Chapter Text
The moment Ilya stepped inside, Laurent’s eyes flicked up to him.
And Ilya waited for it.
Breath deepening.
Shoulders squaring.
Vision sharpening.
Ready to savor it.
The fear.
The moment he recognized the grim reaper he’d sent after Shane had instead followed him here.
But Laurent didn’t give him any of that.
He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t cower.
Instead, his mouth curled into something smug, almost pleased.
“Ah,” he said, laughing softly. Like this was a joke. “Of course.”
Just as Ilya was going to take his first step, he heard the sound of metal sliding on concrete and then he felt a thud against his shoe.
He looked down and found a small key.
His smile widened, and he bent down and picked it up.
And just stood there, breathing slow and steady.
His anger wasn’t hot anymore.
It was contained, compressed into something dense and dangerous, like a puck frozen solid before a slapshot.
He closed his palm around the key and stepped forward, slow and deliberate, the way he skated into a scrum, not rushing, not lunging, just claiming space with the certainty of someone who had survived a thousand pressure moments and came out harder each time.
He could feel the last of his restraint slipping through his fingers.
He could feel the adrenaline rising, cold, and clean.
He could feel the weight of Shane’s kiss against his lips from that morning. That press of lips just like all the ones they had shared before it, only monumentally different.
Because this was a kiss they had shared after Shane had agreed to stay as Ilya’s guest, not his teammate.
And it had felt like getting a glimpse of a life that up until that moment had seemed impossibly far away.
And so that kiss, it had undone him completely.
A kiss which would have been their last...
Had this fucker gotten his fucking way.
Laurent smirked. “You look tense, captain.”
Ilya’s eyes narrowed.
Either this fucker was homicidal, or a gigantic fucking idiot like the world had never seen.
Both, Ilya concluded.
Laurent leaned back against the metal chair, arms folded, eyes bright with something far too close to eagerness.
“You know I barely slept last night,” Laurent said, almost merrily. “Too excited.”
Ilya’s jaw tightened, but he stayed silent.
Laurent’s smile widened, his wrist snagging as he lifted it higher than the confines of the cuffs allowed. “You know how it is. The excitement of when you’re waiting for something… fun.”
Still nothing.
Laurent clicked his tongue. “So, tell me, how is our boy doing? I take it he didn’t die because you would have lunged for me the moment you entered through those doors, and I also take it he’s not on his way there either. So… he’s doing okay.”
He frowned like he was actually disappointed by the fact.
“So, what are you waiting for?”
As an answer, Ilya threw the key at the table. It slid fast towards him and Laurent reacted, pushing his chest against the table before it could drop to the ground, eyes wide.
Ilya’s voice was low, steady, the voice he used in the locker room after a brutal third period. “It’s only fun if you think you have a chance.”
Laurent’s smile faltered for the first time.
But he moved quickly, undoing his cuffs.
Ilya only watched.
Even as the storm inside him rose, bright and furious, blooming beneath his skin like lightning trapped in a jar.
His body thrummed with it, every cell vibrating with the instinct to strike.
To defend.
To end.
But he didn’t move.
He let the silence stretch, let the truth settle heavy in the room.
He savored it like a final, quiet victory.
Savored the reminder that even now, even here, even with every nerve in his body begging for release, he was the better man.
He always had been.
He always would be.
Yet Ilya had been compared to him before by the man he loved.
And now, standing here in front of the blueprint, the memory of that moment sliced through him with a precision that hurt more than anything Laurent could do or say.
His breath stayed steady.
But something inside Ilya shifted.
A shift he knew too well from the ice.
That razor‑thin instant when the game stopped being a game.
When instinct rose like a tide.
When the world narrowed to the pulse in his ears and the single target in front of him.
The moment when everything sharpened.
When he did too.
Laurent laughed softly, rubbing at his aching wrists, the sound slicing through the tension and deep hurt inside Ilya.
“Oh, this is just perfect,” Laurent laughed. “Both of you, pathetic. Him. Thinking he’s some tragic hero getting between me and that man at the hotel. And you,” he gestured lazily at Ilya. “Charging in here like some avenging angel. God, you two deserve each other.”
Ilya stepped forward.
Sharp.
Aggressive.
One deliberate step meant to cut Laurent’s words clean off.
Yet Laurent kept going.
Sensing the opening.
Leaning into it like a man who thought he was untouchable.
Ilya knew a lot of untouchable men who had been carried out of the ice in stretchers after thinking they could take him.
“He really thought he could win,” Laurent went on, voice dripping with contempt.
“You should’ve seen him. Shaking. Trying hard to pretend he wasn’t terrified. All so he could get back to you.” He scoffed, shaking his head like that thought was stupid, senseless.
Ilya’s fingers curled into fists at his sides.
“You know the craziest part is how you wouldn’t be here if you saw the way he looked at me… He wanted me so bad. It was like he remembered everything we used to do. Like he couldn’t wait to drop to his knees and suck—”
That’s when it happened.
The snap.
A clean, precise break, like a stick of ice cracking under pressure.
Something behind Ilya's eyes went dark as if someone had reached inside him and pinched out the last bit of light Shane had once coaxed into being.
At once, the darkness he’d grown up with. The one that had carved him. The one he’d spent years trying to outrun, surged forward.
It wasn’t just rage.
It was recognition.
A return to the only terrain he’d ever been fluent in.
And for the first time since leaving Russia, Ilya didn’t have to worry about choosing the right words or arranging them into careful shapes to make himself be understood.
Because here was a man who spoke his same language:
Violence.
And they were about to have a long overdue conversation.
Ilya took it upon himself to have the first word.
The growl he let out as his fist connected with Laurent’s jaw was so loud it might have shaken the walls, the strength of the hit knocking Laurent back, chair toppling as he went down.
He was smart enough to know not to stay down, Laurent cursed and stood, hands coming up to cover his face, but it was no use.
At once, Ilya was a whirlwind of brutality.
One punch became two.
Then three.
Four.
Five.
Each one landed with a sickening thud.
The sound echoing through the cramped room like a drumming.
And each time.
Shane.
Punch.
Gentle, beautiful Shane.
Another punch.
Fueled by Laurent’s earlier comment, Ilya roared, “He’s not our boy. He’s mine. Mine! Just mine.”
He delivered a punishing right hook to Laurent’s side, followed by a brutal uppercut that snapped Laurent’s head back. Blood sprayed from Laurent’s mouth, staining his shirt as he gasped for breath, but Ilya was only getting started.
Shane.
Shattered.
Lost.
Hurt beyond repair.
Because of him.
Laurent had almost cost Ilya something he would have drained every cent in his bank accounts and still wouldn’t have been able to afford.
He didn’t give Laurent a moment to recover.
Pulling him up by the collar he smashed his head into the wall. The impact left Laurent momentarily dazed, but even then he fought to stay on his feet, determination flickering in those beady, enraged eyes.
“Come on, hit me!” Ilya taunted, landing another solid blow that sent Laurent sprawling to the ground again.
Ilya waited until Laurent found his feet again.
And that was his mistake.
Playing fair with a man who had never once lived by fairness.
A man who believed himself exempt from consequence.
On twisting every pause into an opening, on turning other people’s restraint into his own advantage.
Who won every battle through deceit yet believed himself to be righteous.
But not now.
Not here.
Ilya was going to make sure this was the kind of defeat that left a shadow.
A victory so absolute it would leave no room for Laurent’s excuses.
No crack through which he could slither free.
A ghost of reckoning brushing his skin when he least expected it.
Something that would dim any future happiness in Laurent’s life.
He’d make it so Laurent would have to carry the memory of this moment like a brand beneath the skin.
That he’d feel Ilya’s anger like a chill in the room whenever he dared to laugh.
To have Ilya’s wrath settle into him like a second pulse, surfacing whenever he felt joy, so he would never again know unbroken peace.
Just as he’d made sure Shane wouldn't.
The hit landed harder than Ilya anticipated, knocking the wind from him and forcing him to stumble back.
Laurent himself seemed surprised that he’d landed it, and he jumped back, like he expected Ilya to instantly retaliate.
But Ilya just straightened slowly, eyes on Laurent, and brought his hand up to his lip where he could feel blood already pooling.
That punch had been brutal.
Harder than some NHL players even.
And this is what Shane had had to withstand?
These were the punches he had taken all those years.
That thought ignited a fire within him. Raging back to life, Ilya charged at Laurent, fury twisting his features as he unleashed a furious series of blows, each one more punishing than the last, driving Laurent back step by step.
“You had no right to touch him! No right. Ever!”
He felt the wetness of blood against his fists.
Still, he kept going.
“You think hurting him makes you strong?” he growled. “Make you a man?”
A left hook caught Laurent on the temple.
“You think you can come back to hurt him and walk away?”
A right jab that sent him reeling.
“[And then you think him weak?]” He asked, the Russian words carrying all the anger English words couldn’t. “He fucking survived you twice!”
Ilya’s fists became a blur, each punch a testament to his pent-up turmoil, as he sought to obliterate all the ache from inside of Shane through his fists.
He knew it was impossible.
He knew it didn’t bring Shane any closer, didn’t make him any more attainable.
The ring on his finger, now smeared crimson and dripping with the proof of all of Laurent’s deficiencies, didn’t bind Shane to him.
He knew that now.
Yet, he would still stand at the altar and say the words they'd whispered to one another in that hotel elevator just today.
Because Shane shouldn’t belong to anyone.
He didn’t.
And he wouldn’t, not while Ilya was the one at his side.
Ilya would make certain of that.
Even if it meant denying himself every selfish thought he’d carried his entire life.
He loved Shane.
Loved him more than anything.
More than hockey, which had been the only thing to give his life purpose.
Now, he had a new purpose.
To be a man worthy of wearing that ring on his finger.
And that all started today.
In this room.
Now.
“You took enough from him. No more!” Ilya shouted, each word punctuated by the impact of his fists, growing more relentless as he pounded Laurent into the corner, the sound of flesh meeting flesh resonating through the interrogation room.
Laurent was pushed to the brink, his body battered and bruised, but Ilya showed no mercy.
With each punch that landed, he felt the rush of dominance, the thrill of overpowering his opponent, until Laurent was barely conscious, teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Only then did he stop.
Laurent fell to floor like a ragdoll, eyelids slipping close, head lulling down to his chest.
Pathetic.
Ilay crouched down in front of him, and gripped his bloody, spit-stained chin.
He gripped it tightly, making sure Laurent stayed conscious enough to hear him.
This was the most important part.
The reason he’d come all this way.
“Listen to me, ublyudok.”
He gripped tighter and Laurent’s eyes snapped open if only for a millisecond.
It was enough.
“You live not because you deserve it. Not by my mercy. By his. You walk away because of him. Understand that? Because he needs me beside him and because he deserves peace. Cause trust me, if it were only up to me, you would not be breathing right now.”
“You would go to jail for murder?” Laurent mumbled, blood spilling from his mouth. “For him?”
“That is the least of the things I would do for him.”
Then Ilya let go of his chin, and in a voice that was deadly clam. “If you even think of hurting him again, then rotting in prison for the rest of your disgusting life will be the softest end you ever meet.”
Ilya didn’t look back when he stepped out of the interrogation room.
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft, final sound that felt nothing like victory.
He didn’t wait to be escorted out.
He just walked straight out.
Even knowing he looked like hell
The night air hit him hard, cold, damp, smelling faintly of asphalt and old rain.
The parking lot was nearly empty, washed in the flicker of a dying streetlamp.
His footsteps echoed as he crossed the cracked pavement, each one slow, deliberate, as if his body needed time to catch up with what his mind already knew.
It was over.
Or at least, his part of it was.
He could feel the blood drying on his hands.
On his face.
On his clothes.
His hands were still shaking, from the leftover adrenaline, but mostly from the sheer force of all the emotions he still held inside.
He had expected to feel lighter.
He didn’t.
Instead, he felt steadier.
Grounded.
He had done his part.
And this was a burden Ilya would carry for Shane in hopes that it would unburden Shane in turn.
The sound of tires screeching on wet asphalt startled him, and he looked over to see a car fast approaching him.
For a moment he just stood there, breathing.
Then he craned his neck up tot the sky as the first snowflake landed on his cheek.
The cold drop grounded him, yet the weight in his chest didn’t lift.
It wasn’t meant to.
This wasn’t about feeling better. This wasn’t even really about revenge.
Because this hadn’t been about him.
He didn’t feel lighter.
But he felt certain.
He had done what he could.
And whatever became of him now, it would be worth it.
Because Shane was safe now.
And if that was all Ilya could offer.
It had to be enough.
Even as he knew it wasn’t.
Ilya opened his eyes again.
The car bore down on him, close enough that he had a single, absurd thought:
Maybe it won’t stop.
But it did.
Just before impact, it shrieked to a halt.
He blinked against the bright, punishing lights, lifting a hand to shield his eyes as he tried to make out who was behind the wheel.
He didn’t need more than a second.
The passenger door exploded open, slamming against the safety catch with a violent clank, and a voice tore through the night, loud and sharp,
“You stupid son of a bitch. Get in the fucking car. Now.”
Ilya didn’t argue.
He didn’t have it in him.
He just went.
He climbed in.
The car accelerated out of the parking lot before he could even settle.
Eric whipped around in the driver’s seat, eyes blazing, breath shaking with fury he was barely containing.
The interior lights flicked on.
The brightness stabbed at Ilya’s eyes, and he lifted a hand again, squinting, trying to breathe through the pounding in his skull.
Eric glanced back at him. Fury and fear tangled in every line of his face. “Look at you,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ.”
Ilya didn’t answer.
“At least I know you didn’t kill him or you wouldn’t have made it out of there.”
Ilya ignored that too. He just stared ahead, jaw tight, breath uneven.
“How stupid can you fucking be?” Eric snapped, voice cracking with the effort not to scream. “I mean what the fuck were you thinking, Ilya? Do you have any idea—”
“Why are you here? I told you to meet me at the hospital.”
Eric let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. “Why am I—? Oh, go fuck yourself,” he muttered, grabbing his phone.
His hands were shaking as he dialed, then he hit speaker and tossed the phone into the cup holder.
It rang once.
Then Svetlana’s voice burst through, raw and desperate, already crying. “Eric?” A stuttering breath. “Did you find him? Please tell me you found him I can’t—”
“He’s fine,” Eric said, though his voice was still sharp enough to cut. “We’re on the way to my hotel.”
“Why not here?” she demanded, panic rising. “Why aren’t you bringing him here, Eric?”
“He’s fine,” Eric repeated, jaw clenched. “We’ll be there in an hour or so. I’ll let him explain then.”
He hung up before she could say anything else.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Eric turned in his seat again, eyes burning.
“See? See what you do to people? Could you maybe, for one fucking second, stop and think about how your actions affect the people who love you before you go doing shit like this, you fucking dick?”
“I’ve never thought about anything more in my life.”
“Oh, really?” Eric shot back. “You think Shane’s gonna be happy when he hears about this?”
“No,” Ilya said. “I know he won’t. But he’ll be safe. That’s all that matters.”
“Laurent is going to be in jail before the week is up,” Eric snapped. “Shane was going to be safe regardless.”
“You think a cell stops a man like that?” he asked quietly. “You think bars make him harmless?”
“Oh, shut the fuck up with that bullshit.”
“You just don’t understand.”
Eric whipped around, eyes blazing.
“Don’t you dare,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare pretend I don’t understand. I’ve watched you do this to yourself for years. I know exactly what this is. You think you’re protecting people. But all you’re doing is destroying yourself and dragging the rest of us with you.”
Ilya shook his head.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The car hummed.
The engine idled.
The air felt too tight to breathe.
“I wasn’t dragging anyone,” he murmured. “I was trying to keep him safe.”
Eric let out a sharp, disbelieving breath.
“Safe?” he echoed. “Safe? You think this is what safety looks like? You think Shane wants you like this? You think he wants to hear you threw yourself into danger like some kind of—”
He cut himself off, jaw locking hard.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that stunt was? You could have been arrested. They could have used this to put you in fucking prison alongside him, then what?”
Ilya didn’t look at him.
He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched.
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” he whispered.
Eric slammed his palm against the glove compartment, the sound cracking through the car.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ilya,” he said, voice shaking now. “Do you fucking hear yourself? Do you hear how insane that sounds? You keep acting like you’re the only one who pays the price,” Eric murmured. “But we all bleed, Ilya. We bleed, every time you do.”
For a moment, the car was nothing but the hum of the engine and the sound of both trying to breathe around everything they had yet to say.
Then Ilya spoke.
“I didn’t ask anyone to bleed with me.”
Eric let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You don’t have to. That’s just how this works. That’s how family works.”
Ilya’s jaw tightened.
His hands curled in his lap.
He blinked hard, but it didn’t stop the tear that slipped free.
He wiped it away, and the dried blood on his skin softened under the moisture, smearing faintly.
Eric stared at him and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher, stripped of all the armor he’d been using to hold himself together.
“Why can’t you see you matter?” he asked.
Ilya’s throat worked, but no sound came out.
Eric let out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair like he was trying to keep himself from shaking apart.
“You matter, Ilya” he murmured. “Not because you bleed for everyone else. Not because you take every hit. You matter because you’re you. And you keep acting like your worth is measured in scars. When they’re the least remarkable thing about you.”
Ilya pressed his palms against his knees, jaw clenched, eyes burning.
“It doesn’t change anything,” he whispered. “What you think. What anyone thinks.”
But his voice cracked on the last word.
“You say that like it’s the end of the conversation,” he said quietly. “But it’s not. It’s the beginning of every nightmare the rest of us have about you.”
Ilya’s palms on his knees became tight fists. “I did what I had to do.”
Eric slumped back in his seat, looking suddenly older, worn down by the night.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “That’s the part that scares me. That you think hurting yourself is some kind of duty. That you think it’s the only thing you’re good for.”
“It is,” Ilya agreed quietly.
Eric’s head snapped toward him, but Ilya kept going, voice low, steady, firm.
“On the ice. On the ground. That’s what I was raised to do. Take the hit. Make the hit. Break something before anyone breaks me.” He swallowed hard. “That’s what puts food on all of your tables. That’s what keeps the lights on. That’s what makes you all proud to know me. Captain Rozanov of the Montreal Metros. Biggest name in the NHL. Biggest fucking fraud the world has ever seen.”
Eric stared at him, stunned for a beat.
“Ilya…” he started.
But Ilya shook his head, eyes fixed on some point far beyond the windshield.
He couldn’t stop speaking even when it felt like opening his own chest with bare hands.
“It is the only thing I’m good for,” he repeated, voice low, steady in the way only someone who’s given up on delusions can be. “Hurting. Getting hurt. That’s the job. That’s the value. That’s what I was made for. On the ice, on the ground — that’s what I know. That’s what I was taught. That’s what people pay for. You all claim to love me, but you don’t get to pick and choose the pretty parts. You either love all of me or not at all.”
“That’s not how this works,” Eric said, shaking his head. “Love isn’t unconditional like that. There’s always something to give. Something to hold back.”
Ilya’s answer came instantly, fiercely.
“Not for Shane.”
Eric sagged back, shoulders collapsing like the fight had drained out of him.
“He loves me,” he whispered. “Unconditionally. Even when I don’t deserve it. Even when I gave him every reason not to.” His breath hitched. “So how could I not be unconditional for him? How could I hold anything back when this—” he gestured vaguely at himself, at the night, at the wreckage “—is all I can give him right now?”
Eric stared at him, something like heartbreak flickering across his face.
“This is self‑destruction dressed up as a love letter.”
“Maybe,” he said softly. “But it’s still love. It’s still something.”
“This isn’t love, Ilya,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know any other kind. Hurt for hurt. Blood for blood. Love measured in what you’re willing to lose. And what you’re not. This is the only way I know I was taught to do it. That’s what I know. That’s what I can give.”
Eric let out a long, tired sigh. He nodded once, slow, like he was accepting the truth of what Ilya believed.
Not agreeing with it but understanding the shape of the wound nonetheless.
Before he could say anything else, Tierney turned the wheel sharply and pulled into a narrow, quiet street lined with old row houses. The car rolled to a stop in front of a small, slightly crooked townhouse with peeling paint and a porch light that flickered like it was ten years past needing to be put out of its misery.
Ilya blinked at it.
“…Were we not going to your hotel?” he asked Eric.
Tierney shot him a look over his shoulder.
“Welcome to Hotel di Tierney,” he said dryly. “Sorry it’s not up to your standards, Mr. Biggest‑Name‑in‑the‑NHL, but it’s what we’ve got. There’s a box for suggestions at the front desk were you can shove your opinions. It’s in the shape of your ass.”
For the first time all night, something like a laugh escaped Ilya, small, surprised, almost unwilling. Most of the previous pressure leaving his chest.
“Is fine,” he murmured. “I have stayed in worse.”
Tierney snorted. “You say that now. Just wait till you get inside.”
Ilya huffed another soft laugh and pushed open the car door.
He followed them up the short walkway, shoulders still heavy, heart still raw, but the smallest thread of relief tugging him forward.