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Chapter Eighteen

Lily

Hockey Rule #51: Never show weakness Media Rule #51: Exploit every vulnerability

The Aces Unleashed intro music filled my apartment, the familiar graphics mocking me from the screen. I huddled deeper into the corner of my loveseat, ignoring both the untouched wine and the pad Thai growing cold on my coffee table. Only Bright’s reassuring warmth against my thigh kept me from completely losing my mind.

Thursday nights usually meant takeout and trash talk with Adele, critiquing camera angles between bites and high-fiving each other over particularly good edits. But tonight? Tonight, my best friend murdered cookie dough in my tiny kitchen while I contemplated how thoroughly I’d torched my personal life.

The acrid scent of burning sugar wafted over the kitchen island as another pan hit the counter with a loud clang. She’d picked up the premade dough on the drive here, saying we needed the sugar on a night like tonight.

“Stop torturing perfectly good cookie dough.” My voice cracked despite my snark. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Just come sit down.”

“One more try.” Metal scraped against metal as she shoved another tray into the oven. “Dammit!”

The sound of Adele angst-baking twisted my already knotted stomach. I needed her with me, even if she made me half crazy. She’d been my rock during my worst times as long as I could remember. But all I really wanted to do was curl up, forget the show and turn some sad music up loud. Loud enough to drown out the voice in my head that insisted on narrating my every move. The good, the bad, and the delusional.

Adele skirted around the island, clutching the mangled log of pre-made dough like a sugary security blanket. “I can’t just sit here, Lily. This is...” She jabbed the raw dough toward the TV. “This is gonna be ugly.”

Duh. My fingers tunneled into Bright’s fur, probably too clingy but he just purred louder. On screen, Viggy led the team onto the ice, that powerful stride of his perfectly synced to Unleashed’s signature theme song. My body remembered that powerful stride. Remembered everything about him.

God, he was beautiful.

And he hated me.

My chest squeezed until breathing hurt. The man on my screen—commanding, respected, radiating quiet authority—was about to be torn apart, his reputation shredded by my careful editing and strategic story choices. I’d told myself I was just doing my job, that under Malone’s pressure I had no choice.

I’d gone against Jack’s wishes. Revealed secrets he’d wanted kept private. But I’d stayed within the contractual lines, hadn’t I? Kept my paycheck. Stayed in Malone’s good graces.

Surely, it’d be worth it in the end.

The knot in my stomach said otherwise. The memory of Jack’s face when he’d confronted me screamed otherwise.

Bright headbutted my chin as if sensing my spiral. Right. Breathe. Focus. In less than an hour, the whole hockey world would see my work. Including Jack.

My future hung on the next sixty minutes.

The intro music faded. Marcus Weber’s voice filled my living room—former Aces player turned network analyst—and my stomach did that thing where it tried to crawl up into my throat. Weber had played with Jack five years ago before a bitter trade deadline deal sent him to Toronto.

My inner narrator pointed out the perfect audio balance. The clean transitions between frames.

Sydney’s voice echoed in my head, a memory from our last conversation before my career imploded: “That’s how the game’s played, Lily. You either take your shot or someone takes it for you. Being a professional doesn’t mean playing nice—it means getting the story no matter what.”

I’d spent three years hating her for those words. For the ruthless philosophy behind them. Yet here I sat, watching my own calculated betrayal play out in crystal clear high def.

“Viggy’s always been stubborn as hell,” Weber’s voice carried over footage I’d personally selected—clips of Jack grimacing through practices, staying late for ice baths, limping when he thought no one was watching. “That stubbornness made him great, but it’s also his biggest weakness. He doesn’t know when to quit. Doesn’t know how to put his ego aside and admit when he’s not the best option anymore.”

My thumb found its familiar spot at my wrist. Press. Breathe. Hold it together.

Weber’s words screamed sensationalism, exactly as I’d intended when I’d had my crew insert the soundbite between shots of Jack favoring his knee. Everything technically true, everything carefully crafted to feed Malone’s insistence on controversy. Controversy drove ratings. This kind of character assassination would have horrified the old Lily Sutton.

Stop.

I curled my toes into the couch cushion. Bright shifted in my lap, but settled right back down: steady, constant. Unlike my moral compass.

I clenched my eyes closed, before opening them again and focusing on the technical aspects of the show.

Compelling images: Check.

Story arc: Impeccable.

Soul-crushing guilt: Debilitating.

“It’s work, Lily.” Adele sprawled out on my floor between the couch and coffee table, attacking raw cookie dough with a spoon. “This time next year, we’ll have a real show, one that isn’t about crap or run by someone like Malone.”

That’s the dream, anyway.

On screen, Viggy ran face-off drills with Puppy. Displaying the gruff patience that epitomized the kind of man he was. The same footage I’d been reviewing at that damn patio bar when he’d walked in, all blue eyes and quiet intensity. Memories flooded me—his lips on my neck, his hands in my hair, his voice rough with need and—

Nope. Not going there. I would maintain professional distance. Even in my tiny apartment—an apartment I may never leave again.

My phone chimed with an incoming text. Malone.

Killing it with the early numbers. Knew you had it in you.

Bile burned the back of my throat. I groped for the glass of wine on the table.

When exactly did I become this person? This ratings-chasing, trust-breaking, relationship-decimating version of—

“You okay?” Adele twisted around until she could stroke Bright’s back, her eyes skating over my face.

“No.” The word scraped free before I could professionally mask it. “This is horrible. I shouldn’t have—” Deep breath. “When did I become the person who saves her own neck by exposing someone else’s?”

“When you couldn’t get hired for three years, Lils. That’s when.” She sighed. “It’s shit, but it’s a paycheck. And if we didn’t break the news, someone else would.”

“I don’t recognize myself anymore. The Lily Sutton I used to be?” I gave a laugh bordering on hysteria. “She never would have let it get this far. Never would have betrayed someone’s trust. Decided that what she wanted trumped every other consideration.”

Career revival versus personal integrity.

“Hey,” Adele said as she shoved up from the floor to slide onto the loveseat beside me. “That’s not the full story. You didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, Lily.”

“I had the choice when I let it slip to Malone. There’s always a choice.” Jack’s words from yesterday ricocheted through my skull, drowning out Adele’s words. Drowning out the interview playing out on the screen. “I could have walked away. Found another way.”

“And then done what?” Her arm came around my shoulders, pulling me close. My eyes stung. “Lost another three years looking for another door to open?”

On screen, a sweaty Viggy skated into view, blue eyes intense. Words measured as he gave a quick post-game interview to a reporter. Top captain in the league on full display.

That man would have found another way. Without compromising. Without sacrificing his integrity.

The hope that he might understand, might forgive, evaporated like smoke. The hope felt silly, juvenile. Delusions I’d told myself in a dark, bottomless ocean of wishes and lies and hopes and sabotage.

“Turn it off.” The words shredded my throat. Raw. Desperate. Fuck you, Sydney. “I can’t—”

“Nope.” Adele’s grip tightened, rocking me against her side. Bright grumbled a protest from my lap. “We’re watching this. All of it, through to the end. The least we owe everyone.”

Because watching your carefully crafted betrayal stream live hit different than reviewing it in post-production. More immediate, more intimate.

Tonight, more damning.

The segment on screen shifted. Dr. James Harrison, a renowned sports medicine specialist, filled the frame. His credentials—including work with Team USA and multiple NHL franchises—scrolled beneath him.

“What we’re seeing here is deeply concerning.” His authoritative tone carried over slow-motion footage I’d pieced together—every wince, every adjustment in Jack’s skating documented in excruciating detail. “An athlete hiding injury at this level isn’t just risking his own career. He’s potentially compromising his team’s playoff chances.”

Cut to game statistics, the numbers damning when presented without context. Face-off percentages. Shots on goal. Subtle shifts in performance that my research team had pored over records for weeks to find.

“The data doesn’t lie,” Weber’s voice returned, this time over footage from the Seattle game. “Look at this hit—any other player would have reported that as an injury. But Vignier? He’s got the whole team drinking his Kool-Aid, believing their captain is invincible.”

Bright headbutted my chin. I buried my fingers in his fur, letting his purr vibrate against my chest.

Doyle’s face took the next frame, his usual antagonism perfectly suited for the hit piece this had become. “The younger guys, they look up to him, right? What kind of example is he setting?” He leaned forward, exactly as I’d hoped when I’d steered the interview this way. “That it’s okay to lie to medical staff? To put your pride ahead of the team?”

I felt sick. This wasn’t journalism. This wasn’t even storytelling. This was character assassination dressed up as concern.

“God, Lily.” Adele’s voice cracked as she watched. “Doyle is brutal.”

“I know.” The wine burned my throat. “Trust me, I know.”

“It sucks, but the rent’s still due. Sometimes we have to do what we have to do to survive in this business.” She squeezed my shoulder. “It doesn’t mean we have to like it.”

But her attempt at comfort felt hollow as more footage rolled—conversations in empty corridors about pain management, quiet moments in the training room when Jack thought the cameras were off. Every vulnerability I’d uncovered while poring over footage from the last eight months, packaged and presented for maximum impact.

My phone buzzed again. Malone: Twitter’s on fire. You’ve still got it, kid.

I grabbed my phone and switched it off. The last thing I needed was his praise for this betrayal.

“When we look at players who continue despite severe knee trauma, the long-term implications are devastating.” Medical diagrams appeared, highlighting everything that could go wrong. “We’re not just talking about mobility issues. We’re looking at potential disabilities by the time the player’s in their fifties.”

The music shifted, turning ominous as the camera zoomed in on Jack during a recent practice. I’d known the shot was perfect when we’d captured it—him alone on the ice after the rest of the team had gone, testing his knee, his face a mask of barely concealed pain. At the time, I’d felt like I was documenting something important. Now I just felt like a vulture.

“Sources close to the team suggest management are saying Viggy’s retirement is coming a year too late,” the narrator intoned as footage played of Silver running drills. “With promising talent waiting in the wings, the question becomes: is Vignier’s presence helping or hurting the Aces’ Cup chances?”

“Turn it off,” I whispered, but I didn’t reach for the remote. Like watching a car crash in slow motion, I had to see it through to the end.

“We’ve got to get through this,” Adele said softly, abandoning her cookie dough to sit beside me. “The industry sucks sometimes. We do what we have to do.”

Adele’s words—a refrain she’d said more than once since we’d started this project for Malone—were as much an attempt to soothe herself as they were for me, but in that moment, I genuinely wished we’d never stepped foot on Aces’ property. Never seen a game, never met a player. If I could roll back time…

“I’ve ruined him.” The words scraped my throat raw.

“No.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “He’s Jack Vignier. He’s survived worse.”

But had he? The episode’s final montage played—every grimace, every misstep, every moment of vulnerability I’d captured over eight months—cut together into a devastating argument that the great Jack Vignier was finished. That his stubbornness was hurting the team. That his time was over.

On screen, the final shot—Jack alone in the locker room, his hand pressed against his knee, his face a map of pain, but also determination. The moment I knew I’d fallen in love with him, twisted now into evidence of his supposed detriment to the team.

“Sometimes there’s no good choice,” Adele murmured, but her usual optimism sounded forced. “Just the choice we can live with.”

But as the credits rolled—Malone’s name where mine should have been—I wondered if I could live with this one. If any career was worth the cost of destroying someone I’d grown to care for. Someone who’d trusted me enough to let me see behind his carefully constructed walls.

The screen went dark, but the damage was done. Tomorrow, everyone would be talking about the fallen captain of the Aces. About his pride and stubbornness. About whether he should step down.

And it was all my fault.