After He Cheated, I Chose My Brother's Hockey Rival

"Sign this, shoot the apology, and don't let either team touch the raw footage." Marisol dropped a ten-page strategy packet onto the metal folding table.

Neutral training facility. Seven in the morning. I hadn't slept.

Cade Mercer sat across from me in a gray practice shirt. He skimmed the first page of the drafted apology, picked up a pen, and pushed the paper back across the table.

"I'm not reading this," Cade said.

"The league needs a statement," I said, sliding the document back toward him. "Ten days of daily content. Short interviews, community outreach, zero edits. Start with the apology."

He tapped the second paragraph. "It says I lost control during an unprovoked argument with a fan. That's a lie."

"It protects the Forge's image," I countered. "And it gets you out of a suspension."

"It erases the fact that your boyfriend had his hands on you," Cade said, his voice flat.

I stiffened. I expected him to use my humiliation to save his own skin. "You can say he grabbed me. It justifies the punch."

"I'm not using your cheating ex and your bruised wrist as PR material," Cade said. He leaned back in his plastic chair. "I'll admit I shouldn't have thrown the punch. I won't say it was unprovoked."

I stared at him. The arrogant captain of the Denver Vipers had a boundary. He refused to weaponize my private disaster to clear his own name.

I picked up my tablet, highlighted the entire drafted paragraph, and hit delete. I typed a single sentence acknowledging the escalated physical conflict. No excuses. No sob story.

Marisol read it over my shoulder, then gave me the kind of look that usually meant legal was about to call. "If we do this your way, the full clip stays available for review. No reaction shots, no sympathetic music, no cropping."

"Good," I said. "If the point is credibility, we cannot manufacture it."

Cade's gaze moved from Marisol to me. "You always argue with your boss before breakfast?"

"Only when my boss hands me bad copy."

Marisol muttered something about both of us being impossible and left to brief the league. For the first time since the storage-room disaster, I felt like I was doing work instead of cleaning up somebody else's version of the truth.

We moved to the edge of the ice rink for the first video. Cade stood under the harsh overhead lights, struggling with the lavalier microphone wire. Thick white athletic tape wrapped tightly around his right wrist, making his fingers clumsy against the small clip.

"Let me," I said.

I stepped into his space, taking the black transmitter from his hand. I secured it to the hem of his shirt, my knuckles briefly brushing his side. He didn't flinch.

"Does the Forge make the Hale family handle rival captains personally?" Cade asked, looking down at my media badge.

"I handle social media," I said, meeting his gaze. "I don't handle making you likable."

"Good luck with that."

I retreated a step, checking the audio levels on my monitor. "Why do you target Owen?"

Cade adjusted the mic clip on his collar. "I don't target him. I gave him a legal open-ice hit his first game. He retaliated with a dirty cross-check."

"You told the press the league isn't a highlight reel," I reminded him. "I spent three days burying the backlash from that quote."

"I won't apologize for a clean hit," Cade said. "But the quote? Yeah. I said that to needle him."

He owned the provocation. For the first time, I saw that Owen's rivalry wasn't one-sided; they were pushing each other.

An hour later, I stood outside the visiting locker room. Cade had gone inside to change out of his skates.

"Hey, Owen's sister," a facility manager called out, pushing a heavy laundry cart down the corridor. "Can you move that equipment bag?"

I reached for the canvas strap.

The locker room door swung open. Cade stepped out, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He looked directly at the facility manager.

"She has a name," Cade said. "Tessa Hale."

The manager blinked, muttered a quick apology, and kept walking.

Cade turned to me, unfazed. "What's the next shot?"

My chest tightened. Nate had spent last night telling me I was nothing without my brother's name. Cade just handed my identity back to me without a second thought. The correction felt heavier than any hollow comfort someone else might have offered.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Owen's contact photo flashed on the screen.

"I'm calling the front office," Owen demanded the second I answered. "They can't force you to babysit Mercer."

"I'm doing my job, Owen."

"He's a menace, Tess! I'll tell Marisol to pull you off."

"No, you won't." I kept my voice steady, gripping the phone tighter. "You can hate him. But you don't decide if I can do my job."

"Tessa—"

"I'll call you later." I hung up.

Cade stood two steps away. He had clearly heard the entire exchange. I braced myself for a sarcastic comment about my brother's temper.

Instead, Cade shifted his duffel bag. "The Hale family doesn't step off the ice easily."

"At least I know when not to throw a punch," I fired back.

A faint smirk crossed his face. "Fair enough."

The unedited statement went live at noon. The comments immediately shifted from outrage to grudging respect for Cade's blunt honesty. The heat was dying down.

Then my phone exploded.

Notifications flooded the screen. Three missed calls from Owen. A dozen messages in the Forge PR group chat.

I opened the social app.

Nate had just uploaded a new video to his channel. Seven seconds long.

It was the hallway footage from last night, but heavily cropped. It showed Cade standing in the doorway, his eyes darting to me for a split second before his fist connected with Nate's jaw. The frame cut off right above Nate's waist, hiding his hand crushing my wrist.

I tapped the caption.

Nate had written: Mercer clearly isn't stepping in for the first time. Ask them how long this has been going on.

He was spinning himself as the betrayed boyfriend. He was implying Cade and I were sleeping together.

A shadow fell over my shoulder.

Cade stood right behind me, his eyes locked on the same glowing screen.

"Well," Cade said, his voice dropping low. "Are you going to tell them, or should I?"