of a van—at least, he thought he was. Everything was blurry. He saw little shapes and shadows in his vision, and the faintest bit of light made his head throb. The van was moving quickly, it felt like, over a bumpy road that slammed and jolted him into the walls. The pain was so overwhelming, consuming every inch of his body, that he barely felt it anymore. This is how I die, he thought driftily—if he wasn’t dead already. NHL star Shane Hollander found dead at age 26 after kidnapping. NHL star Shane Hollander found beaten to a bloody pulp. NHL star Shane Hollander found pathetic and broken and abandoned in the woods. 

Shane let his head loll back against the wall of the van. It was pitch black, other than the occasional flicker of a streetlight that found its way through the small window in the back doors, and penetrated through his drug-induced haze to remind him of the agony he was in. His jaw throbbed with a dull, nauseating ache. Something shifted wetly in his chest when he inhaled. He tried not to think about that, and closed his eyes again, part of him hoping that maybe this time he wouldn’t wake up. 

The van jolted violently.

“What the fuck?” Chris barked from the front.

“I told you to take the left!” the other man snapped.

“I did!”

“You definitely didn’t!”

Shane forced one eye open. Through the tinted windows he saw trees. Endless trees. No buildings. No highway noise. Just winding roads and darkness pressing in. They were lost. A hysterical, broken laugh bubbled in his throat and turned into a cough. The cough turned into agony. He tasted blood again.

“Shut him up,” Chris muttered. 

The other man cursed under his breath. “He’s still bleeding, yeah? He’ll shut himself up in a bit.” 

Shane spit a mouthful of blood at the grimy floor of the van. It bubbled down his chin, foamy and thick. He didn’t want to know how disgusting he looked right now. 

The van lurched again, tires spinning briefly in mud before catching. Shane’s head cracked against the metal wall—fresh pain, bright and stupidly familiar. He didn’t even flinch this time. His body had run out of new ways to register hurt; everything just layered on top of the old damage like wet newspapers on a fire. Through the partition he heard the two men bickering in low, vicious bursts.

“I told you the GPS is shit out here.”

“You’re the one who said this route was faster—”

“—because the main road has cameras, genius!”

Shane let their voices smear into background static. His thoughts kept sliding sideways, greasy from whatever cocktail they’d forced down his throat earlier. The zip ties had bitten so deep into his wrists that he couldn’t feel his pinkies anymore. Numbness was almost a relief.

He tried to picture Ilya’s face—not the furious one from the ice, not the careful one from hotel rooms, but the unguarded one he’d seen maybe four times total in eight years. The one right after they came, when Ilya would forget to school his expression for a handful of seconds. Eyes soft. Mouth slack. Something close to wonder.

Shane wanted that look again. He wanted it so badly the wanting felt like another broken rib.

The van slowed, engine grumbling down to idle. Gravel crunched under the tires—slow, deliberate. They’d stopped. Doors opened. Cold air rushed in, smelling of pine and wet earth and diesel. Shane’s stomach rolled. Boots on gravel. Then the back doors shrieked open. Light—weak, grey, late-afternoon light—stabbed into the dark interior. Shane squeezed his eyes shut instinctively.

“Out.”

He didn’t move.

A hand fisted in his hair and yanked. Pain exploded behind his eyes, white-hot and nauseating. He was hauled upright, legs buckling immediately. They didn’t care. They dragged him anyway—boots scraping uselessly against the ribbed floor, then hitting gravel. His knees folded. He hit the ground hard. The rain had stopped, but everything was still dripping. Trees loomed, dark firs packed tight, swallowing what little daylight remained. No road signs. No distant traffic hum. Just forest pressing in and the low, unhappy sound of the two men breathing.

Chris—the one with the sunglasses, still wearing them even now—crouched in front of Shane. Close enough that Shane could smell stale coffee and sour on his breath.

“Rozanov’s coming,” he said, almost conversational. “Your boyfriend’s got deep pockets and a short fuse. Lucky you.”

Shane’s split lip stung when he tried to speak. Blood cracked and reopened. “Not… my boyfriend,” he rasped. The words tasted like iron and foolishness.

Chris laughed once, short and ugly. “Sure, kid. That’s why he’s about to hand over five mil without blinking.”

Shane’s stomach twisted. Five million. Ilya didn’t even hesitate. The thought should have felt warm. Instead it felt like swallowing broken glass. Because Ilya wouldn’t just bring money. Shane knew him. Ilya would bring violence wrapped in calm. The same calm he wore before a line brawl, before a dirty hit he knew would draw blood. The calm that meant someone was about to regret being born. And these two idiots had no idea what kind of animal they’d poked.

Chris stood up, brushing dirt off his jeans like this was just another Tuesday. “We wait here. He shows, we take the cash, we let you limp away. Simple.”

Shane coughed—wet, bubbling. He’d tried to laugh, but he couldn’t do much more than cough and wretch and wheeze now. “You really think… he’ll just let you walk?”

The other man—the one without sunglasses—snorted. “He’ll do what we tell him. He wants you back in one piece.”

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

The van hit another pothole and pain detonated through his ribs, ripping him out of his spiraling thoughts. A broken, animal sound clawed its way out of him before he could stop it, bile forcing its way up once again.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the men muttered from the front. “He’s making a mess back there.”

“Don’t let him die,” the other snapped. “Not before we get paid.”

Chapter Notes

okay! sike! new update today because i don't want to do my schoolwork. things are getting intense.
TW: explicit description of a dental injury, repeated descriptions of vomiting, mention of suicidal thoughts and ideations, reference to shane's eating disorder, a lot of blood

The garage lights flickered on, illuminating the low, sleek body of his black Ferrari. It looked predatory even sitting still—coiled, waiting. Ilya didn’t bother with a jacket. He slid into the driver’s seat, hands steady now. Too steady.

Rage was only useful if it was quiet.

The engine roared to life beneath him, vibrating through bone and marrow. He pulled out onto the long gravel drive, tires spitting stone, then hit pavement and accelerated hard enough to slam himself back into the seat. The forest blurred. His phone was mounted on the dash, GPS locked on the coordinates. 

Twenty-two minutes.

Ilya had never felt such anger, fear, sadness—such an overwhelming cocktail of emotion in his life. It sat heavy in his chest, acidic and alive, threatening to burn through bone. Part of him was absolutely terrified. The thought of navigating to this rendezvous point, after fighting to wire just short of five million dollars, only to find Shane bleeding out and teetering on death in the dirt, was lodged behind his eyes like a splinter he couldn’t pull free. His knuckles were bone-white against black leather, tendons standing out like cables under strain. Hayden was calling him again.

He knew he should answer.

Stupid Hayden Pike was Shane’s best friend. Shane trusted him. Shane laughed with him. Shared hotel rooms with him. Shared pieces of himself that Ilya never got to see in daylight. The phone buzzed insistently in its mount, Hayden’s name flashing across the screen like an accusation.

Ilya declined the call once again.

“Focus,” he muttered to himself, jaw tight. His voice sounded foreign in the enclosed space of the car. Rough. Unsteady.

The speedometer climbed.

The road out here was treacherous even in daylight—sharp curves, sudden dips, patches of uneven asphalt where winter had chewed through the surface. Now the sky was a bruised grey, threatening rain again, the light fading faster than it should. Trees pressed in on either side like silent witnesses, their branches skeletal and unforgiving.

He knew these roads. He had memorized them when he first moved here. Drove them at night just to learn their rhythm—the way the third curve after the bridge tightened unexpectedly, the way the shoulder disappeared near the old quarry. He had chosen this place because it was hard to find, hard to leave unnoticed.

His mind kept betraying him. Shane’s face in that photo. The angle of his head forced back by a fist in his hair. The bruise blooming across his ribs. Ilya swallowed against something thick and suffocating.

What if they’ve hurt him worse by now? What if the photo was hours old and Shane is—

He refused to finish that thought.

The Ferrari devoured the road, engine snarling as he pushed it harder. Gravel pinged against the undercarriage when he cut a corner too tight. The GPS voice chimed calmly, indifferent to the fact that it was guiding him toward the possibility of losing the only person who had ever made him feel like something more than a weapon. In and out, he reminded himself. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

His chest felt too tight to comply. The phone buzzed again. Hayden. A text this time. 

Pick up, you psycho. I’m calling the cops.

Ilya’s thumb hovered over the screen at a red light that he didn’t bother stopping for. If Hayden called the police and the kidnappers found out—

He pictured Shane on that warped hardwood floor again. Drugged. Beaten. Helpless.

“Don’t,” he breathed, though Hayden couldn’t hear him.

Another message.

If something happens to him because of you—

Ilya threw the phone back into its mount with more force than necessary. Because of you. The words lodged under his skin. If he hadn’t begged Shane to come over, even though they had a game the next afternoon, Shane would’ve stayed at the hotel. Safe.  Eating takeout and scrolling on his phone. Not dragged through mud. Not bleeding. Hayden didn’t know that, but Ilya did—if it hadn’t been for him, Shane wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Guilt tried to claw its way up his throat. He crushed it. This was not the time to unravel—this was the time to be precise. He ran through the possibilities methodically, the way he analyzed plays on the ice. Two men at least. Possibly more, with one gun confirmed from the threat implied in the photo and message. Probably more. They wanted money—but men who escalate to kidnapping escalate further when cornered. He would not go in blind.

The GPS ticked down: fifteen minutes. Rain began again—light at first, then heavier, streaking across the windshield in frantic lines. The wipers snapped into motion, rhythmic and urgent. He adjusted his grip on the wheel and forced his thoughts into order.

If they had Shane at the rendezvous point, they would try to control the terrain.

If they didn’t—if this was a setup to move him somewhere else—

His jaw tightened. He would adapt—he always did. The Ferrari surged over the small bridge that marked the unofficial boundary of his property’s outer acreage. Most people didn’t even realize they were crossing into private land until they hit the fork in the road five miles up. He knew every blind spot. Every clearing wide enough to conceal a vehicle. If they were coming to him, they were already at a disadvantage.

Ten minutes.

His pulse wasn’t racing anymore; instead, it had settled into something colder and steadier.  The fear was still there—coiled and alive—but it had been wrapped in steel, forged into something usable and dangerous.

He imagined pulling up to find Shane standing there. Bruised but alive. Furious. Telling him he was an idiot. He would take that. He would take every insult Shane could throw at him if it meant he was breathing.

The alternative crept in again, uninvited:

Shane on his knees in the dirt, Shane’s eyes unfocused, Shane still and dead and cold on the ground, lips parted and chapped and eyes empty, a picture all too familiar to Ilya. Ilya’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

“Hold on,” he murmured, as if Shane could somehow hear him through miles of forest and rain and pain. “Просто держись.”

The GPS chimed again: five minutes. For the first time since the photo loaded on his screen, Ilya felt something that wasn’t just terror or rage, rather, it was certainty. Whoever thought they could take Shane Hollander and walk away had made a catastrophic mistake.

——— 

The van screeched around another turn, throwing Shane against the wall of the van for what could be the fourth or fifth time. He didn’t have it in him to react anymore, not beyond the wrecked whine that tore from his throat. He was so exhausted. It turned out that their first stop had been the wrong location, and now they were back on the road, leaving Shane to fight through his agony coupled with the motion sickness brought on by the men’s erratic driving. He could feel blood and air bubbling in his chest, jagged edges pushing into his lungs where they shouldn’t. He sluggishly ran his tongue over his gums, feeling wet, empty gapes and craggy, broken teeth. It made him sick. He’d broken teeth before, sure—all hockey players have. But he’d never been kicked in the face with a steel-toed boot and the force of a deranged man who seemed to wish nothing but suffering upon him. He ran his teeth over the holes and crags again, feeling his broken jaw shift as he did. He’d always had a bit of a crossbite, but his teeth were wildly misaligned now. He couldn’t imagine how swollen his face was now.

Shane continued to tongue at his bloody gums, too bleary and disoriented to have the sense to stop. His throat filled with acid, stomach churning at the thought of his wrecked face. He retched harshly, esophagus burning and ruined lungs screaming at the pressure from folding into himself in an attempt to stop himself from vomiting. He couldn’t help it, though—he doubled over and heaved, spitting up acid and blood and shards of his shattered teeth. He coughed wetly, chest heaving as he fought for even a gasp of breath, but his lungs—probably collapsed at this point—refused to allow it, like something was squeezing them, refusing them to expand enough to curb the fear of suffocation.

Maybe this really was how he’d die. He’d choke on his own blood and bile and teeth, and die in the back of this dark, dank van. The men at the front would laugh—maybe they’d pay no mind—and still get their five million dollars. Maybe no one would ever find out at all. Shane Hollander would be forgotten, whisked away, nothing more than a momentary blip in the history of everyone’s lives. Everyone could move on. His team could draft another player. His parents could find another kid to dote on. 

Ilya could find another man—no, he’d be happier with a woman—to fuck his troubles away. The thought should have made Shane angry. Instead, it hollowed him out. He imagined Ilya’s condo without him. The clock ticking again. The couch empty. No half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table. No cold ginger ale sweating into a ring on the wood. Ilya moving through his kitchen alone, broad shoulders filling space that suddenly felt too big. Shane swallowed thickly and nearly choked on it again. 

He would be a headline for a week: Tragic. Promising. Gone too soon.

They would replay his goals. Slow-motion replays of his smile. Commentators would talk about resilience and legacy. There would be flowers outside the arena. Jerseys hung on railings. Maybe a scholarship in his name. And then, another season would start. Another kid would take his number. Maybe it wouldn’t be a fucked up kid who checked all the boxes on job applications when they asked if you were a minority. Maybe it would be a kid who could function with his parents. Maybe it would be a kid who was not so in love with his rival that he didn’t know how to live with himself.

It would be a kid worth remembering, not someone forgettable and disappointing and ruined like Shane Hollander. 

The van hit another pothole and pain detonated through his ribs, ripping him out of his spiraling thoughts. A broken, animal sound clawed its way out of him before he could stop it, bile forcing its way up once again. 

“Jesus Christ,” one of the men muttered from the front. “He’s making a mess back there.”

“Don’t let him die,” the other snapped. “Not before we get paid.”

Shane tried to laugh, but it turned into another wet cough. Blood sprayed across the metal interior. His vision swam violently. Black crowded the edges. Not before we get paid. So that was the only thing tethering him to life. Not his parents. Not his team. Not Ilya. Five million dollars. He let his head thunk back against the wall of the van. The metal was cold against his overheated skin. He tried to focus on that cold, on something simple and concrete.

Inhale.

The air scraped down his throat like sandpaper.

Exhale.

A bubbling rattle answered him from deep in his chest.

He knew injuries. He catalogued them automatically, even now. Ribs—multiple. At least one definitely displaced, several shattered.  Jaw—fractured. Maybe more than one break. Teeth—gone. God, his teeth were gone. He was going to be like Ilya—half of his teeth dentures, too shiny and white to fit in with the rest. If he survived that long. His lungs— they were collapsed? Partially? The wetness when he coughed wasn’t right. The pressure wasn’t right. 

He was dying.

The realization settled over him strangely calmly. He’d always thought dying would feel dramatic, cinematic and poetic, like something swelling and orchestral. Instead, it felt small and quiet. like slipping under warm water. His eyelids fluttered. Maybe he could close his eyes, and slip into that warm water, sinking to its depths to rot away, to let fish pick the meat off his bones until he dissolved into nothing. Nothing would hurt anymore. No one would expect anything of him—he wouldn’t have to be prodigy or representation or role model. He could slip away, quiet and peaceful. These thoughts weren’t unfamiliar to Shane—he’d let them in on occasion, after a bad loss or a lazy day or binge-eating after keeping his calories low for days. 

No.

He wasn’t allowed to die like this. Not after running. Not after almost staying. A memory surfaced through the haze— Ilya’s voice, low and reverent and raspy with pleasure. 

Shane.

The way it had wrapped around him. The way it had terrified him because it sounded like more, like something fragile and sacred and real. It sounded like something terribly close to worship; something Shane knew he didn’t deserve. He didn’t deserve Ilya’s warmth, his worship, his softness.  He had fled from that softness straight into this.

“Fucking idiot,” he whispered to himself, though his lips barely moved around the blood.

The van slowed suddenly, tires crunching over gravel. Shane’s heart stuttered painfully. Were they there? Was this the rendezvous point? Do I have a chance? 

He tried to push himself upright and nearly blacked out from the effort. His arms trembled uselessly beneath him. His wrists were still loosely bound, slick with blood and rainwater and vomit. The van jerked to a stop. Doors opened and cold air rushed in. Shane immediately began to shiver, freezing from the fluids covering him and the lack of warmth given by his barely beating heart. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard one of them curse. “I think we took the wrong turn again.”

“What do you mean wrong turn? The GPS said—”

“There’s no signal out here!”

Signal.

Out here.

Something flickered in Shane’s fading mind. Trees, long stretches of empty road. He’d been here before.

A hysterical spark flared in his chest that almost felt like hope, and he had to stop himself from laughing again, knowing he’d vomit again. He couldn’t afford that. He was sure that with the vomit he’d spit up the last of his life, and his weak heart would push its way through his throat to bleed out and still on the dusty floor. 

The van lurched back into motion, reversing hard. Shane rolled limply with it, too weak to brace himself. His shoulder hit the wall, and the pain barely registered. If they were lost—if they were near Ilya’s place—

A distant sound cut through the forest, low at first, then louder. An engine approaching, certainly faster than the speed limit. Not the clunky grind of the van; something smoother, angrier.

The men in the front went quiet.

“What the hell is that?” one muttered.

The sound grew, devouring distance, a roar threading through trees and winding roads. Shane’s pulse thudded weakly in his ears. Even half-delirious, even choking on his own blood, he knew that sound. He had heard it in that stupid commercial Ilya had done, seen its sheen in the dim lights of Ilya’s garage on his TV.  Black, sleek, and predatory.

“Fuck,” one of the men breathed. The van swerved violently. Shane was thrown sideways again, pain exploding through his chest—but this time, through the agony and the suffocation and the metallic taste flooding his mouth, something else rose up. Not despair or resignation—certainty.

“Ilya,” he croaked, barely audible even to himself.

The engine roared closer, and for the first time since the steel-toed boot had cracked against his face, since the pills had been forced down his throat, since the photo had been taken, Shane smiled. He didn’t care if he died today. He didn’t care if he made it a week, then succumbed to his injuries. All he needed was to see Ilya one last time, to hear his soft voice and feel his rough hands pet through his hair. 

Headlights appeared behind them.

Fast, too fast.

“What the hell—” the driver started.

The Ferrari came up on them like a bullet.

——— 

Ilya saw the van fishtail ahead of him and something feral inside him came fully awake, rushing through his veins and filling him with the inexplicable urge to sink his teeth into soft flesh. He downshifted, engine screaming, and pulled alongside them on the narrow stretch of road. The driver looked over, and their eyes met. Ilya had never seen someone go pale that quickly. The van swerved. “Fuck!” one of them shouted.

They tried to accelerate, but the road twisted sharply. They didn’t know it. Ilya did. He surged forward, cut in front of them, and slammed his brakes just enough to stop them without killing them all, himself and Shane included. If Shane was still alive.  The van jerked violently, tires shrieking, barely avoiding collision before spinning partially sideways across the road.

Ilya was out of the car before it fully stopped moving. Rain had started again—thin, cold needles against his hot skin.

The van doors flew open. Chris stepped out first, gun already raised. And then Shane, dragged out by the other man. Shane stumbled out from the back, shoved forward, barely upright. His face was wrong. Too pale beneath streaks of dried blood, mouth crusted with it, more bubbling at his lips with each shaky breath. One eye was swollen shut, blood and pus oozing between the fattened lids. Shirt soaked dark at the ribs, stained with vomit and drool down its front. 

Ilya’s heart stopped. He had seen Shane in bad positions. Bruised and tired after a rough game. Eyes glassy and hurt and scared. He had never seen him like this, though; he never imagined that he’d have to. Even when Shane was hurt, he was always lucid, eyes clear, mind working. Now, his pupils were different sizes, and he was swaying on his feet, like he could hardly bear to stay awake; stay alive. 

“Five million!” Chris shouted, gun jerking toward Ilya. “You bring it?”

Ilya barely heard him. He was staring at Shane. For what felt like too long, Ilya couldn’t move. He couldn’t hear anything but Shane’s broken, wet gasps for breath, like every inhale was a struggle. 

He barely heard Shane’s voice. 

“Go!” Shane rasped, voice shredded. “Don’t—don’t give them anything, you fucking idiot! Please!” More blood bubbled at his lips, and he coughed violently, splattering dark red all over himself and the pale, wet gravel. 

Relief and horror collided in Ilya’s chest so violently he almost choked. Shane was so broken. He was bleeding so much. He looked like he’d been tortured for hours. Ilya knew it was his fault. Maybe he should’ve fought harder for Shane to stay. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked him to come at all. Maybe he never should’ve gotten involved with Shane, never spoken to him that day in Regina. If Ilya hadn’t come into his life, Shane would be safe and happy. Ilya realized, with gut-wrenching intensity, that two out of the only three people he’d ever truly loved and felt loved by had died—it was only one now, but he felt with terrifying certainty that Shane would not make it. He knew, deep in his heart, that both times were his fault. 

“Shut up!” the other man snarled, cutting into Ilya’s thoughts,grabbing Shane by the collar and yanking him back. Shane cried out—small, involuntary—and Ilya saw the way his body curled protectively around his ribs when he hit the ground, earning another steel-toed kick for his disobedience. He wretched up a mouthful of blood and bile. Ilya felt like he was going to vomit too. 

The gun raised again.

“Money,” Chris demanded. “Or I shoot him.”

Ilya took one step forward. The gun swung toward him instead.

Chapter End Notes

note that i forgot the kidnappers had gotten lost/argued in the last chapter so i had to find an excuse for them to get lost again. oops. just imagine they're really stupid.

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

Ilya finds the people stupid enough to kidnap Shane Hollander. He doesn't hesitate to ruin their lives, permanently. Meanwhile, Hayden spirals, blaming himself for the whole incident. Hayden and Ilya, for once, come together, both desperate to save Shane.

Chapter Notes

we're so fucking back
TWs: graphic violence, gun violence, major character injury, CPR, death/murder, emotional breakdown, same shit as usual, dental injuries

The gun swung toward Ilya like it had all the time in the world. Shane saw it in slow motion—the black muzzle tracking across rain-slick gravel, raindrops exploding off the metal, Chris’s finger tightening on the trigger guard. Ilya stood motionless, hands still half-raised and hesitant, eyes locked on Shane like nothing else existed. Something in Shane’s chest gave way—not the broken ribs, not the collapsed lung, not the blood pooling under his tongue—but something deeper, something that had been cracking for eight years and finally snapped clean through.

Shane didn’t know what came over him. He felt something so terrifying, deep in his chest, violent and hungry and desperate all at once. He could hardly think; all he could do was move, even though that too was just barely. His body was in ruins—legs shaking, vision tunneling, every breath a wet knife twisted in his leaking lungs—but adrenaline or stupidity or love (the same thing, really) shoved what was left of him forward. He lunged. One desperate, ugly scramble across the gravel, to barely force his bound hands to claw at Chris’s wrist, to tear that gun away, to stop him from ruining the one good thing that had ever happened to him. The gun jerked. 

There was a sound louder than Shane could’ve imagined. It amplified the ringing in his ears tenfold, making his head pound and the pulse in his ears seem much more desperate and violent. It felt like the world was splitting open. Pain—bright, white, impossibly agonizing—detonated in Shane’s shoulder. The bullet tore through muscle and bone and out the other side in a hot spray of red. Shane’s arm went limp, useless, but momentum carried him forward. He slammed into Chris’s legs, broken teeth bared and bloody, and sank them into the meat of the man’s thigh like an animal. 

Chris shouted, nearly dropping the gun. Shane tasted blood, denim, dirt, stale grease and motor oil. He felt like he could vomit again, but was unsure if he’d survive the ordeal this time. He’d seen people get shot in movies. He’d heard gunshots in the night in the sketchy parts of downtown Vancouver, when he was tucked away safe in his hotel room and Hayden teased him for startling. He hadn’t really imagined that he'd ever be in the position he was in now—a bullet lodged in his shoulder, so hot and searing and agonizing that he fully lacked the comprehension to even begin to describe the pain. Still, he lunged again, determined to take out the man who dared to threaten Ilya. He didn’t care that he was falling apart, that his blood was pooling on the gravel beneath him, that he could die any second now.

He’d die happily if it meant Ilya could walk away unscathed. 

The second man, the one who was apparently too much of a coward to do anything but stand there and watch, tried to grab Shane by the shoulders and haul him away from Chris, dirty fingers digging into the hot, gaping wound of his shoulder. Shane made a noise somewhere between an animalistic snarl and a wail; he couldn’t really tell which. He vaguely registered Ilya abandoning his complacency, charging forward with a terrifying ferocity that Shane couldn’t even recognize from the ice. He watched, feeling as though he was seeing reality in third person, as Ilya swung a nasty right hook into Chris’s jaw. 

Shane struggled weakly, clawing at the man restraining him, trying his hardest to get to Ilya. He needed to protect him. The instinctual desire to shield Ilya from any harm, despite his own imminent death, was so strong that Shane felt overwhelmed. With his broken teeth, mouth filled with a sickening combination of his own and Chris’s, he bit the other man’s forearm, trying to get free. That same, violently loud bang happened again; Chris had clumsily fired again, maybe aiming for Ilya, maybe for Shane. 

Shane didn’t process the bullet burrowing into his chest before he slipped into a thick, dark unconsciousness. 

——— 

The quiet vanished. Something older and hungrier took its place—something that had been waiting since Ilya was twelve and the world first showed him what loss looked like. His pupils swallowed the green of his irises until his eyes were black. He moved; no hesitation. No warning. He couldn’t really even control himself. Something beyond him had taken control of his body, something violent and primal and so fucking scared. 

Ilya crossed the distance in two strides and drove his forehead into the bridge of Chris’s nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood sprayed. Chris staggered, hands flying to his face. Ilya didn’t stop. He grabbed the front of Chris’s shirt, yanked him down, and slammed his knee into Chris’s solar plexus so hard the air left the man in a wet whoosh. 

The second man—the one without sunglasses, the one who’d been restraining Shane—lunged for the dropped gun. Ilya was faster. He pivoted, caught the man’s reaching arm, and twisted until the elbow popped the wrong way. The man howled. Ilya didn’t let go. He used the broken arm like a lever, spun the man around, and drove him face-first into the side of the van. Metal dented. The man’s nose flattened. Blood painted the white paint in a wide arc.

Ilya still didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He kicked the man’s knee backward and heard the pop of ligament and bone giving way. The man collapsed, screaming. Ilya dropped on top of him, knees pinning shoulders, and brought both fists down like hammers. Once. Twice. Three times. The screams turned to gurgles. Blood and teeth scattered across the gravel.

Chris was trying to crawl away, one hand clamped over his ruined nose, the other dragging uselessly. Ilya turned. He walked to Chris slowly. Rain slid down his face in rivulets, mixing with the blood that had sprayed across his cheekbones. He looked calm again. Too calm.

Chris whimpered stupidly. “Please—money—we’ll—”

Ilya crouched. He picked up the gun with two fingers like it was something filthy. He ejected the magazine, thumbed the remaining rounds into the dirt one by one, then snapped the slide back and let the empty weapon clatter beside Chris’s head. Then he grabbed Chris by the hair. 

He dragged him across the gravel to where Shane lay curled on his side, blood pulsing steadily from the hole in his shoulder and worse from the one in his stomach. Shane’s breathing was shallow, erratic, each inhale ending in a faint bubbling rattle. He was barely alive. Maybe he wasn’t anymore.  Ilya dropped Chris beside him.

“Look at him,” Ilya said. Voice low. Almost gentle. “Look what you did.”

Chris tried to turn away. Ilya forced his head back with a hand around the throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. Enough pressure to remind him how easy it would be.

“You shot him,” Ilya continued. “You broke him. You made him bleed.” His thumb traced the line of Chris’s jaw, almost tender. “Now I break you.” He stood. He brought his boot down on Chris’s shooting hand. Hard. Bones cracked like dry twigs. Chris shrieked, high and animal. Ilya stepped on the other hand. Same sound. Same scream.

Then he knelt again. He wrapped both hands around Chris’s head—one at the jaw, one at the crown—and twisted. Not far. Just enough. The snap was quiet, wet and final, nearly drowned out by the sound of Ilya’s own ragged breaths. 

Chris went limp.

——— 

Hayden Pike had never felt so useless in his life. He’d been pacing the sterile confines of the hotel room for what felt like an eternity, the carpet wearing thin under his agitated strides, phone gripped in a fist that had gone numb from the pressure. The screen mocked him with its silence—no calls back from Ilya, no updates, just that godawful photo staring up at him every time he unlocked it, Shane’s face twisted in pain and defiance, mud and blood turning him into something unrecognizable, something broken. Five million dollars. No police. The words echoed in Hayden’s skull like a curse, binding him in place even as every instinct screamed at him to do something, anything, to tear the city apart until he found his best friend.

Guilt gnawed at him like a wolf at a bone, relentless and sharp, digging into the soft underbelly of his regrets. He should’ve known something was off when Shane slipped out last night, mumbling about seeing a friend, his cheeks flushed in that way Hayden had learned not to question over the years. He should’ve pushed, teased it out of him like he always did with everything else—Shane’s bad moods after losses, his quiet worries about his mom, the way he’d zone out staring at his phone like it held secrets. But Hayden had let it slide, cracked a joke about Shane finally getting laid, and watched him go. Now Shane was out there, bleeding, maybe dying, and Hayden was here, trapped in this room that smelled like stale coffee and unwashed jerseys, doing fuck all.

He’d argued with himself until his throat hurt. Shane was his best friend. Shane trusted him. And Ilya—fucking Ilya Rozanov—had said don’t follow, don’t call the police, like he could handle this alone, like he was some action hero instead of a rival who’d spent eight years pretending he hated Shane’s guts.

Hayden knew better. He’d seen the way Shane looked at Ilya across rinks and press scrums—quick glances, then away, like touching fire. He’d heard the late-night hotel room silences when Shane came back smelling like Russian cologne and guilt. He’d never asked. Never pushed. Because Shane was private like that, and Hayden figured if Shane wanted to talk about it, he would.

But this wasn’t a hookup gone wrong. This was Shane missing. Shane hurt. Shane maybe dying while Hayden sat here doing jack shit. He stopped pacing and stared at the wall. At the team gear bag in the corner, at the half-eaten room-service burger Shane had left on the table yesterday morning before he’d slipped out. Hayden’s stomach twisted. He should’ve asked where Shane was going. Should’ve made him stay. Should’ve driven him himself instead of letting him walk out into the rain like it was nothing. Guilt tasted like bile. He felt sick. He opened his phone again. Typed the emergency line for Boston PD. Deleted it. Typed it again.

Ilya had said no cops. But Ilya wasn’t here. Ilya was watching Shane bleed out somewhere in the woods, maybe. Ilya wasn’t the one who’d promised Shane’s mom he’d look out for him when they were rookies, back when Shane still flinched at loud noises and reporters asking about his differences.

Hayden hit call. The dispatcher picked up on the second ring. Calm. Professional.

“Boston Police, what’s your emergency?”

Hayden’s voice cracked on the first word. “My friend’s been kidnapped. Shane Hollander. Like, the NHL player. They sent a photo. They want five million. They said no police, but—he’s hurt. Bad. I think he’s dying.”

He forced the words out—location Shane had shared earlier, the photo Ilya had forwarded, the coordinates from the last message, the fact that Ilya had gone after him alone. He gave them everything he had, voice shaking harder with every sentence.

The dispatcher stayed calm. Asked questions and took notes. Said units were being dispatched, that they’d coordinate with state police since the coordinates were outside city limits. Said someone would call him back soon.

Hayden hung up and sank onto the edge of the bed. Hands trembling. Chest tight.

He’d just broken every rule Ilya had set. If Shane died because of this—if the kidnappers found out and hurt him worse—Hayden would never forgive himself.

But if he’d done nothing, sat here waiting for Ilya to maybe come back with Shane’s body, he’d never forgive himself either.

He stared at his phone. No new messages. No word from Ilya. He pictured Shane the way he usually was—grinning after a goal, hair sweaty under his helmet, eyes bright even when he was exhausted. He was his best friend. Then he pictured the photo again. Crusted with dirt and blood, eyes glassy but still fighting. Hayden pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until he saw stars. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the empty room. “I’m so fucking sorry, Shane. I should’ve done more sooner.”

He stood up and grabbed his keys. He wasn’t waiting here anymore. If the police were going, so was he. He burst into the hallway, the door slamming behind him like a gunshot. The elevator felt too slow, the lobby a blur of indifferent faces. Outside, rain slapped his skin, cold and accusing, but he didn’t care. He’d drive to those coordinates himself, meet the cops there, drag Shane out of whatever hell he was in. Because Shane was his flock, his pack, the quiet center in the chaos of the league, and Hayden had let him wander into the woods alone. No more.

He slid into his rental car, engine roaring to life, tires screeching as he peeled out into the storm. Guilt rode shotgun, but so did hope—thin, desperate, clinging like a lamb to its mother. Shane had to be okay. He had to.

He’d face Ilya’s anger later. He’d face Shane’s, too—if Shane was still alive to be angry. Hayden yanked the door open and stepped into the hallway, heart hammering. He wasn’t losing his best friend to silence and bad decisions. Something in his mind whispered that Rozanov couldn’t lose him either, not after finally piecing together that he was the one Shane had been seeking comfort in all these years. He wouldn’t lose his best friend, and he wouldn’t let the man who loved his best friend lose him too. Not tonight.

——— 

Chris’s body hit the mud with a soft, final splash. Rain drummed on the gravel, washing blood into thin pink streams that ran past Ilya’s boots. He stood there for half a second, chest heaving, fists still curled, before the rage drained out like someone had pulled a plug. All that was left was Shane.

Shane lay curled on his side exactly where he’d been dropped,  pale as paper under the streaks of mud and blood. His good eye, the one that wasn’t swollen shut from bruises, was open, but it was glassy and unfocused, looking at nothing in particular. He was so, so still. His chest was hardly moving—Ilya wouldn’t know if he was alive if it weren’t for the terrible,wet, bubbling sound of his weak breaths. Ilya fell to his knees in the puddle of red spreading beneath them. He pressed both palms over the shoulder wound first, then slid one down to the chest, trying to cover both holes at once. Blood surged hot between his fingers, soaking his sleeves, his jeans, the front of his shirt until he was drowning in it. Shane’s blood. Everywhere.

“Shane,” Ilya whispered, voice raw. “Stay with me. Please.”

Shane reached out, making a strained sound like the act of barely moving his arm was the most difficult undertaking of his life. His fingers tightened weakly around Ilya’s wrist. His lips moved, cracked and bloody. “I’m sorry… for leaving.” Each word came out wet, strained, like it cost him the last of his air. “I didn’t want to. Can you… forgive me?”

Ilya’s heart cracked right down the middle. He leaned in until their foreheads touched, rain dripping from his hair onto Shane’s ruined face. “There is nothing to forgive,” he choked out. “Nothing. You hear me? Nothing.” Ilya didn’t care that his voice cracked. He didn’t care that his eyes were red and bloodshot, and that tears were silently rolling down his cheeks. His bottom lip was quivering with the effort it took to hold himself together for Shane. Ilya had been here before. It had been long ago; almost a decade and a half at this point. He remembered kneeling on the cold bathroom tile, lips trembling as he tried so hard not to wail and scream and beg. He remembered pressing his forehead to his mama’s, crying and whispering and pleading for her to stay. He remembered feeling like his ribs had been cracked and his heart had been torn straight from his chest, crushed and destroyed, left on the floor to grow cold along with his mother’s corpse. 

Shane tried to smile. It barely moved his mouth, all broken and stiff with blood. “I love you,” he breathed, so quiet it was almost lost in the rain. Ilya’s heart was crushed all over again, and a terrible, wretched sob was wrenched from his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut, breathing in the stale, sweaty scent of Shane’s skin. “Always did. I’m… I’m sorry we didn’t…” Shane coughed violently, the force making him seize, blood splattering on himself and Ilya’s chest. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time.”  Then his eye slid shut. His hand went limp. The shallow, bubbling breaths slowed… slowed… stopped.

Ilya made a sound he didn’t recognize—half scream, half sob—and hauled Shane into his arms, clutching him against his chest like he could hold the life inside by force. Blood kept pouring, warm and endless, soaking through everything. Ilya didn’t care.  “Hold on,” he kept repeating, over and over, voice breaking. “Just hold on. Please. Я здесь. I’m here. I love you so much. Please, Shane. Я тебя люблю. You cannot leave me. I haven’t—haven’t even gotten to have you yet.” God, Ilya felt so pathetic. He couldn’t stop the terrible full-body sobs that seized his entire body, made him shake and shiver. He’d been holding back these tears for a decade and a half. Maybe his whole life. 

Ilya pressed his mouth to Shane’s, half-kissing him and half-trying to administer some sort of CPR, anything to help. Any oxygen that he forced into Shane’s mouth bubbled right back out through the wound in his chest. Ilya was soon met with a terrible realization—if Shane were to die, Ilya would gladly follow. If Shane were to die, Ilya would have nothing left. If Shane were to die, Ilya wouldn’t know himself anymore. 

Ilya kept forcing air into Shane’s mouth, desperate and useless, each breath bubbling straight back out through the chest wound in a frothy pink mist that painted his chin and neck. He tasted iron and rain and the fading warmth of Shane’s lips, but nothing changed. Shane’s body stayed limp in his arms, chest still, the terrible wet rattle gone silent. Ilya’s hands slipped on the blood-slick skin as he pressed harder, one palm over the shoulder hole, the other trying to seal the chest, but the blood just kept coming, hot and endless, soaking through his shirt until he felt like he was drowning in it right alongside Shane.

He was shaking so hard his teeth chattered. The sobs tore out of him now, loud and ugly, the kind he hadn’t let himself make since he was twelve and found his mother cold on the bathroom floor. “Don’t leave me,” he begged, voice cracking into Russian and English all at once. “Please, Shane. I can’t—I can’t do this again. You’re all I have. Я тебя люблю. Stay. Just stay.”

Headlights suddenly sliced through the trees, bright and fast. Not red and blue. Just ordinary white beams cutting the rain like knives. Tires skidded on the wet gravel, an engine roaring too loud and then cutting off. A door slammed.

Hayden.

He came sprinting through the downpour, boots splashing, eyes wild when they landed on the scene—two bodies in the mud, the van, the Ferrari with its doors hanging open, and Ilya on his knees cradling Shane like something already lost.

“Shane!” Hayden’s voice broke as he dropped hard beside them, knees hitting the blood-soaked gravel. “Jesus Christ, Rozanov—what the fuck happened?”

“He stopped breathing,” Ilya rasped, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the rain and blood. “Two shots. He took them for me. He’s gone. He’s—”

Hayden didn’t wait. He shoved Ilya’s hands aside, pressed both of his own over the chest wound, and leaned down to listen. “No. No, he’s not. Come on, buddy.” He pinched Shane’s nose, sealed his mouth over Shane’s, and blew two strong breaths. Then he started compressions—hard, fast, counting out loud through gritted teeth. “One, two, three, four—fuck, breathe, you stubborn asshole.”

Ilya could only watch, hands hovering uselessly, covered in Shane’s blood up to his wrists. Hayden kept going, thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty more, rain streaming off his hair and into his eyes. His face was pale, jaw tight, but he didn’t stop.

“Come on,” Hayden muttered. “You don’t get to die on me. Not after I finally figured it out. Not after you finally had something real.”

Shane’s chest jerked once—weak, involuntary. A thin, wet gasp escaped his lips. Then another. Faint and bubbling, but it was there. Hayden froze mid-compression. “He’s back. He’s breathing—barely, but he’s breathing.”

Ilya made a choked sound and leaned in again, one hand cupping Shane’s cold cheek, the other still trying to slow the blood at his stomach. Shane’s good eye fluttered open a slit, glassy and unfocused, but it found Ilya for half a second.

“…Ilya…” The whisper was barely air.

“I’m here,” Ilya whispered back, pressing their foreheads together again. “I’m right here. Don’t talk. Just keep breathing. Please.”

Hayden kept one hand on the chest wound, applying steady pressure, the other gripping Shane’s wrist like he could hold him to this world by force. “Help’s coming,” he said, voice rough. “I called them. They’re on the way. You just gotta hold on a little longer, okay? Both of you.”

In the distance, sirens finally cut through the rain—red and blue lights flashing between the trees. They were far out, but they were coming. Hayden didn’t move. Ilya didn’t move. They stayed right there in the mud and blood, rain pouring down, Shane’s faint breaths the only sound that mattered. The first cruiser slid to a stop. Doors flew open. Shouts. Boots running. But for one more second, it was just the three of them—Hayden pressing on the wound, Ilya holding Shane’s face, and Shane clinging to whatever thin thread of life was left. They weren’t losing him tonight. Not if they had anything to say about it.

Hayden’s compressions didn’t falter even as the rain hammered harder, turning the gravel into a slurry of mud and blood. His arms burned, shoulders screaming from the force, but he kept the rhythm—thirty hard pumps, two rescue breaths, repeat. Shane’s chest rose under his palms with each push, reluctant, shallow, but rising. The bubbling wheeze was back, faint and horrible, like air scraping through wet paper.

Ilya stayed frozen beside them, one hand still clamped over the stomach wound, the other cradling the back of Shane’s head like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. Tears cut clean tracks through the blood and grime on his face. He hadn’t blinked since Shane’s last breath had stopped. He looked like he was waiting for the universe to finish breaking him.

Headlights flashed again—different this time. High beams swept across the scene, tires crunching gravel. A black SUV slid to a stop, engine still running, door flying open before it fully settled. Ilya instinctively curled closer to Shane, cradling him just close enough while still allowing Hayden room to keep tending to him. He kissed his temple and mumbled something into his hair that Hayden didn’t quite catch.

Hayden didn’t look up when the SUV pulled in. “About fucking time,” he muttered between compressions. But it wasn’t the cops. The figure that stepped out was too tall, too fast, moving with the same panicked purpose Hayden had felt driving here. Ilya’s head snapped up first.

“Rozanov—” Hayden started, then stopped when he saw who it was.

No. Not a cop. Not yet. It was just another set of headlights, but the wrong ones. A dark sedan pulled in behind the SUV, lights off, coasting to a quiet stop. Two men in plain clothes stepped out—state troopers, maybe, plainclothes detail responding to the initial call. They took one look at the bodies, the blood, the three men kneeling in the mud, and hands went to holsters.

“Hands where we can see them!” one barked, voice cutting through the rain.

Hayden kept compressing. “He’s not breathing right—gunshot to the chest, shoulder, he’s bleeding out—”

Ilya didn’t move. His hands stayed on Shane, blood-slick and shaking. “He took the bullets for me,” he said, voice flat, empty. “I killed them.”

The troopers exchanged a glance. The second one spoke into his radio, low and urgent. “We’ve got multiple DOAs, one critical GSW victim, and a possible suspect on scene. Requesting medevac and backup.”

Hayden finally looked up, rain streaming into his eyes, hopefully hiding the tears he’d been trying to hold back. “He’s not the suspect. I mean, he killed them, but Rozanov—he’s the one who got Shane out, he—he protected him. Check the bodies—they’re the kidnappers. They shot Shane. Twice.”

Shane coughed weakly—once, wet and choking. Fresh blood bubbled at his lips. Ilya made a broken sound and leaned closer, murmuring in Russian, soft and frantic.

The first trooper knelt beside them, gloved hands hovering. “Let me take over compressions.”

Hayden didn’t stop. “He’s my best friend. I’m not stopping until the paramedics get here.”

Sirens wailed closer now—real ones this time. Red and blue lights bounced off the wet trees. An ambulance rounded the bend, followed by two more cruisers. Hayden kept going. Thirty. Two breaths. Thirty. Shane’s chest hitched again—stronger this time. A thin, ragged inhale. Then another.

Ilya’s head dropped forward, forehead pressing to Shane’s temple. “That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s it, my love. Keep breathing.”

Paramedics swarmed them—two dropping beside Shane, one pulling Hayden back gently but firmly. “We’ve got him. Step aside.”

Hayden resisted for half a second, then let go, hands shaking, covered in Shane’s blood. He staggered back a step, staring as they worked—oxygen mask, IV lines, pressure dressings, backboard.

Ilya didn’t move until a medic touched his shoulder. “Sir, we need space.”

Ilya looked up, eyes red-rimmed and wild. “He stopped breathing. I couldn’t—”

“We’ve got him now,” the medic said. “You did good getting him here.”

They lifted Shane onto the board, straps snapping into place. Ilya stood when they did, legs unsteady, trying to follow them to the ambulance like he was tethered to Shane by invisible wire. Hayden watched it all through the rain, chest heaving. The troopers were cuffing Ilya’s hands behind his back—standard procedure, they said, until they sorted the bodies and the story. Ilya didn’t resist. He just kept his eyes on the gurney, on Shane’s pale face under the oxygen mask.

One trooper turned to Hayden. “You the one who called it in?”

Hayden nodded, throat too tight to speak at first. “Yeah. He’s my best friend. He’s… he’s gotta make it.”

The trooper glanced at the ambulance doors closing, lights flashing. “They’re taking him to Boston General. Trauma team’s ready. You can follow in your vehicle.”

Hayden looked at Ilya—still cuffed, being guided toward a cruiser. Their eyes met for one second. Ilya’s were hollow, but he gave the smallest nod. Hayden nodded back. Then he ran for his car. The ambulance pulled out first, sirens screaming. Hayden followed, tires spinning in the mud, heart hammering so hard he could barely breathe. Shane was alive, for now, but that was enough to keep driving through the storm.

Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Shane makes it out alive, barely. Ilya and Hayden suck up their pride enough to start to talk about what happened, and Ilya properly meets a very upset Yuna Hollander.

Chapter Notes

yay!
TWs: medical stuff, trauma, the beginnings of ptsd, panic attacks, referenced hate crime/hate speech in shane's childhood, same shit as usual.

The hospital smelled like antiseptic and old grief, the kind that never quite aired out. Boston General’s trauma ICU was a quiet war zone of beeps and hushed voices, but to Ilya it sounded like the inside of a ribcage—wet, mechanical, barely holding together. He sat in the plastic chair outside Shane’s bay because they would not let him any closer yet, not while the doctors were still “stabilizing.” His hands were clean now; some nurse had made him wash them. He hated how easily Shane’s blood rinsed away. Like it had never been there, like none of it had happened.

He kept seeing it anyway. The way Shane’s body had jerked when the second bullet hit. The way his good eye had found Ilya’s for one fractured second and still tried to say go. The way his teeth—those brave, broken teeth—had sunk into flesh to protect him. Ilya’s own ribs felt too tight. Like someone had poured fresh concrete into the hollow his mother left when he was twelve. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw sparks. Not again. Not him. Not like this.

Hayden was somewhere down the hall arguing with a state trooper in low, furious tones. Ilya could hear snippets—self-defense, he saved him, check the fucking bodies—but he didn’t care. Let them cuff him again. Let them arrest him. As long as Shane was still breathing on the other side of that glass wall, Ilya would let the entire world think he was the monster. He had been one, after all. He had twisted a man’s neck like it was nothing. He had felt the snap and felt nothing except relief that Shane might live another minute.

The double doors hissed open. A doctor this time, not a surgeon—younger, eyes kind but exhausted. She looked at Ilya like she already knew. “Mr. Rozanov?”

He stood so fast the chair scraped loud enough to make heads turn.

“He’s stable. For now.” She held up a hand before he could speak. “The lung is repaired. We had to remove a section of the lower lobe—too much damage. The shoulder’s pinned. He coded twice on the table, but we got him back. He’s sedated, intubated, on heavy support. The next twenty-four hours will tell us more. You can see him. Five minutes. One person.”

Ilya’s throat closed. He managed a nod. He didn’t even understand most of what she was saying; his brain was far too exhausted to process any sort of English, let alone the medical kind. 

The doctor hesitated. “He’s… not going to look like himself. Swelling, bruising, the tube. A lot of people find it harder than they expect.”

Ilya almost laughed. Harder than watching Shane’s chest stop moving in the rain? Harder than tasting his blood while begging him to stay? Nothing would ever be harder than that. He followed her in.

———

Shane looked smaller than he had any right to. Hockey had carved him broad and quick and unbreakable; the machines had turned him into something breakable after all. White tape across his chest. Purple blooming under his eyes. One side of his face swollen so badly the shape was wrong. The ventilator hissed in, hissed out, forcing air into lungs that had tried to drown him from the inside. Ilya stopped at the foot of the bed. His knees wanted to buckle. He locked them.

“Shane,” he whispered. The word cracked like thin ice. He moved closer, slow, like Shane might spook even unconscious. The only place without wires or tape was the inside of Shane’s left wrist. Ilya touched it with two fingers—gentle, reverent, the way he had touched him in hotel rooms when no one was watching. The skin was cool. Too cool. But the pulse under it was stubborn. Steady. Alive.

“I killed them,” Ilya said, voice low so the nurse outside wouldn’t hear. “Both of them. I made it hurt. I made sure they knew what they did to you before they stopped breathing.” His thumb stroked once over the vein. “I would do it again. Every day. For the rest of my life. But it doesn’t fix this. It doesn’t bring you back to me whole.”

He swallowed. The room smelled like plastic and blood and the faint ghost of Shane’s cologne still clinging to his hair. “I should have locked the door when you tried to leave. I should have said your name sooner. I should have told you in Regina eight years ago that I was already ruined for anyone else.” His voice dropped to almost nothing. “I love you, Shane. Я тебя люблю. Not just in the dark. Not just when we’re pretending it’s only bodies. I love the way you leave half your sandwich like you trust me not to judge. I love the way you flinch when I say your name soft, like it’s the scariest thing I could ever do to you. I love you so much it’s been killing me slowly since we were eighteen and we were stupid enough to think we could keep it simple.” He wasn’t even sure if the words were coming out in Russian or English. It didn’t matter, really. He just hoped Shane understood enough to know that Ilya would do anything for him. That Ilya loved him more than anything he’d ever had the chance to. 

A tear slipped free. He didn’t wipe it away. Let it fall onto the white sheet. “When you wake up—and you will wake up—I’m not letting you run again. I’ll make you terrible soup. I’ll sit on your couch in Ottawa and meet your mother and let her hate me for a while. I’ll hold your hand in public if you want. Or I’ll keep it secret forever if that’s what you need. Just… come back. Please. I can’t lose the last person who makes me feel like I’m still human.”

He leaned down, careful of every tube, and pressed his forehead to Shane’s knuckles the way he had in the rain. The ventilator hissed. In. Out. In. Out. “Просто дыши,” he murmured against Shane’s skin. “Just breathe. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. I’ve got you now.”

———

Outside in the waiting room, Hayden was slumped in a chair with his head in his hands. His hoodie was still damp. There was still blood—Shane’s blood—dried in the creases of his palms. Ilya sat down across from him without being asked. They didn’t speak for a long time. Finally Hayden’s voice came out raw. “I called the cops. I broke your rule.”

“I know.”

“I thought—I thought if I waited, he’d be…”

“I know.”

Another silence. Then Hayden looked up, eyes red and furious and exhausted. “He took two bullets for you. He bit a guy for you, Rozanov. And you’re still sitting here like—like it’s all your fault. Like you’re a fucking villain or something.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “I am the villain. I always was. But he chose me anyway.”

Hayden huffed something that might have been a laugh if it wasn’t so broken. “Yeah. Well. He’s an idiot.”

“He is.”

“I guess I’m kinda starting to get what he sees in you.”

Ilya laughed, something a little dry and forced, but it helped. 

They sat like that until a nurse came to tell them Shane’s vitals had ticked up, just a little. Not enough. But a little. Ilya closed his eyes and let himself believe it. In the room down the hall, Shane kept breathing—stubborn, impossible, still fighting even while the machines did the work for him. Somewhere in the drugged dark he was dreaming of Ilya’s voice saying his name like a prayer. Like something worth keeping. And for the first time in eight years, the space between pasture and woods didn’t feel quite so impossible. 

——— 

Someone had called Shane’s parents at some point. Maybe Hayden, maybe one of the nurses. Someone had said that Shane's dad was in Vancouver on a business trip, but he was flying over as soon as possible. Ilya wasn’t sure. He felt like he’d been in a trance for the past eight hours or so, exhausted, knuckles aching. The shitty hospital chairs were hurting his back, but he had hardly moved. He’d been sitting in the chair beside Shane’s bed for as long as the doctors would let him. The thought of walking out of that room felt like ripping his own guts out. 

Shane had been unconscious, mostly. They’d sedated him pretty heavily to help with the agony he was undeniably experiencing. He would stir every once in a while, snuffle a bit, try to speak around the tube down his throat, and try to curl closer to Ilya, only to be hushed and eased onto his back once again. 

Ilya himself had been fighting unconsciousness, drifting into a fitful sleep only to startle himself awake in a panic. He was so scared that he’d close his eyes and his Shane would be gone. Maybe they’d take him again, or maybe he’d be dead. 

When the door to the silent room burst open with a flurry of activity, Ilya immediately bolted upright, moving to shield Shane with his own body. He didn’t relax much when he was met with none other than the face of Yuna Hollander. Ilya was terrified of her, to say the least—he always had been. She was a strict, no-bullshit manager that would do anything to keep her son safe and successful. Ilya was almost certain that she was going to kill him. 

Yuna stood in the doorway, coat still dripping rain onto the linoleum, hair plastered to her temples from the storm outside. She was smaller than he remembered—smaller than the force of nature she’d always seemed in press photos and the handful of times he’d glimpsed her at games—but the way she filled the room made the space feel suddenly too small. Her eyes—Shane’s eyes, the same big, deep brown—swept the bed, the machines, the tubes, and landed on Ilya. For a second neither of them moved. Then Yuna’s gaze flicked to her son again.

The air left her in a sound that wasn’t quite a sob—more like something being torn loose inside her chest. She crossed the room in three strides, coat shedding water, and stopped at the foot of the bed. Her hands hovered over the railing, trembling, like she was afraid touching anything would make it worse. “Shane,” she whispered. The word cracked open. “Oh, baby.”

Ilya stayed where he was—half-standing, half-shielding—because moving felt like surrender. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. They felt too big, too bloody even though they’d been scrubbed raw hours ago. He felt like an intruder in this moment that wasn’t his to claim.

Yuna’s eyes lifted again and found him. “You,” she said. Not a question. Not an accusation. Just a fact, flat and cold.

Ilya swallowed. His throat was sandpaper. “Mrs. Hollander.”

She looked at him for a long beat—long enough that Ilya felt every scar on his knuckles, every bruise he’d taken on the ice from her son over the years, every secret hotel-room hour they’d stolen. He waited for the slap. The scream. The demand to get the hell away from her boy. Instead she asked, very quietly, “Did you do this to him?”

The question landed like a body check. Ilya flinched. “No,” he rasped. “I didn’t—I would never—” His voice cracked. 

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why is he here like this? Why is my son intubated and bleeding out in a Boston ICU while you sit here holding his hand like you belong?”

Ilya opened his mouth. Closed it. The truth felt too big, too ugly, too private. But she deserved it. She was his mother. “He came to my place yesterday,” Ilya said, forcing each word out like pulling teeth. “We… We were together. He left. He got into wrong car. They took him. I get there as fast as I could. I—” His voice broke. “I killed them. The men who did this. I killed them so he could live. I’m sorry. I tried, Mrs. Hollander. But I couldn’t—” He broke off, clearing his throat and averting his gaze so that she wouldn’t see the sheen of tears. 

Yuna stared at him. Something flickered behind her eyes—shock, maybe disgust, maybe understanding. She looked back at Shane. At the ventilator forcing air into lungs that had nearly drowned him. At the bandages taped across his chest. At the swollen ruin of his face. Then she looked at Ilya again. “You love him,” she said simply, not a question this time either.

Ilya’s breath hitched. He nodded once. Sharp. Like admitting it might break something inside him. Yuna exhaled slowly. She stepped around the bed—slow, deliberate—and came to stand beside Ilya. Close enough that he could smell rain and the faint floral of whatever perfume she wore. She looked down at Shane for a long moment. Then she reached out and brushed a damp strand of hair off his forehead with trembling fingers. “He’s always been too brave for his own good,” she murmured. “Ever since he was little. Took every hit. Never cried. Never quit.” Her voice cracked. “I should have known he’d do something stupid like this for someone he loves.” Ilya’s chest ached so badly he couldn’t breathe right. Yuna turned to him. Her eyes were wet, but steady. “Did he say anything? Before… before this?”

Ilya thought of the rain. Of Shane’s cracked lips moving against his. I love you. Always did. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time. He swallowed hard. “He said he was sorry. For leaving. For not staying longer. He said—” His voice gave out. He forced it back. “He said he loved me.”

Yuna closed her eyes. A tear slipped free. She didn’t wipe it away. “Then he’s still in there,” she said softly. “Fighting. Like always.” She opened her eyes again and looked straight at Ilya. “I don’t know what you really are to him. I don’t know if I want to know right now. But I know he’s alive because of you. And I know he’s still breathing because you wouldn’t let him go.” She paused. Her voice hardened just a fraction. “If you ever hurt him—if you ever make him scared—I will destroy you. Do you understand me?”

Ilya met her gaze and didn’t flinch, which took far more effort than he’d like to admit. “I understand.”

Yuna studied him another moment. Then she nodded—once, small—and turned back to Shane. She took his other hand, the one not tangled in Ilya’s, and pressed it to her cheek. “I’m here, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Mom’s here. You’re safe now. You can rest.” Shane didn’t move. The ventilator hissed. In. Out. In. Out. But his fingers—those bruised, taped fingers—twitched. Just once. Barely enough to notice. Yuna’s breath caught. Ilya felt it too. A tiny spark of warmth in the cold dark. He didn’t let go of Shane’s hand. Neither did Yuna. They stood like that on opposite sides of the bed. Not friends, really—at least, not yet. But bound by the same desperate, stubborn love.

The fluorescent lights in the ICU never dimmed, never softened; they stayed bright and merciless, bleaching everything to the same pale, clinical gray. Hayden had gone home, to deal with his own family. He’d fought it, insisting that he had to stay here for Shane, and it took Yuna putting on her scary professional momager voice to make him leave. Shane had been under for almost twelve hours now, the heavy sedation doing its job too well—keeping pain at bay but also keeping him locked somewhere deep and unreachable. Every so often his eyelids would flutter, or the muscles in his jaw would twitch around the breathing tube like he was trying to form words he couldn’t quite reach. His chest rose and fell in perfect, mechanical rhythm with the ventilator, but it never felt like enough. Ilya kept waiting for the moment the machine would falter, or Shane’s body would simply give up the fight it had been waging since the gravel road outside Boston. He hadn’t moved from the chair in so long that his back had gone numb, then sharp with pins and needles, then numb again. He didn’t care. The thought of standing up, of stepping even three feet away from the bed, felt like betrayal.

Yuna had pulled her chair closer sometime after two in the morning. She sat with her spine straight, coat folded neatly over the armrest, hands folded in her lap when she wasn’t holding Shane’s. She hadn’t cried again—not openly—but the skin around her eyes was swollen and red, and every time Shane’s fingers flexed or his brow furrowed, she leaned forward like she could will him awake through sheer maternal force. She hadn’t asked Ilya to leave. She hadn’t asked him much of anything. But the silence between them had shifted from brittle to something almost companionable, the way two people who have both bled for the same person sometimes learn to share space without tearing each other apart.

She spoke first, voice quiet enough that it barely carried over the hiss of oxygen. “When Shane was six, he came home from school with a split lip and a black eye. Some kid had called him a name I won’t repeat. He wouldn’t tell me who did it. Just said he’d handled it.” She paused, thumb tracing the edge of Shane’s IV tape. “I marched down to that school the next morning ready to burn the place down. The principal tried to tell me boys will be boys. I told him if he ever said that sentence in my presence again I’d have his job before lunch.” A small, tired smile touched her lips. “Shane was furious with me. Said I embarrassed him. Said he could fight his own battles.” She looked at Ilya then, eyes steady. “He’s been saying that his whole life. That he can handle it. That he doesn’t need anyone to step in.”

Ilya’s throat worked. He stared at Shane’s face—the swollen cheek, the crusted blood still caught in the corner of his mouth, the way his lashes looked too dark against too-pale skin. “He’s wrong,” he said roughly. “He’s… he’s always needed someone. I think that we all do. He just… never let anyone close enough to prove it.”

Yuna nodded slowly. “He let you close.”

The words landed soft, but they still hurt. Ilya exhaled through his nose, long and shaky. “I didn’t earn it. I took it. Pushed. Poked. Kept showing up in places I wasn’t supposed to be. Hotel hallways. Empty locker rooms. Back corners of rinks where no cameras could see.” He swallowed. “I told myself it was just… not love. What is the word, we were… lovers. We were just bored. Just something to burn off. But every time he looked at me like he was scared of what it meant… I wanted more. I wanted everything. And I was too much of a coward to say it out loud. And I felt greedy because I wanted him all to myself. But I was scared, I still am, and I know he is also.” 

Yuna watched him for a long moment. Then she reached across the bed—not to take Shane’s hand again, but to rest her fingers lightly on Ilya’s forearm. The touch was brief, almost clinical, but it startled him so badly he froze. “You’re not a coward now,” she said. “You sat in the rain with his blood all over you and begged him to stay. You killed for him. You’re still here when most people would have run.” Her voice hardened, just enough. “But don’t mistake survival for absolution. When he wakes up, he’s going to be angry. At the men who took him. At the world that keeps trying to break him. At himself for running from you in the first place. And maybe at you, for letting him think he had to run at all.”

Ilya nodded. He’d been expecting that. Deserved it. Yuna withdrew her hand, folded it back in her lap. “His father lands at six. He’ll come straight here. He’s quieter than me. Less likely to say what he’s thinking. But he’ll see you sitting here and he’ll know. He’ll know exactly what this is.” She glanced at their joined hands—Shane’s limp between them, Ilya’s thumb still stroking slow circles over bruised knuckles. “He won’t like it. He’s old-fashioned in ways I’ve spent twenty-six years trying to soften. But he loves Shane more than breathing. If Shane wants you here, he’ll tolerate you. Eventually.”

Ilya let out a small, humorless breath. “I can live with tolerate.”

“No,” Yuna said firmly. “You’ll do better than that. You’ll earn it. Every day. You’ll sit through awkward dinners and worse phone calls. You’ll let him yell at you when the pain meds wear off and the reality hits. You’ll let him be scared and angry and ashamed and you won’t run. You’ll stay. Because he’s done enough running for both of you.”

She leaned forward again, brushed her lips against Shane’s forehead—soft, lingering, the way only a mother can. When she straightened, her eyes were wet but clear. “Tell him again,” she said quietly. “Tell him we’re both here. Tell him he doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.”

Ilya nodded. He leaned down until his mouth was close to Shane’s ear, close enough to feel the faint warmth of his skin against the chill of the room. “Shane,” he whispered, voice cracking on the edges. “Your mom’s right here. She’s holding your hand. She’s not going anywhere. Your dad’s coming soon. And I’m—” He swallowed hard, pressed his forehead to Shane’s temple. “I’m not leaving. Not ever again. You don’t have to fight by yourself. Not the pain. Not the world. Not me. We’ve got you. Just… come back when you’re ready. We’ll be waiting.” The words sounded stupid and clumsy to Ilya. He wondered if Yuna felt the same way. He was getting teary again, and so was Yuna.

“Okay, okay, enough. No more crying,” Yuna managed, her own voice shaky as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her free hand. 

Shane’s fingers twitched—once, twice—weak but deliberate. They curled toward Ilya first, then toward Yuna. Not strong enough to grip. Not strong enough to do anything but signal I hear you. But it was enough. Yuna let out a small, trembling breath. She squeezed Shane’s hand once, gentle but firm.

Ilya kept his forehead pressed to Shane’s temple, breathing in the faint, hospital-tainted scent of him—sweat, blood, antiseptic, and underneath it all, still Shane. The ventilator hissed.

——— 

The first thing Shane noticed when consciousness clawed its way back was the obnoxious, insistent beeping that drilled straight into his skull. It wasn’t rhythmic like a heartbeat should be; it was frantic, stuttering, rising in pitch every few seconds like something was wrong—very wrong—and the machine knew it before he did. He tried to turn onto his side, to curl away from the noise the way he always curled away from loud hotel-room alarms or the too-bright lights of press scrums, but his body refused. It felt like someone had poured wet cement into his limbs and let it set. Every muscle ached with the dull, distant memory of effort, like he’d been fighting gravity for days. He grunted—soft, pathetic, more air than sound—and heard himself make a small, snuffling noise around whatever was shoved down his throat. Plastic. Thick. Unyielding. It scraped the back of his tongue every time he tried to swallow.

A hand settled in his hair—gentle, careful, petting in slow strokes. Someone murmured low words he couldn’t quite catch, soft and soothing in a language that felt familiar but far away. Russian? English? Japanese? He couldn’t tell, and probably wouldn’t understand no matter what language it was. The touch should have grounded him, but instead it made his skin crawl. Too many hands had touched him lately. Rough ones. Hands that yanked. Hands that forced pills past his teeth. Hands that held him down while boots cracked against his ribs.

Where was he?

The last clear thing he remembered was the back of a van—dark, jolting, smelling of motor oil and his own vomit. He remembered being sick, so sick he’d heaved up bile and blood and pieces of his teeth all over the front of his own shirt. He remembered the zip ties cutting into his wrists until he couldn’t feel his fingers. He remembered the kicks. The laughter. The way the world had narrowed to pain and the desperate, animal certainty that he was going to die there, alone, forgotten, while Ilya waited in an empty condo for a text that would never come.

The beeping accelerated. Shane’s chest seized. Cold panic flooded him so fast it felt like drowning all over again. His lungs burned—tried to expand, couldn’t, caught on something sharp and wrong inside his ribs. He was still in the van. He had to be. The heaviness, the fog in his head—they’d given him more pills. Shoved dirty fingers between his teeth. Poured water down his throat until he choked and swallowed. The beeping was the engine now, revving too high, about to spin out. Any second the doors would fly open and they’d drag him out again, into the rain, into the mud, into—

He tried to sit up. His body jerked once—weak, useless—then collapsed back against the mattress. Something tugged hard at his chest, sharp and bright, like a hook caught in meat. Pain flared white-hot behind his eyes. He made a strangled noise around the tube, half sob, half gag. His hands flexed, fingers curling into weak fists, then opening again because even that small movement hurt. Scratchy fabric rasped against his collarbone—hospital gown, thin and ugly—and the texture was unbearable, like sandpaper on raw nerves. He wanted it off. He wanted everything off. The tube, the wires, the weight pinning him down. He wanted to run.

The beeping spiked into a shrill alarm. Hands were on him now—more than one set. One in his hair again, trying to soothe. Another on his shoulder, firm but careful, pressing him back. Voices overlapped, urgent and calm at once.

“Shane—hey, hey, you’re okay—”

“Easy, baby, you’re in the hospital—”

“Breathe, Shane, just breathe—”

He couldn’t. The tube blocked his throat, the sedatives dragged at his thoughts like tar, slowing everything down until even panic felt syrupy and distant. His heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his teeth, in the cracked places where they’d been kicked loose. His vision tunneled—black at the edges, then white, then black again. He thrashed once, weakly, trying to get free, trying to get away, but his limbs barely moved. The restraints weren’t physical this time; they were chemical, heavy and merciless, pinning him inside his own skin. He was going to die here.

A sob tore out of him—muffled, ugly, bubbling around the tube. Tears leaked hot down his temples, pooling in his ears. He hated how small he sounded. How helpless. He shouldn’t cry like this. He had never really cried, at least not since he was a little boy. He always tried his hardest to never allow the tears to escalate beyond glassiness in his reddened eyes.  But he was breaking now. The hands didn’t let go. One slid down to cup his cheek—rough palm, familiar calluses. Ilya. The other stayed in his hair, stroking slow and steady—his mom, her fingers trembling just enough to betray her. They were talking over each other now, voices low and overlapping, a soft, desperate chorus.

“You’re safe, Shane. You’re in Boston General. No one’s taking you anywhere.”

“Mom’s here, baby. Dad’s on his way. You’re not alone.”

“Breathe with me, Shane. In through your nose—slow—just like before games. In. Out. I’ve got you.”

Shane tried. God, he tried. But every inhale caught on the tube, every exhale rattled wet and wrong in his chest. The panic kept cresting, wave after wave, dragging him under. His fingers scrabbled weakly at the sheet, at the gown, at anything he could reach. He wanted the beeping to stop. He wanted the hands to stop touching him. He wanted to be small and hidden and invisible again, the way he’d been in hotel rooms with Ilya, where no one could see how much he needed this. The alarm shrieked louder.

A new voice cut through—crisp, professional. “He’s tachycardic. Pulse ox dropping. Push another five of midazolam.”

“No—” Ilya’s voice, sharp and raw. “He’s panicking. He’s awake enough to know he’s trapped. Don’t—”

“Mr. Rozanov, step back.”

Hands pulled Ilya away. Shane felt the loss and the panic worsened. He made another choked sound, thrashing harder and weaker at the same time. The bed rattled under him.

Then his mom’s voice, steel wrapped in velvet. “Let him hold on to something. He needs it. Don’t drug him again—not yet.” A pause. The nurse hesitated, but his mom didn’t. “Give him his hand back. Now.”

The grip on Ilya loosened. A second later rough fingers threaded through Shane’s again—tight, desperate, trembling. Ilya leaned close enough that Shane could smell him—sweat, hospital soap, the faint ghost of cologne he always wore after games. “I’m here,” Ilya whispered, right against his ear. “Feel me. Feel this. You’re not in the van. You’re not in that house. You’re in a hospital bed. You’re safe. I killed them, Shane. They’re gone. They can’t touch you anymore.”

Shane’s chest hitched. The beeping stuttered—still fast, but not climbing anymore. His mom’s  hand found his other one, small and steady. “Mom’s here too, sweetheart. We’re both right here. You don’t have to fight alone. Just breathe. Let the machine help. Let us help.”

Shane’s fingers closed—weak, shaky—around both sets of hands. One rough and scarred. One soft and sure. He focused on that. On the texture. On the warmth. On the fact that neither of them let go, even when his grip faltered. His eyelids fluttered. He was exhausted, and every muscle in his body felt thick and too heavy. He didn’t try so hard to fight consciousness this time. 

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Chapter Summary

Recovery begins, despite the hurdles, and Shane is unsure if he can do it alone. Luckily, he's got his parents, and Ilya, an unexpected addition to his childhood home.

Chapter Notes

short and sweet 2day... we've got two more chapters left then its done! next one will be very ilya focused i think. let me know what yall think. no TWs for this chapter, for once....

Shane had been home for four days, though the word “home” tasted wrong on his tongue now, like something he’d swallowed too fast and couldn’t quite keep down. His childhood bedroom in Ottawa looked almost exactly as it had when he was eighteen and still believed the world could be won with enough speed and enough goals—same faded hockey posters curling at the corners, same twin bed with the mattress that sagged in the middle, same faint pencil marks on the doorframe tracking his height until he’d stopped growing at sixteen—but the air felt thicker, heavier, laced with the low mechanical sigh of the oxygen concentrator and the chemical bite of antiseptic that clung to everything despite his mother’s best efforts with open windows and lavender sachets. 

The desk where he’d once hunched over math homework and highlight reels was now an orange regiment of pill bottles, their labels printed in sharp black font he refused to read. Every time his gaze drifted toward them his stomach lurched, cold sweat prickling along his hairline; he could still feel the rough thumb forcing his jaw open, the scrape of tablets against the roof of his mouth, the burn of water chasing them down until his throat closed and his lungs screamed. He hadn’t touched a single one. The doctors had been very clear—antibiotics, pain management, anti-inflammatories, something to keep his blood from clotting in all the wrong places—but the thought of swallowing anything made his heart stutter and his repaired lung catch on a wet, ragged hitch that left him dizzy and ashamed.

He stayed on his back because rolling to either side tugged at the fresh scars under his ribs and sent bright, electric pain racing along nerves that still hadn’t decided whether they wanted to burn or go dead. The chest tube exit site had been stitched closed four days ago, but he could feel the small divot of it weeping thin fluid into the gauze every time his breathing deepened. He hated how aware he was of his own body now, even more than he had been, how every inhale felt like testing cracked ice, how every exhale carried the faint metallic ghost of blood even though the doctors swore the bleeding had stopped. The nasal cannula sat light against his upper lip, delivering cool oxygen in a steady hiss that should have been comforting but instead reminded him of the ventilator’s mechanical rhythm in the ICU, of waking up convinced he was still in the van, still choking on his own teeth and bile while dirty hands pinned him down.

Ilya was the strangest, most necessary intrusion into this fragile reconstruction of normalcy. He had claimed the twin-sized air mattress on the floor without complaint, though his six-foot-four frame made the thing look ridiculous—knees drawn up, feet dangling off the end, one arm flung over his eyes when he finally slept. He slept in snatches, always jolting awake whenever Shane’s breathing changed or the concentrator clicked through one of its cycles. Right now he sat cross-legged beside the bed, back against the frame, scrolling through something on his phone with the screen dimmed so low the blue light barely touched his face. Every few minutes he glanced up—quick, instinctive, the same way he used to track Shane across the ice during line changes—checking for the rise and fall of Shane’s chest, for any hitch, any sign that the repaired lung was failing again. Shane hated how much comfort that small, repeated motion gave him. Hated how much he needed it.

He watched Ilya through the haze of half-closed lashes and felt the familiar ache bloom behind his sternum—not the surgical one, not the cracked ribs, but something older, deeper, the same hollow that had opened up in the living room of Ilya’s condo when that soft “Shane” had landed like a body check he hadn’t braced for. He’d run from it then, straight into the jaws of something that had almost finished him. Now Ilya was here, in the room where Shane had once hidden under the covers pretending the world didn’t expect him to be perfect, to be the exception, to be unbreakable, and the Russian refused to leave. Wouldn’t leave to shower without wheeling Shane’s temporary chair into the bathroom first so he could sit on the closed toilet lid and wait. Wouldn’t leave to eat without bringing the plate back upstairs and sitting on the floor so they could share the silence. Wouldn’t leave even when Shane woke gasping at three in the morning convinced the door was about to burst open and steel-toed boots were about to crack against his ribs again.

“You don’t have to stay,” Shane rasped. The words came out thinner than he wanted, voice still wrecked from the breathing tube, from coughing up blood and bile and pieces of his own teeth. He hated how small he sounded. Shane Hollander didn’t sound small. Shane Hollander took hits, finished shifts with blood on his teeth, smiled for cameras while the world asked him invasive questions about his skin and his hair and his difference. But here, in this bed, with oxygen tubing taped to his face and scars pulling every time he breathed too deep, he felt small. Fragile. Like the lamb he’d always pretended he wasn’t.

Ilya didn’t look up right away. He finished whatever he was reading, thumbed the screen dark, set the phone facedown on the carpet. Only then did he turn his head. Green eyes tired, shadowed underneath, but steady. Always steady. “I know.”

Shane swallowed. It hurt. “You’ve got games. Practice. Shit to do.”

A small, crooked tilt at the corner of Ilya’s mouth—not quite a smile, more acknowledgment. “You think your mother lets me leave without threatening to call my GM and tell him I killed someone? Or threaten to kill me herself?” 

Despite everything, a weak huff of laughter escaped Shane. It pulled at his ribs, made him wince, but it felt… good. Human. “She would.”

“She would.” Ilya agreed, shifting closer until his shoulder bumped the mattress edge. Close enough that Shane could smell him—clean sweat, the cedar soap his mom kept in the guest bathroom. “But I’m not leaving.”

Shane closed his eyes. The room tilted anyway, slow and sickening, like the van had never really stopped moving. “I keep waiting for them to come back,” he admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “Every creak in the floor. Every car that slows outside. I think—the door’s gonna open. Sunglasses. Boots. They’re gonna drag me out again.” His fingers tightened in the quilt until his knuckles ached. “I know they’re dead. I know you—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t say I know you killed them for me without tasting copper all over again. “But my head doesn’t believe it yet.”

Ilya reached up slowly—always slowly now, always giving Shane time to pull away—and rested his palm against the side of Shane’s face. Rough calluses, familiar warmth. Thumb tracing the arch of his cheekbone over the fading bruise. “Then I remind you,” he said quietly. “Every time. Every creak. Every car. Every time you wake up thinking you’re back there. I’m here. They’re gone. I made sure.”

Shane’s throat worked. A tear slipped free anyway, tracking hot down his temple into his hair. He didn’t wipe it away. Didn’t have the strength. “I ran from you,” he whispered. “That day. You said my name like—like it was something precious. And I ran. Straight into—” He stopped.

“I know.”

“I was scared.”

“I know you were. I’m sorry.” 

“I thought if you kept saying it—if you looked at me like that again—I’d want things I’m not supposed to want. I’d want you. All the time. Not just hotel rooms. Not just after games. All the fucking time. And I didn’t think—” His voice cracked open, raw and ugly. “I didn’t think someone like me got to have that. Not me. Not us.”

Ilya leaned in until their foreheads touched—careful of the nasal cannula, careful of everything. “You do,” he murmured against Shane’s skin. “You get it. I’m giving it to you. No more running. No more pretending it’s only… sex. I want the half-eaten sandwiches. I want the flinch when I’m gentle. I want the mornings you wake up angry at everything and take it out on me in bed. I want all of it. You’re mine. I’m yours. We’re done hiding.”

Shane let out a trembling breath. His good hand lifted—slow, shaking—and curled into the front of Ilya’s shirt. Fabric bunched between bruised fingers. Anchoring. “Promise?”

Ilya covered Shane’s hand with his own. Pressed it hard against his chest so Shane could feel the unsteady thud beneath scar tissue and muscle. “Promise.”

Shane closed his eyes again. Let the tears come this time—no fighting them. They soaked into Ilya’s shirt in dark little blooms. He didn’t speak again. The room held them both—the rain against the window, the soft hum of oxygen, the stubborn rhythm of Ilya’s heartbeat under his palm.

Outside the door, Yuna paused with a tray of ginger tea and plain toast. She listened to the quiet voices, to the soft hitch in her son’s breathing that wasn’t quite crying but wasn’t quite not. She pressed her lips together, blinked once, hard. Then she turned and carried the tray back downstairs. Some moments just needed time.

——— 

Ilya knew it was coming, but he didn’t expect that the conversation would come so quickly. He’d anticipated having it with Shane first and coming up with a game plan before he was met with the inevitable wrath of his parents. It was eight in the morning, Shane was still asleep, and Ilya had been caught in the kitchen grabbing a soda from the fridge. Now, he was sat across the table from Yuna and David, hands clasped awkwardly under its surface.

“So,” Yuna started, not quite making eye contact with Ilya at first. She traced the wood grain of the table with one fingernail, slow and deliberate, as though the familiar pattern could steady the tremor he could see in her hand. When she finally lifted her gaze, her eyes—Shane’s eyes, the same deep brown that had once looked at him with wary curiosity across press scrums—were heavy with something far worse than anger: exhaustion, the kind that came from too many nights spent watching her son fight for air, too many mornings wondering if this would be the day the world finally broke him. “We’re not blind, Rozanov. We’ve seen the way he reaches for you before he reaches for us. The way his breathing evens out the second you walk into the room. The way he lets you see him cry when he thinks we’re asleep. He’s never done that. Not with anyone.”

Ilya’s throat tightened until it felt like the same duct tape that had once bound Shane’s wrists. He sat perfectly still, knuckles white beneath the table, waiting for the blade to fall—for the accusations, the demands, the cold order to leave before Shane woke up and had to watch him disappear. He had prepared for wrath. He had armored himself against it the way he armored himself before a game, jaw set, shoulders squared, ready to take the hit. But Yuna’s voice stayed low, almost gentle, and that gentleness cut deeper than any shout ever could.

David leaned forward, elbows on the table, his broad shoulders curved in the quiet resignation of a man who had spent twenty-six years learning when to speak and when to listen. “We read the police report,” he said, voice rough like gravel under tires. “We saw the photos. You killed two men with your bare hands to get him back. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t call for help. You just… ended it.” He paused, swallowing hard. “We’re grateful. God, we’re grateful. But gratitude doesn’t answer the question we need answered right now. What’s the plan? Because if this is temporary then you need to tell us. You need to walk out that door before he wakes up looking for you. We won’t let him break again. Not after everything he’s already survived. And I don’t—I don’t really understand all this. You and Shane. But—if he’s happy, then—” He trailed off when he got a look from Yuna that said stop talking. 

The words landed soft but solid, like a body check you feel in your bones long after the whistle. Ilya felt them settle in his chest, heavy and true. He had expected fury, expected to be called a predator, a distraction, a threat to everything they had built for their son. Instead they sat there offering him the one thing he had never learned how to handle: worry wrapped in love so fierce it made his own ribs ache.

He unclasped his hands and set them flat on the table, palms down, the way he did before a face-off when he needed to prove he wasn’t going to flinch. “I love him,” he said. The words came out steady, quiet, stripped of everything but fact. “Not because he almost died in my arms. I loved him before that. I loved him in Regina when we were eighteen and stupid and thought we could keep it simple. I loved him in every hotel room, every back hallway, every time he left before morning and I pretended it didn’t gut me. I loved him when he ran from my apartment four days ago because I said his name like it meant something permanent, and I have spent every second since then trying to make sure he never has to run again.”

He looked from Yuna to David and back again, letting them see the truth in his eyes the way he had once let Shane see it in dim hotel light. “I know what the headlines will say. I know what it will cost him—endorsements, teammates… all of the things. I know the league will make it ugly. For both of us. I know the sponsors will pull back. I know all of it. And I still want him. All of him. The good days, the bad days. All of it.  The plan is simple. I stay. I stay until he tells me otherwise. If he wants to keep it quiet, we keep it quiet. If he wants to tell the world, I stand next to him and take whatever they throw. If he wants to pretend this never happened, I—” His voice cracked, just once, a hairline fracture he couldn’t hide. “I’ll walk away. But only if that’s what he wants. Not because the headlines are loud. Only if he looks me in the eye and says he doesn’t want me anymore.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and alive. The cardinal outside tapped at the feeder again, a small, insistent rhythm that was starting to grate on Ilya’s nerves, making him even more anxious. 

Yuna studied him for a long moment—eyes narrowed, searching for the lie, the hesitation, the crack. She didn’t find one.

David exhaled through his nose, long and slow. “He’s never let anyone stay this close,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Not even us. Not really.”

Yuna’s gaze softened—just a fraction, but enough. “Then you stay,” she said. “But you understand this: we’re watching. Not because we don’t trust you. Because we love him more than anything in the world, and we’ve spent twenty-six years watching him carry more than he should have to carry. If you add to that weight—if you let him think for one second that he’s not worth keeping—you won’t have to worry about the press or the league or any of that. You’ll have to worry about us. And I promise you, Rozanov, we are far more dangerous than any headline.”

Ilya met her eyes. “I understand. And—Ilya, please. We can be, uh, family. I hope.”

David reached across the table and pushed the forgotten ginger ale toward him. “Bring that back to the room,” he muttered. “Shane will want it when he wakes up.”

Ilya wrapped his fingers around the cold can. The metal bit into his palm. He nodded once—small, grateful, exhausted. “Thank you.”

Yuna stood first, robe whispering against the chair legs. “He’ll be awake soon. He always knows when you’re not in the room.” She paused in the doorway, back to them, then glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t make him look for you.”

She left. David followed a moment later, slower, quieter, but he squeezed Ilya’s shoulder once as he passed—brief, firm, the kind of touch that said more than words ever could, the kind of quiet paternal reassurance that Ilya had never really felt before. He stayed at the table until the ginger ale warmed in his hand. Then he rose, carried it upstairs, and slipped back into the bedroom. Shane was still asleep, face turned toward the empty space where Ilya had been. Ilya set the can on the nightstand, eased himself onto the edge of the mattress, and gathered Shane close again—slow, careful, reverent.

Shane stirred, snuffling, nose pressing into Ilya’s throat. “You left,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep and leftover sedation.

“Only for a minute,” Ilya whispered against his hair. “I’m here.”

Shane’s hand found Ilya’s shirt again, fingers curling tight. “Don’t go.”

“Never,” Ilya promised, and meant it with every bruised, bloody piece of himself. “Never again. Promise.” 

Outside the window, the cardinal took flight—bright red against grey sky, free and unafraid. Inside the bedroom, Ilya held Shane like he was something precious, something breakable, but something worth every fight still to come. And for the first time in eight years, the space between the  pasture and the woods felt less like a border and more like a bridge—one they might finally cross together.

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Chapter Summary

Ilya has to leave for Boston before the media starts speculating. Unfortunately, the press is always two steps ahead.

Shane was trying. God knows he was. From the moment he woke up from a fitful, terrifying sleep to the moment he slipped back into one, he was fighting so hard not to collapse into a nervous wreck. It had been a week and a half since he was discharged from the hospital. The police had come to his house, spoken to him and his parents, even spoken to Ilya, but Shane could barely get a sentence out before he was crying and shaking and scared like he was tied and beaten again.

Ilya had to leave today. His flight was in three hours. He couldn’t take much time away from his team before people began to grow suspicious—that suspicion was already permeating the press and social media. It had already been a week and a half. Yuna had made both of them delete Twitter from their phones. Shane, however, couldn’t stop himself from checking the news in secret. He hated that he had to know what people were saying about him. About it. Them. Everything. There hadn’t been much—not about the incident, at least. His mother had put a good sum of money into ensuring that there would be no widespread speculation about what had conspired over the past few days. But secrets like this never stayed buried forever.

Shane lay on his side now—carefully, always carefully—watching Ilya pack the small duffel he’d brought from Boston. The room smelled like the cedar soap his mom kept stocked and the faint metallic tang that still clung to Shane’s own skin no matter how many times he showered. Ilya moved with the same deliberate slowness he’d used since the gravel road: every motion telegraphed, never sudden. He folded a hoodie, tucked it in, zipped the bag. Then he knelt beside the bed so they were eye-level.

“I’ll be back Friday,” Ilya said. “Three days. Maybe less if they let me skip optional skate.”

Shane nodded, throat too tight to speak right away. His fingers found Ilya’s wrist, thumb pressing over the pulse point like he could memorize it. “You’ll text when you land?” His voice was rough, throat still sore, and he was acutely aware of the slight lisp he’d picked up as a result of his broken teeth.

“As soon as the plane touches ground. And when I get to the hotel. And before I sleep.” Ilya’s voice was low, patient. He’d said the same promise four times already today.

Shane swallowed. It still hurt, but less than it had yesterday. “I keep thinking… what if they knew? The guys who took me. What if they were watching the building? Or—or my phone? Or—” His voice cracked. “How did they know exactly when I’d be outside?”

Ilya’s jaw flexed once. He didn’t answer right away. Instead he lifted Shane’s hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist, right over the faded wounds from plastic digging into his skin that hadn’t quite scarred yet. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” he admitted finally. “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out. Quietly. No press. No police again unless you say yes.”

Shane searched his face. “You think someone saw us? Before?”

“Maybe.” Ilya didn’t lie to him anymore—not even to make things easier. “Or maybe they were following you for days. You’re Shane Hollander. You’re worth following. They saw an opportunity and took it. Doesn’t mean anyone knows about us.”

“Yet,” Shane whispered.

“Yet,” Ilya agreed. He leaned in until their foreheads touched. “But if it comes out—if the world finds out—I’m not running. You’re not running. We face it together. Okay?”

Shane closed his eyes. “Okay.”

A soft knock. Yuna in the doorway, arms folded over her chest. "You've got to head out, Ilya."

Ilya stood but didn’t let go of Shane’s hand until the last possible second. He bent down one more time, lips brushing Shane’s own. “Three days,” he murmured. “Count them. I’ll be counting too.”

Then he was gone—duffel over his shoulder, footsteps fading down the stairs. The front door clicked shut. Shane listened to the car pull away until the sound dissolved into ordinary Ottawa quiet.

He waited five full minutes before he let himself cry. Downstairs, Yuna found the glass of ice water Ilya had left sweating on the counter. She carried it upstairs without a word and set it on Shane’s nightstand. Then she sat on the edge of the bed and gathered him against her shoulder the way she used to when he was small and the world felt too big.

“He’ll be back,” she said simply. Shane nodded into her sweater. He believed her. For now, that was enough.

——— 

The first leak came at 7:14 a.m. on a Tuesday. Shane knew the exact time because his phone—new one, number changed, supposedly secure—lit up with a Google Alert he hadn’t had the heart to turn off. He’d told himself he was just monitoring for his own safety. That was half true. The headline was careful, the way big outlets got when lawyers were already circling:

“NHL Star Ilya Rozanov Involved in Fatal Altercation Outside Boston; Sources Link Incident to Reported Kidnapping of Shane Hollander”

There was no photo yet—just a stock image of Ilya in Bears red, looking furious on the bench, and a smaller one of Shane smiling at a charity event last spring. The article was thin on details: “multiple fatalities,” “self-defense claim,” “ongoing investigation,” “victim recovering at private residence.” But the subhead gutted him:

“Questions swirl over why Hollander was at Rozanov’s residence prior to the incident”

Shane stared at the screen until the letters blurred. His chest felt tight—not the surgical kind, the other kind. The kind that came when he remembered standing in the rain outside Ilya’s building, ordering an Uber with shaking fingers, convinced the world would end if he stayed one more minute. He dropped the phone like it burned.

Downstairs his mom was already on her phone, voice low and furious, talking to someone—probably the PR crisis manager she’d hired the day Shane was discharged. David stood at the sink, shoulders rigid, staring out the window like he could will the reporters away by sheer stubbornness.

Shane made it halfway down the stairs before his legs gave out. He sat hard on the third step from the bottom, oxygen tubing tugging at his nose. His mom looked up, ended the call mid-sentence, and crossed to him in three strides.

“Baby—”

“They know,” Shane rasped. “They know I was there.”

Yuna knelt in front of him, hands gentle on his knees. “They know you were seen leaving his building. That’s all the article says. No one has proof of anything else.”

“Yet.” The word tasted like copper.

His dad turned from the sink. “We’re already moving. Statement goes out in an hour. ‘Shane Hollander was the victim of a targeted kidnapping attempt. Mr. Rozanov intervened at great personal risk. Both men are cooperating fully with authorities. Out of respect for privacy and recovery, there will be no further comment at this time.’ Short. Firm. Nothing about you two.”

Shane laughed once—short, bitter, painful. “They’ll still ask why I was at his condo. Why he came after me like that.”

“Let them ask,” Yuna said. “We don’t have to answer.”

But Shane knew better. The league knew better. Sponsors knew better. Teammates would start texting soon—first concerned, then curious, then suspicious. And Ilya—His phone buzzed again. Not a news alert this time. Ilya.

Ilya: Just saw it. I’m handling it. Don’t look at Twitter. Don’t look at anything. Call me when you can breathe.

Shane’s thumb hovered over the call button. He didn’t press it. Not yet. He needed a minute to remember how lungs were supposed to work when the whole world was suddenly watching the exact spot where he’d cracked open. Upstairs, the oxygen concentrator clicked through another cycle—steady, mechanical, indifferent.

Down here, everything felt like it was starting to crack.

——— 

Ilya was already on the road when the headline hit. He’d left Ottawa at dawn, driving the car he'd borrowed from David because calling an Uber brought back bad memories, still too raw and fresh, for all of them. The GPS was set for the airport, but his mind was still back in Shane’s childhood bedroom—Shane’s fingers curled into his shirt, the soft hitch of breath against his throat, the quiet promise of three days. He’d been replaying it on a loop when his phone lit up on the dash. First the Google Alert. Then three missed calls from his agent. Then the league’s media relations line. Then—

Unknown number. Boston area code.

He answered on the second ring because ignoring it felt like tempting fate.

“Rozanov,” he said, voice flat.

“Mr. Rozanov, this is Elena Vasquez from Vasquez & Kline. Your agent retained us yesterday afternoon. I’m your criminal defense counsel for the incident of March 3rd.”

Ilya’s grip tightened on the wheel. The highway blurred past in streaks of grey slush and bare trees. “Okay.”

“I’ve reviewed the preliminary file—witness statements, your statement, the victim’s, the trooper bodycam footage, the autopsy reports on the two deceased. On paper, it’s textbook self-defense. Clear and present danger to a third party—Shane Hollander—multiple gunshot wounds, credible ransom demand, credible threat to life. No reasonable jury convicts on that.”

Ilya exhaled through his nose. The relief lasted half a second.

“But,” Vasquez continued, and he heard the but coming like a slapshot he couldn’t block, “the force used is… extreme. You snapped one man’s neck. You beat the second to death with your fists after he was already incapacitated. The ME report says the second victim sustained twenty-seven separate blunt-force injuries post-incapacitation. That’s going to raise questions about whether the threat was still active. The DA’s office is reviewing for possible manslaughter or excessive force. They’re not charging yet, but they’re not closing it either.”

Ilya’s vision tunneled. He took the next exit without thinking, pulled into an empty truck-stop lot, and killed the engine. The sudden silence pressed in like the condo had the day Shane left.

“Mr. Rozanov? You still there?”

“I’m here.” His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Calm. Too calm. The same calm he’d worn when he twisted Chris’s head until the snap. The same calm he’d worn at twelve years old, kneeling on cold bathroom tile, pressing two fingers to his mother’s neck and feeling nothing but cooling skin.

He hadn’t cried then. Not really. He’d screamed once—raw, animal—then swallowed it. Buried it under hockey and rage and the next bottle and the next body and the next city. He’d told himself the hole in his chest was just empty space, not rot. That he was fine. He wasn’t fine.

“I need to ask you something personal,” Vasquez said gently. “Off the record, just between us. When you engaged the second man—after the first was neutralized—did you believe Shane Hollander’s life was still in imminent danger?”

Ilya closed his eyes. He saw it again in perfect, merciless detail. Shane on the gravel, blood bubbling from his lips, one eye swollen shut, whispering Go like he was ready to die if it meant Ilya lived. The second kidnapper reaching for the dropped gun. The wet crunch of cartilage under Ilya’s fist. The way it felt good—the same sick satisfaction he’d felt when he’d imagined killing the man who’d sold his mother the pills, or the father who’d never shown up, or anyone who’d ever made him feel small and helpless and twelve years old again.

He’d kept hitting because part of him was still in that bathroom. Still begging a dead woman to wake up. Still failing. “I wasn’t thinking about danger,” Ilya said quietly. “I was thinking… if he dies, I lose the last person who ever made me feel like I’m… I don’t know.”

Silence on the line.

Vasquez cleared her throat. “That’s… not something we say in court. Ever. But I hear you. And we’re going to get you a trauma evaluation—PTSD from childhood loss, plus acute trauma from the rescue. It explains the disproportionate response without excusing it. The NHLPA will back us. They don’t want one of their stars painted as a vigilante, but they also don’t want to lose you. We’ll push for a psych hold or mandated counseling instead of charges. Personal leave extended. Maybe a quiet settlement with the families of the deceased—they were career criminals with records longer than my arm, so that helps.”

Ilya laughed once, hollow. “Families. Right.”

He hadn’t thought about that. Hadn’t thought about anything except Shane’s heart stopping under his hands. The way he’d screamed into the rain when the breathing quit. The way he’d tasted Shane’s blood and thought, If he goes, I follow. I’m not doing this again. His mother’s face—pale, peaceful, eyes half-open like she’d just fallen asleep—flashed behind his eyelids. Then Chris’s head twisting too far. Then the second man’s skull bouncing off the van. Same wet sound. Same finality. He’d killed two men with his bare hands and felt nothing in the moment. Only later, holding Shane in the ICU, had the shaking started. Only later, when Shane’s fingers twitched in his and the machines kept beeping, had the guilt crawled in like black tar. He’d told himself it was fine. Necessary. The wolf protecting the lamb. But wolves still remember every throat they’ve torn out.

“Mr. Rozanov,” Vasquez said, softer now, “you’re allowed to not be okay. Most people who’ve been through what you have—losing a parent that young, then this—would be in a facility right now. The fact that you’re functioning is impressive. But if you want to keep playing hockey, if you want to keep being there for Shane without the league or the press tearing you apart, we need to address it. Now. Before the media connects the dots between the ‘violent altercation’ and your childhood records.”

Ilya pressed the heel of his hand into his eye until he saw sparks. “They’ll dig that up?”

“They already have. Someone at the league leaked your mother’s obituary and the police report from when you were twelve. It’s not public yet, but it will be. The angle writes itself: ‘Tragic orphan snaps, goes full vigilante for secret lover.’”

The word lover landed like a puck to the ribs. Ilya swallowed hard. “He’s not secret anymore.”

“No,” Vasquez agreed. “He’s not. And that’s another conversation we need to have—coming-out strategy, sponsor fallout, the whole circus. But first you need to breathe. And maybe talk to someone who isn’t me.”

Ilya stared out at the empty lot. A semi rumbled past on the highway, spraying dirty slush across the windshield. He thought of Shane back in Ottawa, probably already seeing the headline, probably already spiraling about how did they know I was there.

He thought of the way Shane had looked at him in the rain—bloody, broken, still trying to protect him. “I’ll do the psych eval,” Ilya said. His voice cracked on the last word. “And the counseling. But I’m not leaving him. Not for the league. Not for the press. Not for anything.”

Vasquez was quiet for a moment. “Then we fight for both of you. I’ll have my assistant send over the intake forms for a trauma specialist today. And Rozanov?”

“Yes?”

“Tell Shane the truth when you talk to him. Not the cleaned-up version. He deserves to know the man who killed for him is still carrying two dead bodies in his chest—one from when he was twelve, and two from last week. You can’t protect him from everything. But you can stop protecting him from you.”

The call ended.

Ilya sat in the silent car for a long time. The engine ticked as it cooled. Somewhere in Ottawa, Shane was probably reading the same article, oxygen tubing taped to his face, wondering why the world always found out the worst things at the worst times. Ilya picked up his phone again. His hands were shaking now—properly shaking, the way they hadn’t since he was twelve and the coroner had gently closed his mother’s eyes for him. He opened his texts.

Ilya: Saw the article. Lawyer just called. It’s bad but not over. I’m okay. Sort of.

Ilya: I need to tell you some things when I call.

Ilya: I love you. I’m scared. I’ll call in ten minutes if you’re awake.

He hit send before he could delete it. Then he rested his forehead on the steering wheel and let himself feel it—all of it—for the first time in years. The hole in his chest wasn’t empty anymore. It was full of Shane, and that felt like enough to start healing the rest.

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Chapter Summary

The media is divided into two camps. Ilya is left with terribly certainty of his future, while Shane struggles to reconcile with the possibility.

Chapter Notes

hey!! sorry this is just a lot of shane and ilya texting since they are apart right now. this is mostly addressing the media concerns. more legal stuff to come

Ilya should consider himself lucky that this was a home game, that he could sit in his empty, stupidly lavish condo alone, but the moment he stepped through the threshold, he was vividly reminded of the incident. That’s what they had been calling it—discussing it like it was something that hadn’t really happened, or something that had happened to someone irrelevant to them. Shane was still struggling to comprehend that he’d really been kidnapped; or maybe he did fully understand it, but acknowledging it would make it real and not an awful nightmare. Acknowledging meant that the van, the zip ties and duct tape, the pills, the boots, the broken teeth were all real. It meant that he almost died that day, and that Ilya had killed two men with nothing but his bare hands and festering rage that had finally burst through the decades-old scab in Ilya’s heart. He was half-hoping that he’d be forced to stay in a hotel and room with one of his teammates, but he also knew that that would invite a barrage of questions that he wasn’t sure he was ready to answer. He didn’t think he’d ever be. 

Ilya dropped his duffel by the door, and it hit the floor with a dull thud that echoed too loudly in the silence. He didn’t bother with turning on the lights; the late-afternoon hazy grey leaking through the floor-to-ceiling windows was enough. The condo smelled faintly of lemon cleaner—the management had sent someone in after the police finish their sweep, even though both Ilya, Shane, and Yuna had made it very clear that no crime took place in Ilya’s condo and there would be no relevant evidence; regardless, Ilya knew he was still a suspect—and the silence was worse than any crowd noise he’d  ever endured. Beneath the artificial lemon scent, there was the smell of some sort of food molding. Ilya walked straight past the couch, pausing momentarily to stare at the decaying half-sandwich Shane had left on the coffee table weeks ago, and sank to the floor with his back against the kitchen island. Knees drawn up, forearms resting on them, hands shaking so badly he had to clasp them together. 

He could still see it. Shane’s location going grey when his phone was shut off. The photo loading; mud-streaked face, head wrenched back by a fist, blood trickling faintly from his temple like a tear he couldn’t cry. Shane’s body jerking when the first bullet hit, and the terrible noise he made. The second bullet punching through his chest while he was still trying to claw his way to Ilya, still trying to protect him, still whispering go like his own life was the less important one. 

Ilya pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind the lids and splotches of color clouded his vision when he opened them. He wanted to scream. He wanted to put his fist through the wall. He wanted to fly back to Ottawa right now, crawl into Shane’s too-small childhood bed, and hold him until neither of them could breathe without the other feeling it, pull him so close that their hearts crushed into one another, membrane splitting and molding together, veins ripping free and bleeding red into one another’s until they could never be separated again, never be without each other without their hearts going still. Instead, he sat on the cold tile and shook like he was a child again, pressing two fingers to a still, cooling neck and whispering Пожалуйста, проснись, пожалуйста, проснись, пожалуйста, мама.

His phone buzzed on the marble countertop above him. He ignored it. It buzzed again, and again. A vicious little chain of notifications. He finally reached up, numb fingers wrapping around the device. Twenty-three unread messages: his agent; Vasquez; Boston’s media direction; Hayden—you see this shit? Call me ASAP; and Shane, seven minutes ago. 

Shane: they’re saying its manslaughter now

Shane: the second guy, unreasonable use of force

The story had broken wide overnight. Shane’s family had managed to keep the kidnapping itself under tight wraps for almost two weeks—money changed hands, NDAs were signed, hospital records were sealed under Jane Doe-level privacy protocols, and the official narrative fed to the press had been “a brief medical emergency during travel”. Yuna had played the protective-manager-mom card perfectly: short, vague statements, no photos, no interviews, “Shane is safe and privately recovering with family.” The ransom demand, the construction site, the van, the zip ties, the pills forced down Shane’s throat, the beatings—none of it had leaked, not yet. The families of the two dead men were career lowlifes with long rap sheets; no one was rushing to memorialize them or demand justice on cable news. 

But the rest? It had spilled like oil. The moment Ilya missed his fourth consecutive game, the speculation shifted from “personal matter” to “what the fuck is going on with Rozanov?” By the time he landed back in Boston this morning, the narrative had hardened into two competing camps. 

Camp One: Ilya Rozanov, grieving anti-hero. The sports blogs and hockey podcasts loved this version. “Rozanov Goes Full John Wick After Rival NHLer Kidnapped.” Grainy doorbell footage from his building had surfaced—Shane, hood up, ducking out of the stairwell and into the rain. Then nothing until hours later: Ilya then sprinting out to his Ferrari, face carved from stone. The bodycam clips from the state troopers (someone had definitely been paid) showed the aftermath in the flickering red-and-blue strobe: two bodies in the mud, Ilya Rozanov kneeling in blood holding Shane Hollander like he was already gone, sobbing and hysterical, Hayden Pike doing chest compression in the rain. The stills were everywhere. Someone had already turned one of them into a meme caption “when your rival is your ride-or-die.”

Camp Two: Ilya Rozanov, unhinged murderer. The tabloids, half of Twitter, and TMZ leaned hard into this one. “Rozanov Snaps: Excessive Force or Cold-Blooded Execution?” The autopsy leaks were brutal: twenty-seven separate blunt-force injuries on the second man after he was already unconscious. “Overkill,” one retired cop-turned-pundit said on a morning show. “That’s not defense. That’s the desire to kill right there.” They replayed old clips of Ilya’s dirtiest hits, his bar fights in juniors, the time he’d been suspended for a boarding that nearly ended a career. The subtext was always the same: violent Russian with daddy issues and a hair-trigger temper finally lost it. 

And, threaded through both camps, the question no one could quite prove but everyone was asking: Why was Shane Hollander at Ilya Rozanov’s condo the night before a game? The speculation ranged from plausible to borderline-conspiracy theory. “Secret workout session.” “Bet gone wrong.” “They were hooking up and it turned ugly.” The queer hockey corners of the internet had already connected every lingering glance from the past eight years into a thirty-tweet thread titled “The Rivalry was Always Foreplay.” Someone had dug up some old photoshoot from their rookie years of them making hard eye contact. Someone else had found a blurry fan pic from a hotel bar in Calgary years three years ago where Ilya and Shane just happened to be standing near each other and laughing, probably not to each other, but the caption still read “they’ve been doing this for YEARS.”

——— 

The condo felt more like a mausoleum now, every surface polished and sterile, every shadow too sharp. Ilya hadn’t turned on more than the single under-cabinet light above the sink; the rest of the place stayed dim, letting the late-winter dusk bleed in through the glass and paint long violent bruises across the hardwood. He still hadn’t moved from the floor. His back ached where it pressed against the cold edge of the island, but the discomfort was almost welcome—something real, something physical, something that wasn’t the slow acid burn spreading behind his sternum. 

His phone had gone quiet after the last flurry of messages. Shane hadn’t replied to his final text yet, just a simple I know. It’s scary. Ilya kept the screen face-up on his thigh so he could see the moment the three little typing dots appeared, the moment proof arrived that Shane was still breathing on the other end of the distance between them. He hadn’t cried—not in the way he had in the rain with Shane’s blood slicking his palms—but the pressure behind his eyes felt dangerously close to rupture. Every few minutes he swallowed against it, tasted salt and iron, and forced his gaze back to the half-rotted sandwich still sitting on the coffee table like an accusation. 

He should throw it away. He should shower. He should call his lawyer back, or his agent, or Hayden, fucking Hayden—who’d texted again twenty minutes ago with nothing but a link to a new Deadspin piece titled “Rozanov’s Redemption Arv or Psychotic Break?”—but all he could do was sit here and wait for Shane to type something, anything, even if it was just I’m scared or this is too much or don’t come back, I don’t want to see you again. 

The screen lit up—Shane. It was a voice message, seven seconds long. Ilya’s thumb shook so badly he almost dropped the phone trying to hit play. 

Shane’s voice came through thin and wrecked, still lisping from his broken teeth he’d been too scared to get fixed, the faint hiss of oxygen concentrator audible in the background like white noise from another life. “I saw the new stuff. The… they’re saying you—” A long, wet inhale. “They’re saying you really wanted to kill him, not because of me, because—Ilya, I—” Another hitch, smaller this time, like he was trying to swallow the sob and failing. “I remember hearing it, the sound, I was on the ground and I couldn’t move and I heard… bones, over and over, and I thought, good, good. He deserves it. They both did. But now everyone’s saying you’re a  monster, and I—” The message cut off abruptly, probably because Shane had pressed stop before the crying became audible to whoever might be listening downstairs. 

Ilya played it again. And again. Each time the words carved a little deeper. He didn’t realize he was crying until the first tear hit the screen and smeared the time stamp. He whipped his face roughly with the heel of his hand, then opened the keyboard.

Ilya: I’m not sorry that I did it. I would do it all over again. Worse. But I’m sorry you heard it. Shouldn’t have had to lie there and listen while my fucking mind was lost. I didn’t know how else to make sure they never ever touched you ever again. 

He stared at the unsent paragraph before almost a minute before deleting the last three sentences and trying again. 

Ilya: Call me when you can. Please. 

The reply came faster than he expected. 

Shane: not tonight, my mom’s hovering

Shane: i keep thinking about court, if they make you testify. they’re gonna ask why you were there, how come you went so far

Shane: what are you gonna say

Shane: what if they send you back to russia 

Ilya’s thumb hovered. The truth had been sitting in his throat like broken glass for days. He’d rehearsed clean, careful versions with Vasquez—self-defense, imminent danger, temporary dissociation due to acute trauma layered over unresolved childhood grief—but none of them were the whole story, None of them included the way his pulse had steadied the moment his hands closed around Chris’s throat. None of them admitted the part of him that had recognized the second man’s face—not literally, but in the shape of every person who’d ever made him feel powerless—and decided, very calmly, that the world would be cleaner without it. He typed before he could talk himself out of it.

Ilya: The truth. All of it.

Shane’s typing bubbled appeared, stopped for a bit, then appeared again.

Shane: you’ll out both of us

Ilya closed his eyes.

Ilya: Yes. If they asked why I killed for you I’m not going to lie and say it was because you’re colleague or rival or whatever. I’m going to tell them it was because I love you. And that when I thought you were dying I stopped being a person and became something else because I don’t know what I am if you died. 

Shane: i’m not ready for that

Ilya’s chest caved. 

Ilya: I know. But if I lie they’ll figure it out anyways. It’s going to be bad either way. 

Another long pause until Shane responded again.

Shane: then what happens to hockey

The question landed like a skate blade to the throat. Ilya stared at the words until they blurred. He thought of the ice under the floodlights, the roar when he stepped onto the fresh sheet. The clean snap of a perfect pass hitting his tape. The burn in his lungs after a long shift. All of it had been armor once—something loud and violent and distracting enough to keep the quiet parts of him from screaming. Now it felt like a costume he wasn’t sure still fit. 

He then thought about Shane. The very first time, in Shane’s hotel room, where Shane was so scared and so brave and Ilya really got to see him up close, in a way that no one else (he hoped) ever had. He thought about every sneaky moment since then, the first night they spent together when Shane had been so soft and so good and he hadn’t known exactly how much it helped when he curled into Ilya’s side after Ilya had gotten off the phone with his father. He thought about how Shane had ran, how he had been taken, how Ilya had held his bloody body and cried so hard he felt he was going to die too. It took him a few minutes to respond.

Ilya: I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Or everything. Crowell already called agent twice today, said if the “optics” get any worse they’re prepared to “reevaluate my future with the organization”.

Ilya: I don’t know what any of those words mean. 

Shane: that’s league speak for we’ll bury you under buyout clauses and morality clauses and make sure you’ve got no career anywhere else either 

Ilya didn’t understand much of that either. Shane didn’t text again for almost ten minutes. When the next message came through, it was just one line.

Shane: i don’t know if i can keep playing either

Ilya felt the floor drop out from under him. He reread the sentences three times, waiting for it to rearrange itself into something less final. It didn’t. 

Ilya: You’re second best in the league. Number one best when I’m out. You don’t have to stop because of me.

Shane: its not because of you

Shane: every time i close my eyes im in that house or in the van and i think about how easy it would be for someone to wait outside the rink or follow the bus or pay off the hotel security

Shane: i used to think hockey was the safest place for me and it was the one thing no one could take from me

Shane: but i don’t know if i can go back now

Ilya pressed the phone so hard against his forehead he felt the edge dig into his skin. He wanted to argue, wanted to say you’re stronger than this or we’ll be careful or I’ll stand between you and the whole fucking world if I have to—but the words tasted like lies. He couldn’t promise safety. Not anymore, not when he’d already failed once. Instead he typed the only thing that felt honest. 

Ilya: Then we stop hiding. We will sit in the same press conference and talk to the same lawyer. They can’t make us go away for ever. Is not up to them.

Shane’s reply took even longer this time.

Shane: what if they cancel us? kick us out? the league blackballs you and i can’t even play anymore? 

Ilya let out a long, trembling breath.

Ilya: Then we will forget hockey and figure it out together.

Shane: i’m scared

Ilya: I know. Me too.

Shane: call me tomorrow? after you talk to vasquez in the morning?

Ilya: First thing, promise

Shane: okay

Shane: i love you

Shane: even if everything goes to hell

Ilya pressed his knuckles to his mouth, tasted copper where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek without noticing.

Ilya: I love you too

Ilya: Hell or no hell

He set the phone down carefully, like it might shatter. Then he stood—slow, joints creaking like old wood—and walked to the coffee table. He picked up the mold-furred sandwich, carried it to the trash, and dropped it in without looking. He stood in the half-dark, staring into the trashbin, and felt, for the first time in too long, the faint stirrings of something that might have been hope.

Or maybe just the ghost of it. Either way, it was enough to make it to tomorrow.