Page 105 of The Last Inch Of Ice
He’s replaying it again. The hit. The one he’s been replaying in an endless loop for days now, torturing himself with the memory.
Kai going into the boards. The sickening crunch of his body hitting—not the normal, expected impact of a hockey check, but something harder. Something wrong. The angle bad. Kai’s head snapping forward. His body crumpling.
And the red wave of fury that had washed over Nazar — instantaneous, total, blinding. A rage so pure and protective it obliterated every other thought, all rules about professionalism and self-control.
He’d attacked his own teammate. On national television. In front of millions of viewers and every GM in the league.
Career-threateningly stupid doesn’t even begin to cover it.
He’s been suspended for five games. Fined an amount his agent won’t stop emailing him about. Every sports analyst from ESPN to The Athletic has weighed in on his “disturbing episode of lack of discipline” and “concerning pattern of aggression.”
His own coach had looked at him with a mixture of disappointment and bafflement that Nazar can still feel like a physical weight.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Bodrov had asked in his office, the door closed, just the two of them. “That was Garrett. Your own defenseman. A guy you’ve played with for two years. What possible—”
Nazar hadn’t had an answer. Still doesn’t. What was he supposed to say?I saw Kai fall and something in my brain just snapped. I became a different person. I would have killed anyone who touched him.
He’s replayed it a thousand times, examining it from every angle like game footage, and he still can’t fully explain what happened. The protective rage is still there, coiled in his gut like a living thing. Still ready to strike.
And for what?
He had finally gotten him. Had Kai in his bed, pliant and open and vulnerable in ways Nazar had never imagined he’d beallowed to see. Had fucked him slow and deep until they were both boneless and spent. Had held him afterward in the gray morning light and felt, for the first time in his entire life, like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
He’d seen a future in that quiet dawn. Had made plans. Vancouver. A promise of more than stolen moments. A promise of something real.
And in return? Silence. A wall of it so complete it might as well be made of brick.
Nazar grabs a towel and wipes his face, his reflection in the gym’s mirror showing someone who looks hollowed out.
He’s lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose, his face sharper, his eyes shadowed. He looks like he’s in training for a marathon no one signed up for.
He knows Kai likes to play games. Knows the sarcasm and the scandals are armor. Defense mechanisms against a world that’s been trying to chew him up and spit him out since the day his name became public property. Nazar understands it intellectually, can trace the patterns, see the psychology of it.
But knowing doesn’t make it hurt less.
He knows Kai is more vulnerable than anyone gives him credit for. He has seen glimpses of the real person underneath all that performance—in his grandmother’s house, in that classroom with those kids, in the shower after the awards ceremony when he was completely shattered.
And it makes him sick with a protective rage so fierce it feels like he’s going to choke on it.
The constant ridicule from the press. The think pieces about his “attitude problems”. The whispers in locker rooms across the league—nepotism case, rich kid, can’t win when it matters.
The contempt from some fans who’ve decided Kai represents everything wrong with modern hockey.
And Nazar himself had been part of it. He had helped build that narrative with his own resentment and assumptions. Had treated Kai like a problem to be solved rather than a person to be understood.
The guilt of that sits in his chest like a stone he can’t cough up.
And now—now they were throwing drinks at him.
Blue fucking bottles with whatever toxic sludge that was, thrown by grown adults who thought attacking someone in public was acceptable behavior. They had probably gone home and told their families about it over dinner like it was a fun anecdote.
The footage is burned into Nazar’s brain. Kai standing there soaked in bright blue, his security team scrambling, his teammates staring in horror. And Kai’s face… that careful blankness that Nazar now recognizes as his pain response. The way he shut down instead of reacting.
It’s not something Nazar can tolerate.Kai doesn’t deserve it.Doesn’t deserve any of this.
He moves to the bench press, loads weight with more force than necessary. A guy doing cable flies nearby gives him a nervous look and moves to a different machine.
And now there’s this new development. This particularly infuriating piece of theater.
