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The gala was the kind of event Ilya survived.
He stood next to his father, smile fixed in place, nodding along to conversations he wasn't listening to. Russia had lost. The host country, knocked out in the quarterfinals, and Ilya could feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders. His father hadn't said much about it yet.
The silence was worse than the words would be.
Ilya's skin prickled with it. He was hyperaware of his father beside him — the set of his shoulders, the rhythm of his breathing, the way his fingers curled around his glass. Every small movement was data. Every shift in posture was a potential warning sign.
His father's hands were relaxed. Loose around the crystal. That was the most dangerous version of them.
Ilya knew how this worked. His father never struck in anger — that would be loss of control, and Grigori Rozanov never lost control. He waited. He planned. He found the perfect moment, the perfect audience, the perfect excuse. The punishment would come when it would hurt the most, and Ilya would never see it coming until it was too late.
Except he always saw it coming. That was the worst part. Watching his father set the trap, knowing he'd walk into it anyway, because there was no way out. There was never any way out.
He'd been eight the first time he understood.
A dinner party. His father's colleagues from the ministry, their wives, their well-behaved children. Ilya had been told to be perfect — quiet, polite, a credit to the family. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard.
His father had handed him a glass of water. "Bring this to Colonel Volkov, Ilyusha."
Ilya had taken it carefully, both hands, walking slow. He'd been so focused on not spilling that he hadn't seen his father's foot shift. Hadn't understood until he was already falling, the glass shattering, water spreading across the polished floor.
"Clumsy boy." His father's voice had been calm. Disappointed. "You see how he is? I apologize, Colonel. He is not yet trained properly."
The colonel had laughed. "They learn, Grigori. They learn."
Ilya had learned. Not to be less clumsy — that had never been the point. He'd learned that the trap was always coming. He'd learned to watch his father's hands, his feet, his face, searching for the setup. He'd learned that it didn't matter if he saw it coming. He'd walk into it anyway, because the alternative was worse.
After that night, Ilya started watching hands.
His father's hands, mostly. The way they moved — reaching for a drink, adjusting a cufflink, resting on Ilya's shoulder in a way that looked affectionate to anyone watching. Ilya learned to read them the way sailors read the sky. The slight curl of fingers that meant irritation. The too-casual placement that meant a blow was coming. The stillness that was the most dangerous of all.
He watched other hands too. His teachers' hands, his coaches' hands, the hands of every adult who had power over him. He catalogued them. Sorted them into categories: safe, dangerous, unpredictable.
His mother's hands were the only ones that never made him flinch.
His mother had soft hands.
He remembered that more than almost anything else about her — the way her fingers felt when she stroked his hair, when she cupped his face, when she held his hand walking to school. Her hands were always warm. Always gentle.
She couldn't protect him from his father. She was too small, too fragile, too caught in her own survival. When Grigori set his traps, she didn't intervene. She couldn't. But afterward, she would find Ilya. She would sit with him in his room, not saying anything, just being there. Sometimes she would take his hand and hold it, and Ilya would feel, for a moment, like maybe he wasn't alone.
She had been sad for as long as he could remember. A quiet sadness, the kind that lived in the spaces between words. She smiled when she was supposed to smile. She cooked dinner and helped with homework and kissed Ilya goodnight. But sometimes he'd find her sitting alone in the dark, hands folded in her lap, staring at nothing.
"Are you okay, Mama?"
"I'm fine, Ilyusha." She would smile, and her hands would reach for him, and he would believe her because he needed to believe her.
He didn't understand then that sadness could be a place you lived. He didn't understand that some people carried weights so heavy they eventually couldn't stand anymore.
He was twelve when he learned.
He'd been twelve when Alexei taught him the same lesson their father had.
Their father was away — some ministry business, meetings that kept him in Moscow for days at a time. Ilya had let himself relax. Had let himself believe that the house was safe when Grigori wasn't in it.
Alexei was seventeen, already sharp-edged in the way their father approved of. Already learning to wear the same cold mask, speak in the same measured tones. Already learning what to do with his hands.
They'd been watching television. Something stupid, a cartoon Ilya liked. Alexei had been silent beside him, and Ilya hadn't thought anything of it.
"Father says you're soft," Alexei said. Casual. Like he was commenting on the weather.
Ilya's stomach tightened. "I'm not."
"He says you cry too much. That mother made you weak."
"She didn't—"
"He's right." Alexei turned to look at him. "You are weak. You flinch when he raises his voice. You can't even take criticism without your eyes getting wet."
Ilya stared at the television. His vision was blurring. He would not cry. He would not prove Alexei right.
"See?" Alexei's voice was soft. "Weak."
He stood up, walked past Ilya, and as he did, his elbow caught Ilya's ear. Hard. The kind of hit that could be an accident if anyone asked.
"Clumsy," Alexei said. "You should watch where you're sitting."
Ilya didn't say anything. He sat very still until Alexei left the room, and then he sat still for a long time after that.
He'd thought Alexei was different. He'd thought, stupidly, that being brothers meant something. That they were on the same side, surviving their father together.
But Alexei wasn't on his side. Alexei was competing for the same scraps of approval, and he'd learned that the way to win was to push Ilya down.
Ilya started watching Alexei's hands after that, too.
He'd been twelve when he found his mother.
He came home from school early. A half-day, some teacher's meeting, the kind of small disruption that felt like a gift. He'd walked home thinking about what he'd do with the extra hours. Maybe his mother would make him a snack. Maybe she'd sit with him while he did his homework, the way she sometimes did when his father wasn't home. Maybe she'd hold his hand and he'd feel, for a little while, like he was safe.
The house was quiet.
"Mama?"
No answer. But her car was in the driveway. She was home.
He dropped his backpack by the door. Walked through the kitchen, the living room. Called for her again.
Nothing.
He found her in the bedroom.
She was lying on the bed, still dressed, her shoes still on. Like she'd just laid down for a moment. Like she was sleeping.
But her eyes were open.
"Mama?"
He walked closer. Reached for her hand — her soft, warm hand that had always meant safety.
Her skin was cold.
On the nightstand: an empty pill bottle. A glass of water, half-finished.
He didn't understand. His brain refused to make sense of it. He kept holding her hand, kept saying Mama, Mama, wake up, and she didn't move, didn't blink, didn't breathe. Her fingers didn't curl around his the way they always had.
He heard a sound. High and thin and animal. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from him.
He didn't remember letting go of her hand. Didn't remember running to the neighbor's house, or the ambulance arriving, or the men who came and couldn't save her because there was nothing left to save. Didn't remember Alexei coming home from school, or his father arriving from work, or the way the house filled with people who spoke in low voices and didn't look at Ilya.
He remembered her hand. Cold. Still. The fingers that had stroked his hair, cupped his face, held him when he was scared — motionless now. Forever.
He remembered the pill bottle on the nightstand.
He remembered his father's hand on his shoulder, hours later, grip hard enough to bruise.
"She was weak," Grigori said. "She was always weak. This is what weakness leads to, Ilyusha. Remember that."
Ilya remembered.
They didn't let him go to the funeral.
His father said he was too young. That it would be too much. But Ilya understood the real reason: he was a liability. He might cry. He might fall apart. He might embarrass the family in front of the few relatives who'd been told the official story.
Her heart, his father told people. It was her heart.
Ilya stayed home with a neighbor while they buried his mother. He sat in his room and stared at his hands — his own hands, still so small — and tried not to think about hers. How they'd felt when she was alive. How they'd felt when she wasn't.
She'd said I'm fine so many times. And he'd believed her, because her hands were gentle when she said it, and he'd thought gentle hands meant safety.
He'd been wrong.
When his father and Alexei came home, Ilya was still sitting in the same place.
Alexei stood in the doorway. Looked at him.
"Stop moping. It's pathetic."
Ilya didn't answer.
"She was selfish. She took the easy way out and left us to clean up. Left you to find her." Alexei's voice was hard. "You want to be like her?"
Ilya flinched.
"Weak and selfish. Leaving your mess for everyone else." Alexei stepped closer. "Father's already disappointed enough. Don't make it worse."
He left. Ilya stayed on the bed.
She left you to find her.
He turned that over in his mind for years. Had she known he'd be the one? Had she thought about it — her twelve-year-old son, coming home from school, reaching for her hand?
Had she not cared? Or had she been so deep in her own pain that she couldn't see past it?
He didn't know. He'd never know. She was gone, and she'd taken the answers with her, and all Ilya had left was the memory of her cold hand in his, and the knowledge that even gentle hands could leave you.
He carried it with him.
The guilt of not seeing. He'd known she was sad. He'd found her sitting in the dark, hands folded in her lap, staring at nothing. He'd asked if she was okay and believed her when she said I'm fine, Ilyusha.
He should have known. Should have seen. Should have done something.
The anger at being left. She'd chosen to go. Chosen death over staying, over him. He hadn't been enough to keep her here. Nothing he did, nothing he was, had been enough.
And underneath both: the desperate, shameful understanding.
Sometimes he thought about it too. About being done. About stopping. About swallowing something that would make the weight go away. About finally escaping a life that felt like one long trap he'd never escape.
He never told anyone. It felt like proof his father was right. Weakness was inherited. Ilya was his mother's son in all the worst ways.
He learned to bury it. Learned to push it down so deep he could almost forget it was there. But it never went away completely. It just waited. Patient. Ready to surface whenever the weight got too heavy.
After his mother died, no one touched Ilya gently anymore.
He'd been sixteen when Sasha Kuznetsov first held his hand.
They'd grown up in the same circles — Ilya on the ice, Sasha in the ballet studio, both of them sons of powerful men, both of them learning to perform under pressure. They'd known each other for years without really knowing each other. Nodding acquaintances at parties their fathers dragged them to.
But that summer, something shifted.
They were at a dacha outside Moscow, some ministry gathering, adults drinking on the porch while their children were expected to entertain themselves. Ilya had wandered down to the lake to escape. Sasha had found him there.
They'd talked. Really talked, for the first time. About the pressure. The expectations. The feeling of being watched all the time, measured, found wanting.
And then Sasha had reached over and taken Ilya's hand.
Ilya had frozen. No one touched him anymore — not gently, not like this. His father's hands were weapons. Alexei's hands were weapons. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be touched by someone who didn't want to hurt him.
"Is this okay?" Sasha had asked. Quiet. Nervous.
Ilya hadn't known how to answer. He'd never been asked before.
"Yes," he'd said, and it had come out like a question.
Sasha's hand was warm. His fingers were long and elegant — dancer's hands, built for grace. He held Ilya's hand like it was something precious, something worth being careful with.
They'd sat like that until the sun went down. Not talking. Just holding on.
It hadn't lasted. It couldn't. Ilya had left for North America, and Sasha had stayed, and they'd let the distance become an excuse to stop. Safer that way. Easier.
But Ilya had never forgotten him. The first person who'd touched him like he was something to be wanted instead of something to be owned.
He'd been nineteen the first time his father found out.
Home from his first NHL season. Proud. Stupid. He'd made the team, he'd scored goals, he'd sent money home like a good son. He thought maybe things would be different now. Maybe he'd finally done enough.
His father had taken him to a restaurant. Expensive. Public. Ilya should have known — his father never spent money without a reason — but he'd let himself hope.
"You've done well," his father had said over dinner. "The family is proud."
Ilya had felt something warm bloom in his chest. Foolish. Dangerous.
"But I hear things," his father continued. "About how you spend your time in America. The women. The parties." He'd smiled, thin and cold. "A boy called. Looking for you. Very persistent. Very... friendly."
Ilya's blood had turned to ice.
"I told him he had the wrong number, of course." His father took a sip of wine. "I told him my son would never associate with such people."
The restaurant was full. Forty witnesses. Ilya's hands were shaking under the table.
"You will not embarrass this family, Ilyusha." His father's voice was still pleasant. Still calm. "You understand what happens to men like that in Russia. You understand what I would have to do, as a father, to protect our name."
He'd reached across the table and squeezed Ilya's shoulder. To anyone watching, it would have looked affectionate.
His thumb pressed into the nerve cluster until Ilya's vision went white.
"I trust we understand each other."
"Yes, sir."
"Good boy."
His father's hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment longer — a reminder, a warning, a brand. Then he withdrew it and picked up his wine glass, and the conversation moved on as if nothing had happened.
Ilya looked down at his own hands, still shaking under the table. They looked like his father's hands. Same long fingers. Same broad palms. He'd never noticed before.
He hid them under his napkin and tried not to think about it.
He'd been twenty-one when he learned what his father's protection really cost.
Sasha Kuznetsov was discovered.
Ilya didn't know the details. A photo, maybe. A rumor that became a confirmation. Sasha had been careless — or brave, depending on how you looked at it — and someone had seen, and someone had talked.
The Bolshoi let him go. Quietly, officially, for "artistic differences." Everyone knew what it really meant.
Ilya found out from his father.
They were in Grigori's study. The door was closed. His father's face was calm, but Ilya could see something underneath — not fury, this time. Something closer to satisfaction.
"You've heard about the Kuznetsov boy," Grigori said.
Ilya's blood went cold.
"Sasha." His father said the name like it tasted bitter. "The dancer. Dismissed from the Bolshoi. There are... rumors about why."
Ilya couldn't speak.
"You knew him, didn't you? When you were younger. You were... friends."
The pause before friends was deliberate. Pointed.
"We played together as children," Ilya managed. "Our families—"
"Yes. Our families." Grigori leaned back in his chair. "The Kuznetsovs are asking questions. About who else their son might have... associated with. Names are being mentioned. Yours among them."
Ilya's vision went white.
"I have handled it," his father continued. "The Kuznetsovs have been persuaded that their son acted alone. That any... childhood friendship was innocent. That you are not involved."
Ilya sat frozen. He couldn't feel his hands.
"But you should understand what this cost me, Ilyusha. The favours I spent. The calls I made. To keep your name out of their son's ruin."
Their son's ruin.
Sasha, who had held Ilya's hand by the lake when they were sixteen. Sasha, who had touched him gently, carefully, like he was something worth being careful with. Sasha, whose dancer's hands had been the first to show Ilya that touch didn't have to mean pain.
Sasha, whose life was destroyed while Ilya's father spent favours to make sure the destruction didn't spread.
"I trust you understand," Grigori said, "what happens to boys like him. What would happen to you, if I hadn't intervened."
"Yes, sir."
"Good." His father stood. Walked to the door. Paused with his hand on the handle. "The Kuznetsov boy made his choice. He was careless, and now he pays the price. You will not make the same mistake."
He left.
Ilya sat in the study for a long time. He looked down at his hands — the hands Sasha had held, the hands that had touched Sasha in return, the hands that felt sticky with something he could not name — and felt sick.
He never looked for Sasha.
He told himself it was practical. Looking would create a trail. Questions. Someone might notice Ilya Rozanov asking about the disgraced Kuznetsov boy, and they might wonder why he cared.
But that wasn't the real reason.
The real reason was that Ilya couldn't bear to know.
If Sasha had rebuilt his life somewhere — found a company that didn't care, a country that didn't punish, a way to keep dancing — then Ilya would have to live with the fact that he'd never reached out. Never helped. Never even tried.
And if Sasha hadn't rebuilt. If the fall had broken him completely. If he'd ended up like so many others, swallowed by poverty or addiction or despair or worse—
Ilya couldn't know that. He couldn't carry that alongside everything else.
So he didn't look. He let Sasha become a ghost, a memory, a boy whose hands he'd held who existed now only in the past tense.
It was cowardice. He knew it was cowardice. It was selfishness — the same selfishness that let him accept his father's protection despite the strings, despite the cost, despite knowing exactly what that protection meant.
He could have refused. Could have said no, I won't let you buy my safety with Sasha's ruin. Could have stood up and walked out and faced whatever consequences came.
He hadn't. He'd said yes, sir and let his father save him, and let Sasha become a cautionary tale, and never once reached out to see if the boy who'd first shown him gentleness was even still alive.
He carried that too. Along with everything else.
Alexei never said anything about Sasha. About any of it.
But Ilya caught him watching, sometimes. A knowing look. A slight smirk when their father mentioned Ilya's future, his eventual wife, the children he would have.
Alexei knew. Or suspected enough that it amounted to the same thing.
He never confirmed it. Never confronted Ilya directly. That would have required action — either protecting his brother or exposing him. Alexei did neither. He just let the knowledge sit between them, another weapon in his arsenal, another way to remind Ilya of his weakness.
I know what you are. I know Father protects you. I know you're not worth it.
Sometimes Ilya wondered what would happen if their father died. If the protection disappeared. Whether Alexei would keep the secret out of brotherhood, or whether he'd use it the first time it benefited him.
He already knew the answer. He just didn't want to think about it.
Now, five years later, he stood beside his father at the gala and watched him take a long sip from his glass.
The trap was coming. Ilya could feel it like a change in pressure before a storm.
"You are not drinking, Ilyusha."
"I'm not thirsty."
"Nonsense. It is celebration. You will drink."
Ilya took the glass his father handed him. The vodka was cold against his palm. He drank, and it burned going down, and he thought: This is part of it. This is the setup.
"Good boy," his father said. His hand came up to rest briefly on the back of Ilya's neck — a gesture that might have looked paternal to anyone watching. Ilya felt the fingers press, just slightly, into the tendons. A reminder. "You see? You can follow instructions when you try."
Ilya catalogued the exchange. The vodka. The praise that wasn't praise. The hand on his neck. His father was laying groundwork, establishing a narrative. He's been drinking. He's not himself.
Something was coming.
He saw Shane before Shane saw him.
The Canadian was across the room, standing with Scott Hunter and Carter Vaughn. Laughing at something. Relaxed. Easy.
Ilya's chest tightened.
Shane had mentioned his parents once, in passing — something about Sunday dinners, his mom's cooking, the way his dad still called him "bud" even though Shane was twenty-four years old and captain of an NHL team. He'd said it like it was nothing. Like everyone had that.
Ilya had listened and felt something twist inside him. Longing. Grief.
What would it be like, he wondered, to have a father whose hands meant safety? Not ownership. Not pain. Just love, simple and unconditional.
He would never know.
He looked away from Shane. He couldn't afford to want things. Not here. Not with his father beside him.
"Rozanov!" someone called out. American accent. Loud.
Carter Vaughn. Waving them over.
Ilya's stomach dropped.
No. No, no, no.
His father turned first. Ilya watched him assess the group — Americans, one Canadian, rivals, competitors — and saw the calculation flicker across his face. Interest. Opportunity.
"Come," his father said. His hand pressed briefly against the small of Ilya's back, steering him. "We will be social."
They walked over together. Ilya stayed half a step behind, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.
Shane was right there. Shane, who Ilya had kissed in a hotel room six months ago. Shane, who Ilya had been carefully avoiding all week because being near him in Russia felt like standing next to a bomb.
His father was about to meet Shane.
Ilya wanted to run. He wanted to grab Shane and drag him away, out of his father's sight, out of his father's reach. He wanted to scream don't you understand how dangerous this is?
He did none of those things. He fixed his expression into something neutral and followed his father into the trap.
He registered the group one face at a time. Carter, grinning and oblivious. Hunter, wary, watching.
And then Shane.
Ilya felt the blood drain from his face.
Shane was looking at him. For just a second, something soft flickered in his expression — recognition, warmth, the beginnings of a smile.
Don't, Ilya thought desperately. Don't look at me like that. He'll see. He'll know.
He forced his expression blank. Didn't look at Shane. Couldn't.
"You know my son," his father said. "He tells me you are good players. Worthy opponents."
Ilya's skin crawled. His father's voice was pleasant, friendly. The voice he used when he was hunting.
"Ilya's the real deal," Hunter said. "Hell of a series against Finland. Could've gone either way."
Kindness. Ilya recognized it. Finland had dominated. Everyone knew.
His father made a small sound. "Yes. It could have."
There it was. The first piece of the trap, sliding into place. The slight emphasis on could. The implication underneath: but it didn't, because my son failed.
Ilya felt his shoulders tighten. He kept his eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance.
"The tournament's brutal," Carter said. "Single elimination, anything can happen. One bad bounce and you're done."
"One bad bounce," his father repeated. He turned to look at Ilya. "Is that what it was, Ilyusha? A bad bounce?"
Ilya didn't answer. There was no right answer. Anything he said would be used against him.
"My son does not like to make excuses. This is good quality, yes? To accept responsibility."
His father lifted his drink. Took a sip. The movement was casual, unhurried.
Ilya's heart was hammering.
"Ilya. Hold this for me."
Ilya took the glass.
The vodka sloshed gently against the sides. His father's fingerprints were still warm on the crystal.
He understood now. All of it. The vodka he'd been made to drink earlier — not to lower his guard, but to set the stage. He's been drinking, you see. Clumsy. Careless. The glass in his hand — not a gift, but a prop. A reason.
His father was going to hit him, and he was going to make it look like Ilya's fault.
In front of Shane.
Ilya thought about being eight years old, water spreading across a polished floor, his father's foot already back in place like it had never moved. He thought about forty witnesses who saw nothing, who understood nothing, who laughed along with his father at what a clumsy child he was.
He thought about Shane watching. Shane seeing.
He couldn't stop it. There was no way to stop it. If he set the glass down, his father would find another reason. If he tried to leave, his father would make it worse later. The trap was already sprung. All Ilya could do was survive it.
He went away, inside. Let his eyes go empty. Let his body become a thing that could be hit without breaking.
The backhand caught him across the face.
His father's hand — the same hand that had gripped his shoulder, pressed into his neck, steered him across rooms — open now, knuckles connecting with Ilya's cheekbone. The sound was sharp. Loud. His head snapped to the side and the drink sloshed, spilling across his suit jacket, dripping onto the floor.
"Stupid boy." His father's voice was calm. Bored. "Look what you've done. You cannot even hold a glass without making mess."
Ilya straightened. His cheek throbbed, already swelling. He kept his face empty, blank, gone —
And then his eyes moved to Shane.
He didn't mean to. It just happened. Some broken part of him reaching out for—
Shane's face was white. His hands were clenched at his sides, shaking.
No.
This was the worst thing. Not the hit — the hit was nothing, the hit was familiar, the hit he could survive. But Shane seeing it. Shane knowing. Shane, who had Sunday dinners and a father who called him "bud," looking at Ilya like he was something broken.
Ilya saw the exact moment Shane understood what had just happened. The confusion giving way to horror. The horror giving way to something worse — pity. Softness. The urge to help.
Please don't, Ilya thought. Please don't look at me like that. Please don't try to save me. You'll only make it worse.
If Shane said something — if Shane reacted — Ilya's father would see. Would notice. Would start asking questions about why this Canadian boy cared so much about what happened to Ilya.
And then Ilya would have to watch his father destroy Shane too.
Please don't see me. Please don't be here. Please forget this happened.
"I apologize," Ilya said. His voice came out steady. He'd had so much practice. "I am clumsy. Please excuse me — I will clean this."
He turned and walked away. Measured steps. Back straight. Like a soldier retreating from a battlefield he'd already lost.
He didn't look back.
He scanned the room as he walked.
The other Russians. His teammates, their coaches, the officials and handlers.
Dmitri was studying his drink. Coach Petrov had turned to say something to his wife. Sergei was laughing at a joke someone had made, his back carefully angled away.
They had all seen. None of them would say anything.
This was not remarkable. This was not unusual. Grigori Rozanov was a powerful man, and this was Russia, and fathers disciplined their sons. What was there to say?
Ilya didn't blame them. He didn't feel betrayed. You couldn't be betrayed by people you'd never expected to help.
But he noticed something else, too. The way some of them glanced at his father with something that might have been respect. He keeps his son in line. He doesn't tolerate weakness.
This was the same man who had made calls to protect Ilya from a journalist. Who had spent favours to keep Ilya's secret buried. Who would shield him from the government, from exposure, from ruin.
And who would also hit him in front of a room full of witnesses, just to remind him who he belonged to.
Both things were true. Both things were his father.
Ilya had never been able to reconcile them. The protector and the abuser. The man who saved him and the man who hurt him. He'd stopped trying. He just survived both.
Ilya was in his hotel room, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands. His father's hands. Same long fingers. Same broad palms.
His phone buzzed.
Carter Vaughn: Hey man. That was fucked up. Are you okay?
A group chat. Carter and Hunter.
Not Shane.
Something in his chest loosened, just slightly. Shane hadn't told them. Shane was keeping the secret of whatever was between them, even now.
He typed back: I am fine. It is not your concern.
Hunter: It IS our concern. That's assault.
Ilya laughed. Broken, jagged.
Assault. In America, maybe. In Canada. In places where fathers didn't own their sons.
He typed: Who do I tell? Police? My brother is police. My father is police.
Hunter: There has to be someone. A lawyer. An organization.
They didn't understand. They couldn't. They'd grown up in places where this was abnormal.
He typed: You do not understand. In Russia, this is not how it works. My father can do what he wants with his things.
Carter: You're not a thing.
Ilya read the message. Read it again.
He looked at his hands. His father's hands, resting on his thighs. He thought about what they would become. What they were capable of.
He put the phone down. Didn't respond.
They were in a hotel room in Boston. They'd been doing this for a year now. Falling into bed when their schedules aligned, when Boston and Montreal were close enough for a few stolen hours. Pretending it meant nothing. Pretending they weren't both counting the days until the next time.
Ilya had rules. Always leave before morning. Never stay to talk. Keep it physical. Keep it safe.
Safe meant no feelings. Safe meant no one could use it against him.
They were lying there after, catching their breath. Ilya was already calculating his exit — how long he had to wait before leaving seemed normal, which excuse would work best.
And Shane reached over and touched his face.
Not grabbing. Not pulling him in for another round. Just — touching. His thumb tracing along Ilya's cheekbone, soft and slow. Right where his father's backhand had landed, a year ago, in front of forty witnesses.
"You're so beautiful," Shane said. Quiet. Like he was talking to himself.
Ilya's whole body went rigid.
He knew what this was. Shane had been carrying Sochi around for a year, and now he was trying to — what? Fix it? Make it better? Touch the place where Ilya had been broken and heal it with gentleness?
His father had touched his face too. Usually right before or right after he hit it.
"Don't." Ilya pulled back. The word came out sharp. Wrong.
Shane's hand froze in the air. "I just—"
"I said don't."
Ilya was already sitting up, reaching for his clothes. His hands were shaking. He couldn't make them stop.
"Ilya, wait—"
"I have to go."
"It's two in the morning."
"I have to go."
He was pulling on his jeans, his shirt, not looking at Shane. If he looked at Shane he would see it — the pity, the softness, the careful way Shane had been treating him ever since Sochi. Like Ilya was something fragile. Something broken.
"Can we just talk about—"
"There is nothing to talk about."
"There's obviously something to talk about." Shane sat up. "You flinch every time I touch your face. You won't let me be gentle with you. And I saw what he did, Ilya. I saw—"
"You saw nothing." Ilya's voice was cold. Flat. The voice he used when he needed to go away inside, when he needed to become nothing so he couldn't be hurt. "You saw one moment. It means nothing."
"It doesn't mean nothing—"
"It means nothing because there is nothing to be done." Ilya found his shoes, shoved his feet into them. "He is my father. I go back every summer. This is how it is. This is how it has always been."
"That doesn't make it okay—"
"I didn't say it was okay." Ilya turned finally, looked at Shane. Shane's face was open, worried, full of something Ilya couldn't let himself name. "I said there is nothing to be done. You cannot fix this. You cannot touch my face gently and undo what he did. So stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I am broken thing you need to repair."
Shane flinched.
Good. Let him flinch. Let him understand that this wasn't something his softness could solve.
"I don't think you're broken," Shane said quietly.
Ilya grabbed his jacket, his keys. He was at the door before Shane spoke again.
"I'm not going to stop caring about you."
Ilya's hand stilled on the doorknob.
"I know you want me to," Shane continued. "I know it would be easier for you if I just — if I treated this like it was nothing. Like you were nothing. But I can't."
Ilya didn't turn around. "Then you're a fool."
He walked out. Closed the door behind him. Made it to his car before his hands started shaking so badly he couldn't get the key in the ignition.
He sat there for a long time, in the dark parking lot, staring at his hands on the steering wheel.
His father's hands.
Shane didn't understand. Shane had hands that reached for people to comfort them, not to hurt them. Shane didn't know what it was like to look at your own fingers and see a weapon.
Ilya started the car and drove back to Boston alone.
They didn't talk about it.
They kept doing what they'd been doing — hotel rooms, stolen hours, pretending it was just physical. Boston played Montreal six times that season, and every time, Ilya found himself scanning the ice for Shane's number, found himself hitting a little harder when someone got too close to him.
He told himself it was rivalry. Competition. The way it had always been between them.
But something had shifted. Shane still reached for him in hotel rooms, but carefully now. Gently. Always asking, with his eyes if not his words: is this okay? Can I touch you here?
Ilya hated it. Hated being treated like something fragile. Hated that Shane had seen him at his weakest and couldn't forget it.
But he also couldn't stay away. Couldn't stop showing up when Shane texted an address. Couldn't stop wanting this, even though he knew it would destroy him eventually.
That was the thing about Ilya. He'd never learned how to stop wanting things that would hurt him.
Ilya went back to Russia every summer.
This was not a choice. It was simply what happened, the way seasons changed and the sun rose and his father expected him home.
He told himself it was about his mother's grave. About keeping up appearances. About the performance of being a good Russian son.
But really it was simpler than that. His father expected him, and Ilya had never learned how to refuse his father anything.
The summer after Sochi was the hardest.
His father didn't mention the gala. Didn't mention the backhand, the spilled drink, the witnesses. That wasn't how it worked. The punishment had been delivered. The lesson had been taught. There was nothing left to discuss.
"You played adequately," his father said as they pulled into the driveway, one hand resting casually on the steering wheel. "Your defensive positioning needs work."
"Yes, sir."
"We will watch film tomorrow. I have made notes."
Eight weeks. Ilya could survive eight weeks.
His mother's grave was in a cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
Ilya went alone, early in the morning, before his father was awake. He brought white lilies — her favourite — and sat on the bench across from her headstone and told her things he couldn't tell anyone else.
"I met someone," he said, the second week of summer. "In Boston. A Canadian."
The headstone didn't answer. The lilies nodded in the breeze. The stone said nothing about how she'd died — just her name, the dates, beloved wife and mother. As if she'd simply stopped existing. As if the pill bottle and the cold hands and the open eyes had never happened.
"He's good. Kind. He has a family that loves him. A real family." Ilya's throat tightened. "I don't know what to do with him. I don't know how to be something he could want."
He thought about Shane's face at the gala. The horror. The way he'd reached for Ilya's face in the hotel room, and the way Ilya had flinched away.
"He saw. He saw Father hit me. And he looked at me like I was broken." Ilya paused. "Maybe I am. Maybe there's nothing left to fix."
He looked at the headstone. At his mother's name, carved in stone.
"I understand," he said quietly. "Why you did it. I understand."
He didn't say the rest. That sometimes he thought about it too. That sometimes the weight of everything — his father, his secret, the life he was trapped in — felt like it would crush him.
"I'm trying," he told the headstone. "I'm trying to be stronger than you were."
He didn't know if it was true.
The summer his father started forgetting things, Ilya didn't notice at first.
It was small. A repeated question. A story told twice. His father pausing in the middle of a film session, frowning at the screen.
"When did you score this goal?"
"March. Against Toronto."
"I don't remember this game."
"You watched it. You called me after. You said my release was too slow."
Grigori stared at the screen for a long moment. His hands — those hands that had hit Ilya so many times, that had gripped his shoulder and pressed into his neck and taught him that touch meant pain — were still on the armrests of his chair. Something flickered across his face — confusion, frustration — before the mask slid back into place.
"Your release is still too slow. We will work on it."
Ilya didn't think much of it. Everyone forgot things sometimes.
But it happened again. And again. His father repeated conversations they'd already had. Got angry when Ilya pointed out the repetition.
"You never told me that."
"I did. On Tuesday."
"You are lying. You are always lying, always trying to make me look foolish."
Ilya stopped correcting him. It was easier. Safer.
The diagnosis came the following year.
Alexei called him in Boston. "Father has been to the doctor. They did tests."
"And?"
"Early stage dementia. They don't know how fast it will progress."
Ilya sat down. His father was strong. Sharp. The most dangerous person Ilya had ever known. He couldn't be losing his mind.
"He doesn't want anyone to know," Alexei said. "This stays in the family."
"Yes."
"He's still himself. Most of the time. But you should prepare."
Ilya hung up. Stared at the wall.
His father was dying. Slowly, piece by piece, the man who had terrorized him was disappearing.
He didn't know what to feel.
The summer he saw it for himself was when everything changed.
His father was worse. The forgetting wasn't occasional anymore — it was constant. Grigori asked the same questions every few hours. Got lost in his own house. His hands, those powerful hands that had always seemed so sure, now trembled sometimes when he reached for things.
And sometimes, he was gentle.
Ilya came downstairs one morning to find his father at the kitchen table, looking at old photographs.
"Ilyusha," his father said when he saw him.
But it wasn't the way he usually said it — the mockery, the diminishment. It was soft. Wondering. The way Ilya's mother used to say it.
"Look how small you were."
Ilya stood frozen in the doorway.
"You were such a happy child. Always laughing. Your mother used to say you had sunshine in you."
Ilya couldn't speak. His father had never mentioned his mother — not like this. Not with warmth.
"Come, sit. Look at these with me."
Ilya sat. His father's hands spread the photographs across the table — hands that moved differently now, uncertain, searching. He showed Ilya picture after picture, telling stories Ilya had never heard. His first steps. His first words. The time he'd tried to eat a crayon.
"You used to hold my hand when we walked," his father said, looking at a photo of Ilya at three or four, tiny fingers wrapped around Grigori's. "You would reach up and grab it, and you wouldn't let go. Do you remember?"
Ilya shook his head. He didn't remember. He couldn't imagine it — reaching for his father's hand, wanting to hold on.
"I was hard on you," his father said quietly. "I know I was hard on you. But I wanted you to be strong. The world is cruel to weak men."
Ilya stared at him. This man who looked like his father but was saying things his father had never said.
"Your mother — she wanted me to be softer with you. She said I was too harsh. Maybe she was right." Grigori's hands stilled on the photographs. "Maybe I broke something I should have protected."
Ilya's chest felt like it was caving in.
"I love you, Ilyusha. You know that, don't you?"
The words hit Ilya like a blow. Harder than any backhand. He didn't know what to do with them. Didn't know where to put them.
"I—" he started.
And then his father's expression flickered. The softness faded. The coldness crept back. His hands stilled, then clenched.
"Why are you sitting here? Don't you have training to do?"
The gentle man was gone. The father Ilya knew was back.
"Yes, sir."
He went for a run. Ran until his lungs burned and his legs gave out and he collapsed in a field somewhere, gasping, staring at the sky.
His father had said I love you.
His father had said maybe I broke something I should have protected.
It didn't mean anything. The disease had said it, not the man. It didn't count.
But Ilya couldn't stop hearing it. Couldn't stop thinking about the photo — his tiny hand wrapped around his father's. A time he couldn't remember, when he'd reached for those hands instead of flinching away from them.
The gentle moments came more often as the disease progressed.
His father, confused and frightened, reaching for Ilya's hand. His father, lost in a memory of Ilya's childhood, talking about how proud he was. His father, looking at Ilya without recognition and asking, "Who are you? Are you here to help me?"
The loving version was harder to survive than the cruel one.
The cruel one, Ilya knew. Had always known. He had defenses built, ways of going away inside himself. When his father's hands turned violent, Ilya knew what to do. Let his eyes go empty. Let his body become a thing that could be hit without breaking. Survive.
But the loving version — the father who held his hand and said I love you and looked at him with something like tenderness — Ilya had no defenses against that.
It broke something in him every time.
Because it showed him what he could have had. What his father had always been capable of, if he'd ever chosen to be.
There was a day, late in the summer, when his father didn't recognize him at all.
Ilya had come downstairs to find Grigori in the living room, agitated, pacing. His hands were shaking — not with the controlled power Ilya remembered, but with fear.
"Who are you?" Grigori demanded when he saw Ilya. "What are you doing in my house?"
"It's me, Father. Ilya."
"I don't know any Ilya." Grigori's eyes were wild. "Get out. Get out of my house."
"Father—"
"I said get out!" Grigori's hand lashed out — not a calculated backhand but a wild swing, the desperate flailing of an animal that was scared and confused.
Ilya caught his wrist.
For a moment, they stood there — Ilya holding his father's wrist, Grigori staring at him with no recognition in his eyes. The hand that had hit Ilya so many times was thin now, weaker. Ilya could feel the bones beneath the skin. Could feel the tremor running through it.
"It's okay," Ilya said quietly. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Grigori's eyes filled with tears.
"I don't know where I am," he whispered. "I don't know who I am. Everything is — it's all slipping away. I can feel it slipping away."
Ilya didn't know what to do. He had never seen his father cry. Had never imagined it was possible.
"You're home," Ilya said. "You're safe."
"I'm scared." The words came out like a confession. "I'm so scared."
Ilya's throat closed up.
This was his father. The man who had terrorized him. The man who had hit him, controlled him, owned him. The man who had said I will let them have you like Ilya was property to be discarded.
And he was standing here, holding that man's wrist, watching him cry.
Slowly, Ilya loosened his grip. Turned it into something else. His hand slid down, and he found himself holding his father's hand — those thin, trembling fingers that had once been so powerful, so dangerous.
"I know," Ilya said. "I know you're scared."
He led his father to the couch. Sat him down. Got him a glass of water.
Grigori drank it with shaking hands, still looking at Ilya like he was a stranger. But after a while, his eyes cleared. Something shifted.
"Ilyusha?"
"Yes, Father."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Ilya didn't know how to answer. Like what? Like he'd just seen something impossible? Like he'd just held his father's hand for the first time since he was a child and hadn't been afraid?
"It's nothing," Ilya said. "You should rest."
He helped his father to bed. Pulled the covers up. Stood in the doorway, watching the man who had hurt him for so long lying small and fragile in a bed that seemed too big for him now.
"Stay," Grigori said quietly. "Just for a little while."
Ilya stayed.
He sat in the chair by the bed and watched his father fall asleep. Watched the hands that had caused him so much pain curl gently around the blanket, like a child holding a toy. Watched the face that had always been so hard, so cold, relax into something almost peaceful.
The cruelty hadn't been inevitable. It had been a choice. Every trap, every backhand, every calculated humiliation — Grigori had chosen those things. He could have been this man, this scared and gentle man who reached for Ilya's hand and said stay. He could have been soft. He could have been kind.
He just hadn't wanted to.
Ilya stayed until his father was deeply asleep, then went to his own room and sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands.
His father's hands. The same long fingers, the same broad palms. He'd noticed it years ago, tried not to think about it. But it was impossible not to think about it now.
What would his hands become? Would they turn cruel, the way Grigori's had? Would he find himself, someday, using them to hurt someone who trusted him?
Or could he choose differently?
He didn't know. He didn't know if choosing was even possible. Maybe cruelty was inherited, the same way eye color was, the same way the shape of your hands was. Maybe Ilya was destined to become his father no matter what he did.
He looked at his hands for a long time.
He didn't have any answers.
The cruel moments still came too.
His father's paranoia worsened as the disease progressed. He accused Ilya of stealing from him, of lying to him, of plotting against him. He lashed out — not with the calculated precision of before, but with the wild fear of an animal that knew it was losing itself.
"You want me gone," his father snarled one evening, backing Ilya into a corner of the kitchen. His hands — those trembling, uncertain hands — were raised, clenched into fists. "You're waiting for me to die so you can take everything."
"No, Father. I'm here to help you."
"Liar. You've always been a liar." His father's hand swung out — not a precise backhand but a clumsy slap that caught Ilya on the ear. "I should have beaten the lies out of you when you were young."
Ilya stood very still. Let his father hit him again. Again.
It wasn't the same as before. The calculation was gone. This was just fear and confusion, a man raging against his own disappearing mind.
It still hurt.
Alexei found them like that — Ilya backed against the counter, their father breathing hard with his fists raised.
"Father," Alexei said calmly. "It's time for your medication."
Grigori turned, confused. His hands dropped to his sides. "Alexei? When did you get here?"
"Just now. Come, let me help you."
He led their father away. Ilya stayed in the kitchen, his ear ringing, staring at his hands.
Later, Alexei came back. Stood in the doorway. Looked at Ilya with something that might have been understanding.
"He doesn't know what he's doing," Alexei said.
"I know."
"It's not like before."
Ilya laughed. It came out broken. "No. Before, he knew exactly what he was doing."
Alexei was quiet for a moment. Then: "Do you need ice? For your ear?"
Ilya stared at him. Alexei had never offered him anything. Not once, in all their years of competing for their father's approval, had Alexei shown him anything resembling care.
"I'm fine," Ilya said.
Alexei nodded. Turned to leave. Then stopped.
"For what it's worth," he said, not looking at Ilya, "I didn't know. When we were young. I didn't understand what I was doing. I just knew that if Father was angry at you, he wasn't angry at me."
Ilya didn't respond.
"I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying — I was a child too. We were both just trying to survive."
He left before Ilya could answer.
Ilya stood in the kitchen for a long time, thinking about Alexei's hands. The elbow that had caught his ear when they were children. The way Alexei had learned cruelty from their father, the same way Ilya had learned to flinch.
They'd both been shaped by the same hands. They'd just turned out different.
Maybe that meant something. Maybe it meant that becoming your father wasn't inevitable. That you could be shaped by cruelty and still choose to be something else.
Or maybe Alexei was just making excuses. Maybe they both were.
The last time Ilya saw his father alive, Grigori didn't know who he was.
It was February. Ilya had flown back from Boston for a few days, between games. His father was in a care facility now — Alexei had finally admitted they couldn't manage at home anymore.
The room was small and clean and nothing like their house. Grigori sat in a chair by the window, looking out at the snow. His hands were folded in his lap, still and quiet.
"Father," Ilya said from the doorway.
Grigori turned. Looked at him. There was no recognition in his eyes.
"Hello," he said politely. "Are you the doctor?"
"No. I'm—" Ilya stopped. What was the point? "I'm just here to visit."
"That's kind of you." Grigori smiled — a genuine smile, warm and gentle. Ilya had never seen him smile like that. "Not many people visit."
Ilya sat down in the chair across from him. They looked at each other — strangers now, in the way that mattered.
"Do you have family?" Grigori asked.
The question hit Ilya like a punch to the chest.
"Yes," he managed. "I have a brother."
"That's nice. Brothers should be close." Grigori looked back out the window. His hands were still folded, peaceful. "I had a brother once. We weren't close. I've always regretted that."
Ilya didn't know what to say. He didn't know if this was true — if Grigori really had a brother, if they really hadn't been close. The disease rewrote memories, invented histories. There was no way to know what was real anymore.
"You have kind eyes," Grigori said suddenly. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
Ilya shook his head.
"You do. You look like someone who has been hurt but hasn't let it make them hard. That's rare, you know. Most people, when they're hurt, they become hard. They hurt others. It takes strength to stay soft."
Ilya's vision was blurring. He blinked hard.
"I wasn't always kind," Grigori continued, still looking out the window. His hands moved slightly in his lap, restless. "I hurt people. People I should have protected. I told myself I was making them strong, but really I was just — I was scared. Scared they would be weak like I was weak. Scared the world would hurt them, so I hurt them first." He paused. "That doesn't make any sense, does it?"
"No," Ilya said quietly. "It doesn't."
"No. I suppose it doesn't." Grigori sighed. "I wish I could go back. Tell the people I hurt that I'm sorry. But it's too late now. It's always too late."
Ilya couldn't speak. His throat was closed up, his chest was caving in, and this man — this stranger with his father's face — was saying everything Ilya had ever wanted to hear.
But it wasn't real. It wasn't his father saying it. It was the disease, stripping away everything Grigori had been and leaving behind someone else. Someone who might have existed, once, before Grigori chose to be cruel.
"I should go," Ilya said.
"Of course." Grigori smiled at him again. "Thank you for visiting. It meant a lot."
Ilya stood. Walked to the door. Stopped.
"I forgive you," he said.
He didn't know if it was true. Didn't know if he meant it. Didn't know if it mattered, when his father didn't even know who he was forgiving.
But Grigori's face lit up.
"Thank you," he said. "Thank you. I've been waiting — I've been waiting so long for someone to say that."
Ilya left.
He made it to his rental car before he broke down. Sat in the driver's seat, hands gripping the steering wheel, and sobbed until he couldn't breathe.
He cried for the father he'd had — the cruel one, the calculating one, the one who had hit him and controlled him and owned him.
He cried for the father he'd never gotten — the one who had existed only in flickers, only in the gaps, only when the disease stripped away everything else.
He cried for himself — for the boy who had wanted so badly to be loved, who had spent his whole life trying to be enough, who had never been enough.
He looked at his hands on the steering wheel. His father's hands.
I forgive you, he'd said.
He didn't know if he'd meant it. But maybe saying it was the first step. Maybe forgiveness wasn't something you felt all at once — maybe it was something you chose, over and over, until it became true.
He wiped his face, started the car, and drove away.
Grigori died in March of 2017.
Ilya was in Boston when Alexei called.
"Father is dead. This morning. His heart."
The words didn't arrange themselves into meaning.
"The funeral is Saturday. You should come."
Ilya went.
The church was full of people who shook his hand and told him what a great man his father had been. Ilya listened to them describe someone he didn't recognize — a generous colleague, a loyal friend, a devoted family man.
Maybe that was who Grigori had been to them. Maybe you could be one thing to the world and something else entirely to your children.
Or maybe they all knew, and this was just what you did. You buried the truth alongside the body and pretended the man in the ground had been worth mourning.
That night, alone in his father's study, Ilya let himself grieve.
He sat in his father's chair. Put his hands on the desk — the same desk Grigori had sat behind when he told Ilya about Sasha, when he'd said I have handled it like Sasha's life was just another mess to be cleaned up.
He was grieving two people, he realized. The father he'd had, and the father he'd never gotten.
The first grief was complicated — tangled up with fear and anger and a relief he felt guilty for feeling. His father had hurt him. His father was dead. Both of those things were true, and Ilya didn't know how to hold them at the same time.
But the second grief was simpler. Purer. The death of a hope he hadn't even known he was still carrying.
Some part of him had believed, even after everything, that maybe one day his father would choose to be the gentle man. Would look at Ilya with love and mean it. Would say I'm proud of you without it being a setup for something worse.
That would never happen now. The door was closed. The possibility was gone.
Ilya looked at his hands on his father's desk. His father's hands. The same long fingers, the same broad palms.
I forgive you, he'd said, in that room that smelled like antiseptic and resignation.
He didn't know if it was true. Didn't know if forgiveness was even possible for something like this.
But he knew one thing: he didn't want to become his father. Didn't want to use his hands the way Grigori had used his. Didn't want to hurt people and call it love.
He could choose. That was what the disease had shown him, in its cruel, roundabout way. Grigori had always been capable of gentleness. He'd just chosen, every day, to be cruel instead.
Ilya could choose differently.
He didn't know if he was strong enough. Didn't know if the patterns were too deep, the damage too thorough. But he could try.
He put his head in his hands — his father's hands — and cried.
For the man who had hurt him. For the man who had never existed at all. For the boy he'd been, and the man he was afraid of becoming.
Ilya was on the ice when it happened.
Raiders versus Voyagers. The game had been brutal — physical, chippy, the kind of hockey that left everyone bleeding. Ilya loved it. Loved the intensity, the violence, the way his body knew exactly what to do when the stakes were this high.
He was good at this. Good at dropping gloves, good at throwing punches, good at hurting people who had signed up to be hurt. His hands knew how to fight. Had been trained for it. The violence was sanctioned, expected, celebrated.
He tried not to think about what that meant. About the line between the ice and everywhere else. About whether the capacity for violence could ever really be contained.
He was on the bench when Marleau lined Shane up.
Ilya saw it coming before it happened. Saw Shane's head down, reaching for the puck. Saw Marleau coming from the blindside, building speed. Saw the angle and knew — knew — it was going to be bad.
He was on his feet before the hit connected.
The sound was wrong. The crack of Shane's body against the boards, the way his head snapped back, the silence that followed. Shane crumpled and didn't move. Didn't get up.
Ilya's vision went white.
He was over the boards before he made a conscious decision to move. Someone was grabbing his arm — Cliff, maybe — saying something he couldn't hear. The trainers were already on the ice, surrounding Shane, blocking him from view.
"Ilya." Cliff's voice, sharp. "Ilya, stop."
He stopped. He was standing at center ice, breathing hard, staring at the cluster of people around Shane. He couldn't see anything. Couldn't see if Shane was moving, if Shane was conscious, if Shane was—
"He's okay," Cliff said. "He's moving. Look — he's moving."
Shane was moving. Ilya could see his hand now, reaching up to touch his shoulder. Could see the trainers helping him sit up.
But Shane's face was wrong. Dazed. Confused. He didn't know where he was.
They brought out the stretcher.
Ilya watched them load Shane onto it. Watched them carry him off the ice. Watched Shane's hand fall limp over the side of the stretcher, and felt something crack open in his chest.
"Ilya." Cliff again, closer now. Hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to—"
"I said I'm fine."
He went back to the bench. Sat down. Stared at his hands — his gloves were still on, but he could feel them underneath. The hands that knew how to throw punches. The hands that had wanted to hurt Marleau so badly it scared him.
The game continued. Boston won. Ilya didn't remember any of it.
Afterward, in the locker room, Ilya sat in his stall and stared at his hands.
His gloves were off. His knuckles were split and swelling — he'd fought someone in the third period, he couldn't remember who. Just the red haze. Just the need to hurt someone, anyone, because Shane was on a stretcher and Ilya couldn't do anything about it.
He flexed his fingers. Watched the blood crack and seep.
His father's hands. He had his father's hands — the same long fingers, the same broad palms, the same capacity for violence. His father was two months dead, buried in the ground, and Ilya was sitting here with bloody knuckles wondering if the violence had been passed down like an inheritance.
On the ice, it was sanctioned. Expected. Ilya was good at it — good at dropping gloves, good at throwing punches, good at hurting people who had signed up to be hurt. He'd built a career on it.
But the line felt thin tonight.
He'd wanted to kill whoever he'd fought. Had wanted to keep hitting him until someone made him stop, and even then, he hadn't wanted to stop. The rage had been bottomless. Uncontrollable.
His father had been like that. Cold and calculated most of the time, but underneath it — rage. The kind that could crack bones if he let it off the leash.
Ilya had always told himself he was different. That the violence stayed on the ice. That he could control it, channel it, keep it contained.
But tonight he'd gone over the boards without thinking. Tonight he'd scared himself.
"Hey." Cliff sat down next to him. "Shane's at the hospital. Broken collarbone, probable concussion. He's conscious."
Ilya nodded. Didn't look up from his hands.
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Okay." Cliff was quiet for a moment. "You went over the boards before the trainers got there. You were at center ice before anyone else moved."
Ilya didn't respond.
"I've never seen you move that fast. Not for anyone."
"It was bad hit."
"It was." Cliff paused. "But that's not why you moved."
Ilya finally looked at him. Cliff's face was open, careful. Not judging. Just — seeing.
He knows, Ilya thought. He knows, or he suspects, and he's giving me the chance to tell him.
But Ilya couldn't tell him. Couldn't explain that Shane was the only person who'd ever made him feel like maybe he wasn't just his father's son. Couldn't explain that watching Shane go down had cracked something open in his chest that he didn't know how to close.
Couldn't explain that he was sitting here staring at his bloody hands and wondering if they would ever be capable of gentleness, or if violence was all they were made for.
"I don't want to talk about it," Ilya said.
"Okay." Cliff stood up. "But if you ever do — I'm here. You know that, right?"
Ilya nodded.
Cliff left. Ilya sat in his stall for a long time, looking at his hands.
His father was dead. His father couldn't hurt anyone anymore. But the hands lived on — in Ilya, in the blood on his knuckles, in the violence he couldn't quite control.
He thought about Shane. Shane's hands were gentle. Shane's hands reached for people to comfort them, not to hurt them. Shane's hands didn't know how to throw a proper punch.
What would it be like, Ilya wondered, to have hands like that? Hands that hadn't been shaped by violence? Hands that didn't carry the memory of every blow they'd ever landed?
He didn't know. He'd never know. His hands were what they were.
He just had to hope they wouldn't become what his father's had been.
Ilya shouldn't be here.
He was standing in the hallway of a Montreal hospital, hat pulled low, trying to look like he belonged. Like he had any reason to be visiting a Voyaguer's player. Like this wasn't the stupidest thing he'd ever done.
But he couldn't stay away. He'd tried. He'd gone back to his hotel, showered, lay in bed staring at the ceiling. And then he'd gotten up and driven to the hospital because he couldn't stand not knowing. Not seeing for himself that Shane was okay.
He pushed open the door to Shane's room.
Shane was alone. Propped up in bed, shoulder immobilized, looking pale and tired and smaller than Ilya had ever seen him. The TV was on but muted. Shane was staring at the ceiling.
He turned his head when Ilya came in. Blinked.
"Ilya?"
"Hey."
"You're — what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see if you were okay."
Shane stared at him. "You came to the hospital. In Montreal.”
"Yes."
"That's—" Shane stopped. Something flickered across his face. "That's really stupid. Someone could see you."
"I know."
"You could get in trouble. People could ask questions."
"I know."
Shane kept staring at him. Then, slowly, he smiled. It was tired and pained and real.
"You came," he said. Softer now.
"I had to know you were okay."
"I'm okay. Broken collarbone, concussion, season's over. But I'm okay."
Ilya nodded. He stood awkwardly by the door, hands shoved in his pockets, not sure what to do now that he was here.
"You can sit down," Shane said. "You look like you're about to bolt."
Ilya sat. The chair was too close to the bed. He could see the bruising on Shane's shoulder, the pallor of his skin, the way his hand lay limp on the blanket.
Shane's hand. Long fingers, callused from his stick but still somehow elegant. A hand that had touched Ilya gently in hotel rooms, that had reached for his face and been pushed away.
"I saw you," Shane said quietly. "On the ice. Before everything went fuzzy. You went over the boards."
Ilya's jaw tightened. "I didn't—"
"You did. The guys told me. Said Rozanov went crazy. Almost started a line brawl."
"He hurt you."
"It was a clean hit."
"I don't care."
Silence. Shane was watching him with that look — the soft one, the careful one. The one Ilya had been running from for three years.
"Come to the cottage," Shane said.
Ilya blinked. "What?"
"This summer. My cottage, in Ontario. I'm going up there to recover. Rehab, rest, whatever. It's quiet. No one around." Shane's good hand moved slightly on the blanket, like he wanted to reach out. "Come with me."
"Shane—"
"I know you're not going back to Russia. I know your dad—" Shane stopped. "I know he died. I'm sorry. I should have said something before, I just didn't know how to—"
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. None of this is fine." Shane's voice cracked. "I was lying on the ice and I thought I was dying and the only person I wanted was you. And you were right there and you couldn't even — we couldn't even—"
He stopped. Swallowed.
"Come to the cottage," he said again. "Please."
Ilya looked at him. Shane in the hospital bed, shoulder immobilized, face pale. Asking for something Ilya didn't know how to give.
He thought about his apartment in Boston. The summer stretching out ahead of him with no Russia, no father, no trap to walk into.
He thought about his hands. What they'd done last night. What they were capable of.
He thought about Shane reaching for his face in that hotel room, and the way Ilya had flinched away.
"Maybe," Ilya said.
"Maybe?"
"Maybe I come. I will think about it."
Shane smiled. It was small and tired and hopeful in a way that made Ilya's chest hurt.
"Okay," Shane said. "Think about it."
Ilya stayed until a nurse came to check Shane's vitals. Then he left, back to Boston, and spent six weeks thinking about it.
He watched Scott Hunter kiss his boyfriend. On ice. In front of the world. He thought about Sochi, and two clumsy Americans who didn’t know anything. You’re not a thing.
He texted Shane: Send me the address.
No one knew Ilya was here.
Shane's cottage was tucked away at the end of a long dirt road, surrounded by trees, invisible from the water. Three weeks of off-season. Three weeks of this — the lake, the quiet, Shane. No reporters, no cameras, no teammates asking questions. No one watching.
He shouldn't be here. He knew he shouldn't be here. This was selfish — taking Shane's time, taking Shane's summer, taking something that wasn't his to take. Shane had a family who loved him, a life that worked, a future that didn't include hiding a Russian hockey player in his cottage like a secret.
But Shane had asked. And Ilya had never learned how to say no to Shane.
One more summer, he told himself. One more, and then I'll stop. I'll let him go. I'll stop being selfish.
He'd been telling himself that for years.
His father had been dead for three months.
Ilya still wasn't used to it. The absence. The silence where the threat used to be.
For twenty-six years, Grigori Rozanov had been the constant in Ilya's life. The trap always waiting to spring. The voice in his head telling him he was weak, he was worthless, he was only worth protecting because he belonged to someone.
Now that voice was gone. And Ilya didn't know who he was without it.
He'd thought it would feel like freedom. His father was dead. No more summers in Russia. No more film sessions. No more waiting for the backhand, the cold assessment, the punishment that was always coming.
But it didn't feel like freedom. It felt like falling.
Because his father had also been the shield.
Ilya was in North America on a work visa. Russian passport. No connections here, no one to make calls if something went wrong. In Russia, his father's name had meant something. Grigori's reach had extended into every ministry, every police station, every newspaper that might have asked questions about Ilya Rozanov and the boys he looked at too long.
That was gone now.
If someone found out — if something happened — there was no one to protect him. No favours to spend. No calls to make. Alexei had their father's connections, but Alexei wouldn't spend them on Ilya. Alexei had made that clear at the funeral; in the way he'd looked at Ilya across their father's grave. You're on your own now.
Ilya had hated the leash. Had spent his whole life straining against it, dreaming of escape.
Now the leash was gone, and he was terrified.
Shane's parents had a cottage nearby.
Ilya knew this. Had known it when he agreed to come. Had told himself it didn't matter — they wouldn't visit, Shane would be careful, no one would find out.
But he still woke up every morning with his heart pounding. Still scanned the tree line for cars. Still flinched at unexpected sounds.
"They won't come without calling first," Shane had promised. "They never do."
Ilya had nodded. Made himself believe it.
He was so tired of being afraid.
Some mornings, Ilya woke up before Shane and just watched him breathe.
It was selfish. He knew it was selfish. Shane deserved someone who could give him a real life — someone he could introduce to his parents, bring to family dinners, build a future with. Not someone who hid in his cottage and flinched at the sound of cars.
But Shane slept like he'd never been afraid of anything — sprawled out, mouth open, completely defenseless — and Ilya couldn't look away.
I shouldn't be here, he thought. I shouldn't want this. I'm taking something that isn't mine.
He thought it every morning. Never said it out loud.
Shane would argue. Shane would say you deserve good things, and I want you here and all the soft, kind words that Ilya didn't know how to believe. Shane didn't understand that wanting wasn't the same as deserving. That Ilya had spent his whole life taking things he hadn't earned — his father's protection, his career, this man who loved him for reasons Ilya would never understand.
He was selfish. He'd always been selfish. His mother had needed him and he hadn't seen it. His father had tried to make him strong and he'd stayed soft. Shane offered him something precious and he took it, knowing he would ruin it eventually, knowing he would find a way to destroy this like he destroyed everything.
One more day, he told himself. I'll be selfish for one more day. And then—
He never finished that thought. He didn't want to know what came after and then.
It was the second week at the cottage when Shane started talking about the future.
They were on the dock, sun going down, the lake turning gold and pink. Shane had his head in Ilya's lap, eyes half-closed, lazy and content. Ilya's hand was in Shane's hair — a gesture that still felt strange, even after all this time. He'd had to learn how to touch gently. Had to unlearn the flinching, the waiting for pain.
"We should do this every summer," Shane said.
Ilya's hand stilled.
"Just disappear up here. No one around. We could get a place together eventually. Somewhere private." Shane smiled, eyes still closed. "Maybe when we retire. A house on a lake. You could learn to fish."
"I know how to fish."
"You could teach me to fish, then." Shane opened his eyes, looked up at Ilya. "We could have a life. A real one. Not just hotel rooms and sneaking around."
Ilya didn't say anything. His throat had gone tight.
He could see it. That was the worst part. He could see it so clearly — the house, the lake, Shane in the mornings with his coffee and his terrible bedhead. A dock like this one, but theirs. A life that wasn't stolen in pieces.
He wanted it. God, he wanted it.
"Maybe kids someday," Shane said, casual, like he was talking about the weather. "When we're retired. I think about it sometimes. A family."
Ilya's heart stuttered.
Kids. A family. The words Shane said so easily, like they were possible, like they were something that could happen to people like them. Like they were something Ilya was allowed to want.
He thought about it more than he would ever admit. Small moments he'd caught himself imagining before he could stop himself — a child with Shane's eyes, learning to skate. A bedroom he'd painted himself. The weight of a sleeping baby against his chest. Small hands reaching up to hold his.
He wanted it so much it terrified him.
"You'd be a good dad," Shane said. "I can tell."
Ilya flinched.
"Hey." Shane sat up, turned to face him. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"That wasn't a nothing face. That was a something face." Shane reached out, touched Ilya's jaw — gentle, careful, the way he'd learned to be. "Talk to me."
Ilya shook his head. He didn't have words for it. The wanting. The terror that came with wanting. The certainty that he would ruin it somehow — that he would take this beautiful thing Shane was offering and destroy it the way he destroyed everything.
"I think about it too," Ilya said quietly. The admission felt dangerous. Like saying it out loud would jinx it. "The house. The — the children."
Shane's face softened. "Yeah?"
"Yes." Ilya swallowed. "I want—"
He stopped. Couldn't finish.
I want it so much I can't breathe. I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life. I want to build something with you. I want to be the kind of man who deserves this.
"I want," he said again, and his voice cracked.
Shane's hand found his. Held on tight.
"Then we'll have it," Shane said. "Someday. When we're ready."
"You don't know that."
"I know I want it." Shane squeezed his hand. "I know I want you. That's enough to start with."
Ilya looked at him. Shane's face was open, earnest, certain in a way Ilya had never been certain about anything.
Shane believed it. Shane actually believed they could have this — the house, the kids, the life. Like wanting something was enough. Like the universe didn't punish you for hoping.
Ilya had never learned to hope like that. Every good thing in his life had been taken. His mother. His peace. The version of himself that might have existed if he'd grown up loved instead of owned.
He didn't deserve this. He knew he didn't deserve this. He was selfish for wanting it, selfish for staying, selfish for letting Shane believe in a future Ilya would probably ruin.
But Shane was holding his hand, and the lake was turning silver in the last light, and Ilya let himself imagine it anyway.
The house. The dock. A child learning to swim.
Shane, fifty years from now, grey-haired and laughing, still calling Ilya an asshole in that fond voice.
I want it, he thought. I want it. I want it.
He didn't say anything. He couldn't. But he held Shane's hand a little tighter and didn't let go.
The morning was perfect.
Ilya stood on the dock, watching the sun come up over the lake. The water was still, silver and gold in the early light.
He heard footsteps and turned. Shane was walking toward him, barefoot, still rumpled from sleep, holding two mugs of coffee.
"Morning."
"Morning."
Shane handed him a mug and stood beside him, looking out at the water. Their shoulders touched.
One more day, Ilya thought.
Shane's phone buzzed on the little table at the end of the dock. He ignored it.
Ilya set down his coffee.
"What are you—" Shane started.
Ilya shoved him into the lake.
Shane went in with a yelp and a splash, coffee mug flying. He came up sputtering, hair plastered to his face, treading water.
"You asshole—"
Ilya grinned and jumped in after him.
The water was cold, sharp, perfect. He surfaced and found Shane right there, glaring at him, and Ilya laughed — really laughed, the kind of laugh he only ever managed with Shane — and pulled him in for a kiss.
Shane made an annoyed sound against his mouth, then softened into it. His hands found Ilya's waist under the water. They kissed slow and easy, treading water together, and Ilya let himself forget everything except this.
Shane's phone buzzed again. They ignored it.
They swam to the dock and hauled themselves up, dripping. Shane was still half-glaring, but his eyes were warm. Ilya pushed him down onto the sun-warmed wood and kissed him again.
It was slow and lazy, the way summer mornings should be. Shane's hands in Ilya's wet hair, Ilya's thigh between Shane's legs, both of them rocking together in the late-morning sun.
"Fuck," Shane breathed. "Ilya—"
"I know."
They moved together, unhurried. Ilya buried his face in Shane's neck and let the world narrow down to this — Shane's breath, Shane's hands, the sound Shane made when he came.
They lay there for a long moment, catching their breath.
"My shorts are ruined," Shane said.
Ilya laughed.
He pulled Shane to his feet. They stood there dripping, and Ilya kissed him again — soft, easy, just because he could.
One more day, he thought. I got one more—
A noise from the cottage.
They both turned.
David Hollander was standing in the doorway.
The world stopped.
Ilya's whole body went cold — not the sharp cold of the lake, but something deeper. Something that started in his chest and spread outward until his fingers went numb.
David was staring at them. His face was blank. Unreadable. His hands hung at his sides.
For one endless moment, nobody moved.
Then David turned and walked back through the cottage. A moment later, Ilya heard the front door. A car engine. Tires on gravel, retreating.
Silence.
There it is, Ilya thought. The clarity was almost peaceful. That's the end.
"Fuck." Shane's voice cracked. "Fuck."
He was pulling away, pacing, his hands in his hair. "Fuck, this is a fucking nightmare."
Ilya stood very still. The sun was still warm on his skin. The lake was still beautiful. But everything had changed.
Seven years. He'd been waiting for seven years, and here it was. The thing he'd always known was coming.
Shane was panicking — about embarrassment, about the awkward conversation, about being caught.
Ilya was thinking about his father.
You will not embarrass this family, Ilyusha.
He was thinking about what Grigori would have done if he'd caught Ilya like this. The cold assessment. The planning. The days or weeks of silence while Ilya waited for the punishment that was surely coming.
And then the trap.
But Grigori was dead. And David Hollander was not Grigori Rozanov.
Was he?
Shane had been lying to his parents for years. Ilya knew what happened when fathers discovered lies.
"We should go talk to him," Shane said.
Ilya's stomach dropped.
No, he thought. No, don't — you don't know what you're walking into—
"What if he doesn't want to talk to me? What if—" Shane's face went pale. "Fuck, my mom."
"Hey, hey, hey." Ilya caught his arm. "They will talk to you."
The words came out steady. Reassuring. They tasted like ash in his mouth.
"But I fucking lied to them! For so many years, I fucking lied to them—"
Ilya flinched.
He couldn't help it. The words hit him like a physical blow.
For so many years, I fucking lied to them.
He thought about his father's face across that restaurant table. A boy called. Looking for you. The pleasant smile that meant something terrible was coming.
His father had found out about one phone call from one boy, and he'd made Ilya pay for it for years.
Shane had been lying to his parents about everything. For years.
"This is my fucking nightmare," Shane was saying. "This is my actual fucking nightmare, Ilya!"
Ilya watched him pace and felt terror clawing at his chest.
Not for himself. For Shane.
Shane didn't understand. Shane thought the worst thing that could happen was an awkward conversation. Shane thought his parents might be disappointed, might need time to adjust, might say something hurtful in the moment.
Shane had no idea what fathers could do.
Ilya had watched Shane with his parents from a distance for years. The phone calls. The easy laughter. The way Shane talked about them like they were safe, like they had always been safe, like it had never occurred to him that they could be anything else.
Because Shane had never given them a reason.
That was the thing Ilya understood that Shane didn't. David and Yuna had never hurt Shane because Shane had never disappointed them. He'd been the perfect son — hockey star, team captain, polite and hardworking and everything they'd wanted him to be. He'd never tested them. Never shown them the parts of himself that might make them angry.
This was the first time.
This was Shane handing his parents a reason to hurt him and trusting that they wouldn't take it.
"OK. OK." Ilya made his voice steady. "Then maybe it's time to wake up, yes?"
Shane stopped. Stared at him. "Fuck. I'm scared."
You should be, Ilya thought. You should be terrified. You should get in your car and drive away and never go back.
"Yes," he said instead. "It's scary. But you're brave."
"Shut up."
"You are. You're brave."
Shane was going to walk into his parents' house and tell them the truth, because Shane still believed that telling the truth was safe. That parents loved you even when you disappointed them.
He was brave and naive and soft in a way Ilya no longer was.
Ilya wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. You don't know. You don't know what they might do. You've never seen what happens when you stop being what they want you to be.
But he couldn't say that. Shane wouldn't understand. Shane had never had to learn.
All Ilya could do was go with him. And if David raised a hand — if this was the moment Shane learned what fathers could really be — Ilya would put himself in the way.
"I feel like I'm gonna die," Shane said. "So much for easing them into it."
"Maybe he didn't even notice," Ilya tried.
Shane looked at him.
Ilya raised an eyebrow.
Shane laughed, broken. "OK. I'm gonna get changed. I'm gonna drive over. And then— fuck, what am I gonna say?"
He was going to go. Nothing would stop him.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
Shane turned. "Would you?"
"Of course."
The words came out steady. Inside, Ilya was screaming.
If David Hollander was anything like Grigori — if this was the day Shane found out what his father was really capable of — Ilya would be there. He would step between them. He would take the blow, the way he'd taken every blow his whole life, because that was something he knew how to survive.
Watching Shane get hurt — watching Shane learn that love could turn in an instant, that the people who were supposed to protect you could destroy you instead — that would break something in Ilya that would never heal.
The drive took fifteen minutes.
Ilya sat in the passenger seat and tried to breathe.
His hands were steady in his lap. His face was calm. Inside, his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.
Shane's hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Pop music played low on the radio — something upbeat and stupid, completely wrong for the moment.
Ilya watched Shane's profile and felt terror clawing at his chest.
Shane didn't know. Shane had no idea what he was walking into. He thought the worst thing that could happen was an awkward conversation. Some tears, maybe. Some disappointment.
He didn't understand that this could be the moment everything changed. That David might look at his son and see a stranger. That the father who called Shane bud might become someone else entirely — someone cold, someone cruel, someone who would make Shane pay for this lie for the rest of his life.
He didn't know what David's anger looked like. Whether it ran cold, like Grigori's — patient and calculating, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Or whether it ran hot, explosive, the kind you could see coming.
Cold was worse. Cold meant planning. Cold meant the punishment would come later, when you'd almost let yourself believe it wasn't coming at all.
David was shorter than Ilya. Lighter. Older — mid-fifties, maybe, with the soft build of a man who'd stopped exercising regularly years ago. If David hit Shane, Ilya could stop him. He was faster, stronger, twenty years younger. He could get between them. He could take the hit instead.
He would. He'd already decided. Whatever happened in that cottage, Shane wasn't going to be the one who got hurt.
Ilya knew how to get hit. Had been trained for it his whole life. His body knew how to take a blow — how to roll with it, how to go loose, how to let his eyes go empty so he wasn't really there when it happened.
Shane didn't know any of that. Shane had never had to learn.
Ilya had watched it happen with his own father. The shift. The moment Grigori had stopped seeing Ilya as a son and started seeing him as a problem to be managed.
What if David was the same? What if all fathers were the same, underneath? What if the kindness was just a mask they wore until you gave them a reason to take it off?
Shane had never given his father a reason. Until now.
And Ilya didn't have protection anymore. If something went wrong — if David made calls, told people, decided to destroy the Russian who had corrupted his son — there was no one to stop him. No Grigori to spend favours. No connections to smooth things over.
Ilya was exposed. Vulnerable. A Russian on a work visa with a secret that could end everything.
"I'm sorry," Shane said.
Ilya blinked. "What?"
"For dragging you into this. You shouldn't have to — this is my mess. My family. You didn't sign up for—"
"Shane." Ilya's voice came out sharper than he intended. "I want to be there."
I need to be there. I need to be between you and whatever's coming. I need to make sure that if someone gets hurt today, it's me and not you.
They pulled up to the cottage. Shane parked. Sat there gripping the steering wheel.
"OK," he said. "OK."
He leaned over and kissed Ilya — quick, desperate.
Ilya kissed him back and thought: This might be the last time.
"Maybe you should wait in the car," Shane said.
Ilya went very still.
Wait in the car.
Let Shane walk in alone. Let Shane face his father without anyone to step between them. Sit here in the driveway while—
He thought about his mother. She had loved him — fiercely, desperately, until the day she couldn't anymore. But she couldn't protect him from his father. The best she could do was leave the room so she didn't have to watch.
Ilya had never blamed her for that. She'd been trapped too. She'd been smaller than his father, weaker, and there was nothing she could have done except get hurt alongside Ilya.
But she'd still left the room. She'd still let him face it alone.
Ilya would not wait in the car.
He would not leave the room.
Whatever happened in that cottage — whatever David turned out to be — Ilya would be there. He would put himself between Shane and the blow. He would take it, the way he'd always taken it, because that was the only thing he knew how to do.
He would not let Shane face this alone.
"Fuck, never mind, sorry," Shane said quickly. "I don't know why I said that. Let's just—"
Ilya got out of the car.
David and Yuna were in the kitchen.
Ilya positioned himself behind Shane, where he could see both of them, where he could move if he needed to.
David was sitting at the table. His hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee — big hands, callused, the hands of someone who worked with them. Not like Grigori's hands. But hands could lie. Hands could be gentle one moment and violent the next.
"Shane." David's voice was mild. "I came by to grab my charger. Left it at your place last week."
Ilya catalogued every word. The casual tone. The mundane explanation. His father had done this too — talked about nothing while the trap was being set.
But there was something different here. David looked tired. Confused. Not calculating.
Shane stepped forward. "Dad, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have found out that way."
"Found out what, exactly?" Yuna asked.
"I'm gay," Shane said. "Which I was gonna tell you soon. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." He gestured toward Ilya. "And this is Ilya. Rozanov."
"Hi," Ilya said. Neutral. Balanced.
"He's visiting, and we're, uh—"
"Lovers," Ilya supplied.
Shane winced. "No, Ilya, that's gross."
Ilya watched David's face. Watched his hands. Watched for the flicker of rage, the tightening of fingers around the mug.
"But you hate him," Yuna said.
"No. I mean, I get that, but no, I actually... I love him. Can we just sit down?"
They sat.
The conversation kept going. When did this start. The All-Star game. Before that.
David poured vodka. Yuna asked if Shane let Ilya win at hockey.
None of it made sense. Parents didn't react like this.
It's a trap, Ilya thought. It has to be.
Then Yuna stood up and walked out.
Shane followed his mother, and Ilya was alone with David.
This was it. The witnesses were gone.
David picked up his coffee. Took a sip. His hands were steady.
"Hell of a thing," he said.
Ilya didn't respond.
"Finding out your kid's been lying to you for years."
Here it comes.
"I thought we were close," David said. "Thought he told us things."
He sounded tired. Hurt.
"He was scared," Ilya said carefully.
"Yeah." David rubbed his face with one hand. "Yeah, I guess he was."
Silence.
"You want more vodka?" David asked.
This was wrong. Why was David offering him things?
"I'm fine," Ilya said.
David nodded. Went back to his coffee.
"You love him," David said finally.
"Yes."
"And he loves you."
"Yes."
"OK."
Ilya waited for the but.
"OK?" he repeated.
"It's a lot. But, he's my son. I'm not going to punish him for being scared."
Punish him.
Something cracked in Ilya's chest.
"You're not going to do anything," he said slowly.
David frowned. "Do anything like what?"
Ilya didn't answer. But in his head, the words were clear: Hit him. Hurt him. Make him understand that this lie was not worth the pain it will bring him.
That was what Grigori would have done. That was what fathers did, when their sons disappointed them. They taught lessons. They made sure you understood. They took the soft, hopeful parts of you and crushed them until you learned to stop hoping.
David studied him for a long moment. His eyes moved over Ilya's face — the way Ilya had positioned himself near the door, the way he was still braced for something that wasn't coming.
"No," David said quietly. "I'm not going to do anything."
The trap didn't spring.
Shane and Yuna came back.
They stayed for dinner.
Ilya kept waiting.
The trap never came.
In the car, Shane's hand found his.
"You OK?"
Ilya looked down at their hands — Shane's fingers threaded through his. Shane's hand, reaching for him. Holding on.
He thought about his father. The water glass when he was eight. The restaurant when he was nineteen. Sochi.
He thought about David saying I'm not going to punish him like it was simple.
He thought about all the mornings he'd watched Shane breathe, thinking I don't deserve this.
Maybe deserving wasn't the point.
"Yes," he said. "I think I am."
Shane brought it up again a few weeks later.
They were at Shane's apartment in Montreal, tangled together on the couch. Some movie playing that neither of them was watching. It was different now — after the cabin, after David, after I'm not going to punish him. Ilya was still learning what that meant. Still waiting, sometimes, for the trap that wasn't coming.
But Shane's hand was in his hair, and the apartment was warm, and for the first time in his life Ilya was letting himself think about after. After hockey. After hiding. After all of it.
"Do you ever think about it?" Shane asked. "Kids?"
Ilya's whole body went still.
"Sometimes," he said. Careful. Neutral.
"I do. All the time, lately." Shane shifted, tucking himself closer. "I think I'd be a good dad. I mean, I'd try to be. I had a good example, you know?"
I had a good example.
Ilya didn't say anything.
"What about you?" Shane asked. "Did your dad — I mean, I know you don't really talk about him, but..."
"No," Ilya said. Too fast. Too sharp.
Shane lifted his head. Looked at him.
"I don't want to talk about my father," Ilya said.
"Okay." Shane's voice was soft. Careful. "That's okay."
He settled back down. After a moment, his hand found Ilya's, threaded their fingers together.
"You'd be a good dad too," Shane said quietly. "Just so you know."
Ilya closed his eyes.
Shane didn't know. Couldn't know. He'd met David, seen what fathers could be — gentle, accepting, safe. He thought that was the baseline. He thought Ilya could learn to be that.
But Shane hadn't seen the water glass at eight. The restaurant at nineteen. Sochi. Shane didn't know about the pill bottle on the nightstand, the open eyes, the way Ilya had learned that love could kill you if you let it.
Shane thought Ilya was whole. Thought the rough edges were just personality, just the way Ilya was.
He didn't see the cracks. Didn't see how deep they went.
"You don't know that," Ilya said.
Shane propped himself up on one elbow. "What?"
"You don't know that I would be good father."
"I know you."
Ilya shook his head. The words were stuck in his throat, but he forced them out. Shane deserved to understand. Shane deserved to know what he was signing up for.
"The worst parts of yourself raise your children," Ilya said slowly. "And the worst part of me is my father."
Shane was quiet for a long moment.
"What do you mean?"
Ilya looked at his hands. His father's hands. He didn't know how to explain it — the way Grigori lived inside him like a second heartbeat. The cold distance that dropped over him when he was overwhelmed. The flash of irritation he sometimes felt, sharp and quick, and the terror that followed when he recognized it.
"I feel it sometimes," he said. "The way he was. The coldness. The—" He stopped. Started again. "When I am tired, or frustrated, or scared, I go away inside. I become nothing. That is how I survived him. But it is also how I became like him."
Shane's hand tightened on his.
"That's not—"
"What if I have child," Ilya said, "and something goes wrong. A tantrum. A mess. A moment of defiance. And I feel that flash of irritation, and I don't stop myself." He swallowed. "What if I look at my child the way he looked at me. Like they are disappointment. Like they are thing to be corrected."
"Ilya—"
"He wanted son. He got me instead." Ilya's voice was flat. "I spent whole life paying for difference. What if I do that to my own child? What if I want them to be something, and they are something else, and I—"
He couldn't finish.
Shane sat up. Pulled Ilya up with him. Took his face in both hands — gentle, careful, the same gesture Ilya had flinched away from in a hotel room years ago. He didn't flinch now.
"Listen to me," Shane said. "You are not your father."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. I know you. I've known you for years, and I have never — never — seen you be cruel. Not once."
"You haven't seen—"
"I saw him hit you." Shane's voice was steady. "At Sochi. I saw his face when he did it. I saw yours."
Ilya flinched.
"You didn't look like him," Shane said. "You looked like someone who had been hit so many times he didn't know how to feel it anymore. That's not cruelty, Ilya. That's survival."
Ilya couldn't speak.
"The fact that you're scared," Shane said. "The fact that you're even thinking about this — that's how I know you'd be a good dad. Bad fathers don't worry about being bad fathers. They just are."
"My father thought he was making me strong."
"Your father was an asshole."
Ilya laughed. It came out wet, broken.
"He was," Shane said. "And you're not him. You're the person who survived him. That's different."
Ilya wanted to believe it. Wanted it so badly he could taste it.
But he knew what he came from. Knew that Grigori's voice still lived in his head, his coldness still lived in his bones. Knew that some part of him would always be waiting for the trap, always bracing for the blow, always ready to go away inside when things got hard.
What kind of father did that make?
"I don't know how to be gentle," Ilya said quietly. "Not the way you are. I never learned."
"Then we'll learn together." Shane's thumb traced along his cheekbone — the same gesture that had made Ilya flinch in that hotel room, all those years ago. He didn't flinch now. "That's what partners do."
"What if I can't?"
"Then we figure it out. But you don't have to do it alone anymore." Shane leaned in, pressed his forehead to Ilya's. "That's what family means. The real kind."
Family.
David had said something similar, in his own way. I'm not going to punish him for being scared.
Ilya had spent his whole life believing that family meant ownership. Control. The people who had power over you and used it. Hands that hurt instead of held.
But maybe it could mean something else. Maybe it could mean Shane's hand in his hair, and David not punishing, and a future where Ilya got to choose who he became instead of being shaped by what he'd survived.
Maybe his hands could be different. Maybe he could learn to touch gently, the way Shane had taught him. Maybe the hands that made him didn't have to be the hands he became.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Okay." Ilya let out a breath. "We figure it out. Together."
Shane smiled — soft, relieved — and kissed him.
And for the first time, when Ilya thought about the future, he didn't see his father's hands.
He saw his own.