The Two-Million Dollar Fake Fiancée

Miles POV:

Steel bit into the ice with a sickening screech, and before the puck even left my blade, I knew I'd blown it.

A simple breakout pass. Tape-to-tape. An elementary play I'd been executing blindfolded since I was six years old. Instead, the vulcanized rubber skittered off my heel and slid directly onto the stick of the opposing winger.

Down the ice, a low collective groan rippled through my teammates, accompanied by a few muffled snickers from the bench. Behind my eyes, a sledgehammer pounded against my skull in rhythmic agony. Stale bourbon sat like acid in the back of my throat, every heavy breath tasting of last night's regret.

Across the rink, Coach Harrison didn't move. He stood behind the boards, arms folded over his chest, his jaw set like reinforced concrete. His glare could have cut through the plexiglass.

I didn't look at him. I just clicked my tongue, tapping my composite stick twice against the scarred ice in a petty bid to shake off the haze.

"Let's go! Move your feet!" someone yelled, and the whistle restarted the five-on-five scrimmage.

I tried to dig in, but my edges felt dull, my legs leaden. When their nineteen-year-old rookie flew across the blue line, he didn't even need a fancy deke. He just leaned on his outside edge, dropped his shoulder, and blew right past me. I turned like a rusted barge. A split-second later, the puck slammed cleanly into the top corner of the net with an echo like a gunshot.

"Vance!"

The roar echoed off the steel rafters of the practice facility, sharp enough to strip the paint.

"Are your legs fucking ornamental today?"

I coasted to a halt near the face-off circle and looked toward the bench. I didn't drop my head. I didn't skate hard to make up for the blown coverage. I just stared back at Harrison, my chin raised. I didn't have the energy to invent an excuse, and I didn't give a damn about defending myself.

The silent insolence broke whatever thread of patience Harrison had left. He jammed the whistle between his lips and blew three shrill, deafening blasts.

"Line it up!" he barked, pointing a thick finger toward the red line. "All of you. Now."

The chatter died instantly. Steel carved against the ice as twenty-odd players glided toward center ice, forming a rigid, quiet semi-circle. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked at each other. More importantly, nobody looked at me. The air smelled of sweat, frozen rubber, and impending carnage.

Harrison didn't wait for us to settle. He shoved through the bench gate, stepping onto the fresh sheet with his heavy, lug-soled winter boots. Each thud against the ice carried a terrifying finality.

"Miles Vance."

He spoke my full name without shouting, but the quiet rage in his voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He stopped inches from me. He was half a head shorter, but standing in front of him felt like staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun.

"That letter on your chest," Harrison said, his voice dropping into a low, lethal cadence that carried across the breathless rink. "That 'C' stands for Captain. It stands for leadership. Accountability. Setting the standard when the rest of the room is falling apart."

He paused, his eyes drilling into mine. I saw no anger there—only a cold, suffocating disappointment.

"Look at you," he said softly. "Do you honestly think you deserve to wear it?"

My chest seized. My stomach plummeted through the ice into the pitch-black water below.

I clamped my molars together until my jaw ached. Say something, a voice screamed in my head. Say you're dealing with things. Say you were up until four in the morning staring at the ceiling because every time you closed your eyes, you saw Drew's shattered windshield and smelled burning oil. Tell him you're drowning.

Nothing came out. My throat was sealed shut with dust and shame.

"You're done, Vance," Harrison said, his tone devoid of warmth. "As of this second, you are no longer the captain of this hockey team."

Before the words could fully register, his gloved hand shot forward. He seized the embroidered white-and-gold 'C' sewn onto the upper left breast of my jersey and wrenched downward.

The sound of polyester tearing and nylon stitches popping was sickeningly loud.

He tore it clean off my chest.

A sharp gasp ripped through the silence of the arena. It was just a four-inch patch of stitched fabric, but in that fraction of a second, it felt as though he had reached into my ribcage and torn out a fistful of muscle and tissue.

My face burned with a humiliating, scorching heat. Twenty teammates stood frozen around us. Just past Harrison's shoulder, Declan—my best friend, the only guy who knew how bad the nights had gotten—stared at me, his eyes wide with helpless horror. His mouth parted as if to plead, but the look on Harrison's face killed the words before they could form.

Harrison didn't hesitate. He dropped the torn cloth onto the white ice between my skates, treating it like a piece of used medical tape.

"Get off my ice," Harrison commanded, turning his back on me. "I don't want to see you out here until practice is over. Hit the showers."

He skated toward the whiteboard without looking back, blowing his whistle to regroup the bewildered roster.

I stood alone in the center of the rink, an outcast marked for public execution. The world seemed to mute. All I could see was that ruined patch of cloth resting by my right skate blade.

Now, I was just a ghost in equipment.

Rage, red and blinding, punched through the numbness. With a guttural sound torn from the base of my throat, I cocked my stick back and slashed down, driving the blade violently into the patch. The impact sent a ringing shockwave vibrating up through my wrists to my shoulders, whipping the cloth across the rink until it smacked uselessly into the far dasher boards.

I didn't wait to see where it landed.

I spun on my heels and pushed off, gliding toward the exit gate. I kept my eyes pinned straight ahead, refusing to meet Declan's gaze, refusing to acknowledge the heavy, suffocating silence trailing in my wake.