Page 92 of The Last Inch Of Ice
But the memory of Kai’s face — that desolate emptiness, the way he couldn’t even muster the energy for sarcasm — stops him.
Whatever’s wrong, it’s bad enough that Kai can’t hide it. And Kai can hide fucking everything.
Nazar forces himself to stay put, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He counts to ten. Then twenty. Gives Kai time to getto his room, to be alone with whatever’s destroying him from the inside.
Then he turns and walks back to the party on legs that feel disconnected from his brain. He grabs a drink from a passing waiter. Vodka, maybe. He doesn’t care.
“Nazar!” Norskiy appears at his elbow, slightly drunk, talking about next season’s prospects. Nazar nods along, making appropriate sounds, while his mind races.
He finds an excuse to leave after twenty minutes that feel like hours. Takes the elevator up to his floor — fifth, two above Kai’s third — and lets himself into his room.
The silence is oppressive after the noise of the party.
He strips off his suit jacket, loosens his tie, turns on the TV just for the background noise. CNN or MSNBC or one of those. He’s not paying attention, just needs the sound of other humans existing to fill the space.
He’s pulling off his shoes when the headline scrolls across the bottom of the screen.
BREAKING: LIAM CALLAHAN, CEO OF CALLAHAN HOLDINGS, DEAD AT 34. INITIAL REPORTS SUGGEST SUICIDE.
The world tilts.
Nazar’s vision tunnels, everything going gray at the edges.
He sits down hard on the edge of the bed, the air knocked out of his lungs like he’s taken a hit from behind.
Liam Callahan. The brother. The one from that awards party eighteen months ago who’d ruffled Kai’s hair and made him laugh. That real, unguarded laugh Nazar had been so jealous of because he’d never heard it directed at himself.
His mind supplies images with horrible clarity: Kai on the phone, looking happy. Kai in his hotel room in Boston, mentioning his brother fixing things. Kai at that photo shoot, talking to Sam about family.
The timeline assembles itself with sickening accuracy. The awards ceremony started at seven. The news must have broken sometime during it. Someone would have called Kai. Maybe multiple people. And then Kai had been standing in that hallway alone.
Not today, Rykov.
And Nazar had let him walk away.
He’s moving before he consciously decides to. Out of his room, down the hallway, his dress shoes slapping against the carpet.
The elevator takes too long, so Nazar runs to the stairs while his heart hammers against his ribs.
Third floor. He doesn’t know Kai’s room number but the hotel layout is identical to his floor. He tries to remember where Kai had been standing at that window, calculate the angle, estimate which room—
307. Has to be.
He slams his fist against the door hard enough that pain shoots up his arm. “Kai! Open the door!”
Silence.
“Callahan, I know you’re in there. Open the fucking door!”
He pounds on it again, not caring that he’s probably waking up other guests, not caring about anything except getting through this barrier.
A voice comes from the other side, muffled and broken. “Go away, Rykov.”
The utter devastation is worse than any hit Nazar has ever taken. He knows with horrible certainty that Kai won’t open the door. That he’s completely shut out.
Nazar stands there with his forehead pressed against the cool wood, his mind racing. There has to be a way. There has to be something he can do.
Then he remembers: the window.
