The Hockey King's Coveted Billionaire Heiress

Bethany Marsh POV:

"Done playing house in the student slums?" Jared Hoover, the titan behind Marsh-Hoover Global Athletics and my eldest uncle, asked without looking up from his tablet.

"Don't start, Uncle Jared," I murmured, sinking back into the heated leather seat and rubbing my temples. "I cleaned house. It's done."

Jared set his tumbler onto the recessed console and slid the tablet onto my lap. "That Salas boy's fraternity brothers are already flooding the Briar Athletic boards, claiming you breached their proprietary lab data."

I looked down at the screen.

The campus forum was ablaze with anonymous posts calling me an ungrateful hanger-on who tried to steal Salas Sports Equipment's prototype ice-runner specs.

"Let them yap," I said coldly, swiping the screen dark. "The Salas family manufacturing plants use my legacy calibration algorithm. Without my weekly patch updates, their production lines will brick within thirty days."

A rare, proud smirk touched the corner of Jared's mouth. "Good. A true Marsh doesn't negotiate with parasites."

The Maybach left the university perimeter behind, climbing smoothly through the snow-capped pines of the western hills before turning through towering wrought-iron gates into Eastshire Estate.

The massive limestone manor stood illuminated against the night sky, its private, regulation-size indoor hockey rink glowing softly in the east wing.

The car stopped beneath the heated portico, where Mrs. Kowalski, our head housekeeper, was already waiting with a thick cashmere shawl.

"Welcome home, Bethany," Mrs. Kowalski said softly, wrapping the warm wool around my shoulders as I stepped out into the dry air.

"Thank you, Martha." I smiled, letting the comfort of my real life wash over the grime of the last three years.

"Your private laboratory in the west pavilion was fully calibrated this morning," Jared said, handing his coat to a footman. "Every piece of spectroscopy and thermodynamic testing gear you requested is live."

I took the grand staircase up to the master suite on the second floor.

My bedroom was just as I had left it before my ill-fated experiment in independence—vaulted ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the frozen grounds, and a massive mahogany workspace.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was a text from Julian Price, one of Dedric's defensemen: Beth, Dedric is losing his mind. Just apologize and come back. You know he needs those skate specs for the Harvard game.

I blocked Julian's number without typing a single character and tossed the phone onto the king-size bed.

After a scalding shower that washed the stench of cheap student housing from my skin, I threw on silk loungewear and sat down in front of my unpacked workstation.

My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, entering a thirty-two-character cryptographic key.

The screen shifted from the standard desktop to a secure, dark-themed cloud terminal.

The logo of Cloud-Peak Analytics flashed across the twin monitors—the shadow tactical and sports-materials think tank I had founded under the alias Star-Wake.

Dozens of high-priority inquiries from NHL franchises and private equity groups sat in my encrypted inbox.

One email from ForcePeak Group caught my attention.

It was signed directly by their Chief Technology Officer, Maxwell Stone.

To Star-Wake: ForcePeak Group is prepared to offer primary venture backing for your LN-Titanium alloy patent. We request an in-person meeting during the Briar Intercollegiate Winter Gala next week.

A knock sounded at the open study door.

Jared walked in, placing a steaming mug of hot milk beside my keyboard.

"ForcePeak?" Jared leaned against the desk, glancing at the monitor. "Aggressive firm. Their principal owner operates through shell trusts, but they have enough capital to swallow the Salas family's entire supplier network whole."

"They want the exclusive license for the ultra-light runners," I said, taking a sip of milk. "I'm taking the meeting, but I'm not selling out. I want equity."

"You need our legal counsel with you?" Jared asked.

"No," I replied, my eyes fixed on the code compilation window. "I can handle a few college-town suits on my own."

I brought up the core parameters for the LN-Titanium skate blades and executed the final anti-piracy script.

If Dedric or his father tried to load my prototype files into their factory machines, the embedded logic bomb would corrupt their entire CNC milling database.

I hit enter.

The progress bar hit 100%.

I looked out the high window at the pale winter moon rising over the estate.

Tomorrow, it was time to go back to Briar and clean out the rest of the trash.