Page 108 of Puck Struck
I lift an eyebrow at his outstretched hand. "What do you want?"
"Direct. I like that." William's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "I think we should discuss your future with the Oakland Raptors. Privately."
He gestures toward the conference room. I want to walk away, tell them both to fuck off, but something in his tone tells me this isn't optional. I follow them inside, my heart thrashing hard.
"Have a seat," William says, closing the door behind us.
"I'll stand."
"Suit yourself." He pulls out a chair and sits down. His asshole son follows his lead, leaving me on the offensive. "I'll get straight to the point. My son's career is important to me. Very important. And lately, certain obstacles have been preventing him from reaching his full potential on the ice."
"What kind of obstacles?"
He sits back in the chair. "Showboat rookies who command attention. Media darlings who steal opportunities that should rightfully belong to players who've put in their time." His eyes narrow. "Players like you."
The pieces start clicking together. "So this is about ice time."
"This is about legacy. Ryan's worked his entire life to get to this level. He’s played with the Raptors for years. He deserves to be a star, not riding the bench while some flashy rookie steals all the headlines."
"That's not how hockey works. You earn your spot."
"In an ideal world, yes. But we don't live in an ideal world, do we,Connor?"
My blood freezes. What the?—?
All of Keating’s snide-ass comments and threats suddenly make alarming sense. He knows. William fucking knows.
"What the hell are you getting at?" I say in a low voice, the lump in my throat choking me.
"Oh, did I say Connor? My mistake. It's Cam now, isn't it? Cam Foster, the rising star. Amazing how reinventing yourself can open so many doors." William smiles like we’re just old friends catching up.
Ryan shifts uncomfortably in his chair, but doesn't say anything. Just watches his father work me like he’s running a business meeting.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, but my voice wavers. And the look on his face proves he knows exactly what panicked thoughts are flooding my mind.
He leans forward. "I think you do. You see, I recently learned some very interesting things about your background. About your time in New York before you made it to the NHL. The creative ways you found to pay for hockey equipment and training."
My legs buckle and I grab the edge of the conference room table, my fingertips white as they dig into the wood grain. "I don't know what you think you know, but?—"
"Oh, I know everything." William pulls out his phone and swipes through screens. "I had a professional look into your history, a man named Mark Lawson. He’s a very thorough investigator who specializes in digging up information on public figures. It still amazes me what kind of things he has the ability to dig up, things that people think have been long buried.” He pauses, his nasty smirk widening. “But you can never outrun skeletons. They always have a way of jumping out when you least expect them to.”
The name means nothing to me, but the threat in William's voice is crystal clear.
"Photos, videos, detailed documentation of your various... entrepreneurial activities. All very professionally compiled." He sets the phone on the table, screen facing me. "One call to the right reporter, and everyone gets to see exactly what Cam Foster used to do for money."
I stare at the images on the phone, my mouth drying up like it’s filled with cotton, sand, and crushed Saltines. "What do you want?"
"I want you gone. Off this team, out of my son's way, back to whatever gutter you crawled out of." His voice is pleasant. Like we're discussing the fucking weather instead of my total destruction. "You've got until tomorrow night's game to make it happen. Request a trade, fake an injury, disappear into thin air. I don't care how you do it."
"And if I don't?"
"Then Mark starts making calls. Not to tabloids or gossip sites, mind you. I'm not some amateur. I have relationships with NHL team management and owners, as well as serious journalists and people who investigate character issues in professional sports. Your story becomes a legitimate news investigation, not just scandal sheet fodder. And with my connections, I can bury you forever."
This is worse than anything James threatened. James was a crazy stalker with different motives. William Keating is a professional, connected to the right people, with the power to crush my career through proper channels.
"Your precious Logan Shaw gets dragged into it, too, of course. Questions about his judgment, his leadership, whether his personal relationships affected his decision-making. What a shame if his final game got overshadowed by a scandal about his boyfriend's sordid past."
Logan's last game. The thing he's worked for his entire life, the last piece of his legacy.
