Chapter Text
You often hear about people snapping. People whose brains short-circuit and make them into the monsters they are. But you don’t always see it, and you rarely become it.
But after Ilya lost everything, he had no other option than to snap. No other option than to pretend he’d never lost anything at all. Because losing them was too much.
It was the start of the new year, and the roads were paved in snow, not ice. That’s why he didn’t worry when he sent his wife, Svetlana, out to dinner with some friends without him. He’d been busy, and there was no reason to put the love of his life on a leash like a dog because the world was unpredictable.
Everything in him after the accident screamed that it should have been predictable. That it was his fault. That he could have saved her and their unborn baby from the cruel fate they faced.
But then things changed. A switch in his brain flipped the morning after he’d found out that told him it wasn’t his fault at all. That he didn’t have to accept it as over. And the man who caused the accident? He was the one who needed to pay. To pay the debt he owed him. Of one wife and one child.
This didn’t change for Ilya, no, not even after he discovered who it was.
Shane Hollander. Rival on the ice, and now the rival of his life.
The police deemed the accident a true accident, something that they’d refuse to charge the darker-haired man with.
But justice was flexible. And he could get his own if he needed to. The same way he’d get back the life he stole from him.
By whatever means necessary.
—--
Shane Hollander was the golden boy of The Montreal Metros. The golden boy of the whole league, if you asked most people. So when the news showed up one Sunday morning that he’d caused a car accident that killed a woman and her unborn child? Everyone was shocked.
Shane wasn’t drunk. Shane wasn’t texting. Shane wasn’t even speeding. He’d caused the accident, sure, but there were things out of his control, too, like how hard it was to push the brakes on the snow. Like the fact that it was so dark outside. Like the fact that the lights on his car broke mid-drive.
It was all deemed an accident. If anything, it was the car's fault. But cars don’t make headlines the way hockey stars do.
He still remembered the headline from a few weeks ago like a bee stinger in his side. The guilt was already eating him enough without it becoming the world’s business. He never wanted to hurt anyone.
But he had. Two people at that. A mother and her unborn child.
He had no idea if she had a family waiting for her at home or not, and he tried not to think about that. The one time he did, he threw up. He just couldn’t take the guilt.
Still, he wasn’t going to punish himself to the same fate as her. He wasn’t going to lie down and die over an accident. He had a life, a career, and a family of his own.
It sucked. It hurt. But he had to move on.
And the month after the accident, he finally felt like he could start doing that, that it was a real possibility. That he didn’t need to hide his smiles or worry about what someone might ask in the locker rooms.
Like tonight, for example, he was going out with the team to a local bar a few streets down from his condo.
“I’m so glad you joined us tonight!” Hayden clapped him on the back, midway through the night, a smile on his face. “You never used to come out.”
“Well It wasn’t any fun dwelling alone anymore,” Shane shrugged, beer in his hand, half full. “Gotta live life.”
“To living life!” J.J. raised his glass from the other side, just hearing the end of the slurred words Shane had uttered.
The whole team gathered around for the cheers, and they downed their beers quickly. Some shots were ordered. More beers. A lot of laughing and talking, and even some tumbling when there feets got tangled up.
Shane felt alive again. But he also felt floaty. He felt….drunk.
“Dude, I’m so wasted,” He giggled, reaching out to grab Hayden’s beer from his hands and sip more than he was offered from the bartender.
“Then stop trying to drink everything in sight,” Hayden laughed as he pulled the beer away from his friend.
Sahne pouted, but Hayden stood firm. Shane was a lightweight. He didn’t need more to have a good time. He was already having it. More would just be dangerous and excessive.
Shane only reached out further for the ale, making him lose his balance on his stool and nearly tumble to the ground. Luckily, Hayden caught him before he could face-plant on the cold, dirty, checkered tiles of the place.
“Whoa,” The called out, motioning for J.J to help get him right up again. “You’re really out of it, bud.”
“We should have known Hollander was such a lightweight,” J.J scoffed jokingly. “He never comes out and drinks with us, so he’s never had practice.”
“I practice… all the-the time!” Shane cried back.
“Yes, at hockey, not holding your liquor,” J.J continued to find his friend funny in this state as he helped hold him up under his elbow.
Hayden took the other elbow and realized he once again had to be the dad of the friend group. That he couldn’t just laugh. That wasn’t what a good friend does. A good friend makes sure you get home okay.
He pulled Shane’s phone out of his jacket pocket and moved to order him an Uber. It wasn’t shocking to see he’d already had the app; Shane had refused to drive since the accident.
J.J. and Hayden took him out to the curb to make sure he got into the car safely.
“Shane?” The driver asked behind his sunglasses, with a typical Canadian accent.
Nothing was amiss or off, so the men felt comfortable getting him in the back of the car. They closed the big black doors and couldn’t see him well through the tint, but blamed it on the dark sky above them.
Shane didn’t make it out of the sightline of the bar before he passed out in the back seat.
—---
When Shane woke up, he felt comfortable. Out of it, but oddly at ease. There was a pillow under his head, there were soft sheets against his bare skin, and there was… something heavy around his wrist.
That woke him up.
He tugged against it, and it pulled him back like a restraint. His arm was above his head as he opened his eyes to find his hand handcuffed to the head of the bed. A bed that wasn’t even his…
He closed his eyes for a second despite his adrenaline and fear. It was so bright, with such big windows casting light in on him. He was so hungover it ached like crazy. But he couldn’t just give up either. He tugged at it again and got nowhere.
His breathing picked up as his heart rate soared. He looked down and saw a sheet that wasn’t covering half of his body. Purple and silky, like it belonged to royalty. His chest was on display and shining from a bit of sweat he’d clearly worked up in the sun's heat. He kicked until the sheets came off of him and was met with a shock.
He wasn’t chained up and naked. No. He was chained up and caged.
He’d never seen one before. Didn’t even know they existed. But it was indistinguishable. His cock was locked up in its very own pink metal cage with a dainty bow on the top for emphasis.
“What the fuck?!” He cried, brows furrowed, and he continued to struggle in the bed.
“Enough of that,” A voice suddenly came from the corner of the room.
Were they here the whole time? Did they do this? What the fuck happened?!
“Enough of what you lunat-” Shane’s voice was cut off as he finally looked over to the corner where the voice came from.
He knew he knew that voice, even through the hungover glaze in his mind. Even though he didn’t hear it too often. And his eyes were correct.
“Rozanov?!”
Rozanov hummed with casual displeasure. “You will call me Ilya or sweet name, not Rozanov, is too… hockey.”
Shane Hollander didn’t understand the definition of “too hockey” on a good day, let alone this one.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Stop cursing, or I’ll make you,” Ilya said, standing up with an instant air of power over him. “It’s not lady-like, doesn’t suit you.”
“Neither do these cuffs or this fuc-freaking cock cage!” He found himself actually censoring himself despite the clear defiance. Out of fear? Out of the habit of doing what people ask of him? He didn’t have time to figure it out.
“I think you look very pretty, моя любовь,” He expressed as he stepped closer, to bask in what he’d already accomplished. What he was proud of. What Shane would be too one day. “I don’t see problem.”
“You don’t-You-What the heck am I even doing here?!” He shook on his handcuff again, futile even in a big effort.
“I brought you here so you could make it up to me,” Ilya explained, calm as ever, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Shane’s feet tried to reach out and kick him, but his head hurt, and his feet seemingly did nothing to the huge Russian man in front of him.
“Make up what?” Shane spat out, not sure how he could owe the apology to someone who had presumably kidnapped him from the backseat of an uber- his last memory.
“You killed them,” Ilya expressed with gritted teeth, the closest he’d allow himself to show anger for the accident after this day when it allstarted to get fixed. “My wife and my child.”
“Your-” Shane sputtered, thinking about it all over again.
He avoided the news like the plague after that, but from all he saw, the family wished to remain private. He’d always hoped that maybe she didn’t have many family, that he didn’t ruin too many lives. But here, he’d clearly ruined the life of his on-ice rival.
It still didn’t explain why he went full-on crazy!
He remembered hearing the woman's name once. Svetlana. Sure, it was Russian, but what were the odds that- shit. They were in Boston after a game when it all happened. He never connected or thought that it could be such a small world before now.
He said he wanted him to make up for it. Shane was guilty. He could apologize.
“I’m sorry,” He spoke, meaning it, even as his blood pressure rose and everything in him said he was in danger.
Ilya gave him a small smile and moved his hand up to stroke Shane’s ankle. Shane pulled back but said nothing. Ilya still smiled, only sadder.
“You don’t have to be sorry anymore, not now that you’re making it up to me.”
“What you want more than an apology?” Shane asked with a scoff. “I can’t undo it, trust me, I wish I could.”
“You don’t have to talk about the impossible,” Ilya shook his head. “I almost focused on it too, but then I realized there was solution you can give me.”
“You want money?”
“I have money,” Ilya told him softly. “What I need is wife and child.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with me?!” Shane shook uncontrollably.
Ilya’s smile turned wicked, and Shane swore he was staring down a shark in open waters.
“Oh, you’ll see,” He confirmed. “You’ll see very soon.”