Page 71 of The Last Inch Of Ice
He will not speak to Nazar Rykov ever again. This is the one promise Kai intends to keep.
* * *
The Callahan mansion was always all gleaming Carrara marble and cavernous rooms that echo.
Like a place where hope goes to die quietly and without fuss.
His father’s assistant, Evelyn— a woman in her fifties with steel-gray hair and eyes that have seen too much Callahan family drama—meets Kai in the grand foyer. She’s severe but not unkind.
She once smuggled him cookies when he was ten and locked in his room for “disrespecting the family name” by losing a youth tournament.
“Kaisyn,” she says, her tone crisp and businesslike. " Your father asked me to meet you.”
“Evelyn, light of my life,” Kai says, flashing the smile he uses for cameras and people he doesn’t trust. “Let me guess. He’s prepared a PowerPoint about my media presence? Perhaps a detailed breakdown of my Instagram engagement rates?”
A flicker of something—sympathy or pity—crosses her face. “He requested a personal meeting this time. Face-to-face.”
That’s new. Doyle usually sent her to deliver orders, not to invite him to the office.
“How civilized. Lead me to the execution chamber.”
The conservatory is a glass-walled monstrosity overlooking acres of gardens so perfectly manicured they look computer-generated. His father stands with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him.
“You wanted to see me?”
Doyle turns slowly. There is no warmth in his eyes. There never is—Kai stopped looking for it sometime around age twelve.
“The season begins in two weeks,” Doyle says. No greeting. No pleasantries. “I trust your… distractions are under control.”
“My distractions are what make me a compelling media narrative, Dad,” Kai says, leaning against the doorframe with casualness. “And compelling narratives sell tickets. Isn’t that what you taught me? Everything is a product.”
“Don’t be glib.”
“I’m not being glib. I’m being accurate, right?”
His father’s jaw tightens—the only sign of irritation he ever shows. “I’m pleased you’re playing for the Wardens now. It makes things… tidier.”
Tidier. A tidy little euphemism foreasier to control, easier to ensure you don’t embarrass me.
A hot flare of anger licks up Kai’s spine, but he shoves it down with practiced efficiency.
“All for the family name, Dad,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Wouldn’t want to tarnish the Callahan legacy with something as pedestrian as personal happiness.”
His father moves then, crossing the conservatory with that slow stride that’s designed to intimidate. It works on board members and business rivals. It still, humiliatingly, works on Kai.
Doyle looms over him. Despite Kai being six feet tall, his father still manages to make him feel small. Kai has to physically resist the urge to step back, to give ground. He hates himself for the flicker of fear that runs through him, ancient and automatic.
He’s bigger than that boy now. Stronger. He could fight back.
He never does.
Doyle leans in, his voice dropping to that chilling whisper that makes Kai’s skin crawl. “Don’t forget the deal we made, Kaisyn.”
The deal, the one that let him sign with Toronto, offered by his father with a smile that never touched his eyes, felt less like a negotiation and more like surrendering pieces of himself he’d never get back.
“I doubt,” Kai says, his voice perfectly steady — a performance he’s perfected over twenty-four years — “that you will ever let me forget.”
His father straightens, satisfied. “Good. Dinner is at seven on Thursday. Don’t be late.”
