I Funded His Hockey Crown, And He Gave It To Her

The smell of rubbing alcohol burned my nostrils before I even cracked my eyelids.

"Try not to twist your neck," a nurse said, adjusting the IV drip above the steel rail. "The doctor had to place eight stitches along your cheekbone."

I reached up, my fingertips brushing against coarse medical gauze taped over my temple. Every millimeter of swollen flesh pulled and stung.

"Did anyone come?" My voice sounded like crushed gravel. "Was anyone in the waiting room?"

"The police officer who carried you out of the plaza left an hour ago," she replied, writing on a clipboard. "Nobody else signed the visitor sheet."

"Nobody?"

"You didn't list an emergency contact." She slid the chart into a plastic sleeve. "Can you stand, or do you need a wheelchair to billing?"

"Just... give me my bag."

She handed over my scuffed purse from the bedside chair.

My fingers shook as I gripped my cracked screen. I tapped Blake’s private line.

A sharp, rapid beep buzzed against my ear.

*Call failed.*

I typed a message. *Blake, please. I'm in the downtown trauma ward. A bottle hit my face. Pick up.*

A red exclamation mark bounced beside the bubble. *Message not delivered.*

"He’s busy," I whispered to the empty white wall. "It’s just bad reception at the arena."

My thumb hovered over the contact list, stopping on his sports agent. This was my last thread.

I pressed dial.

It rang three times.

"Marcus?" I blurted the second the line connected. "Marcus, thank God. Where is Blake? Did management force that press conference? Was it the team owners?"

"Liora," Marcus said, his tone flat and sterile as concrete. "I told Blake you'd pull something like this."

"A reporter threw a bottle at my face!" I gripped the bedsheet until my knuckles turned gray. "They attacked me outside the steakhouse! Tell me Blake didn't know about Sienna Cole's announcement. Tell me it’s an endorsement stunt."

"Listen to me carefully, Liora," Marcus cut in, his voice dropping into hard, icy syllables. "Blake is at the absolute peak of his career. His jersey sales doubled overnight. His brand engagement is up forty percent because of this couple launch. Do not call his phone. Do not call mine. Stop clinging to him."

"Clinging?" The air trapped inside my lungs turned to ash. "I paid his rent for two years while he rode the farm leagues! I pawned my mother’s jewelry to hire his private physical therapist after his shoulder surgery!"

"You did that voluntarily," Marcus said smoothly. "Blake owes you nothing. If you show up at the rink, security has orders to escort you off the property in handcuffs."

"Marcus, please—"

"Don't make this uglier than it already is. Move on."

*Click.*

The dial tone blared. I hit redial instantly.

*The number you are calling has blocked incoming traffic.*

The screen went black.

A quiet, hollow sound leaked from my throat.

"Ma'am?" An orderly pushed a cart past the open doorway. "You need assistance getting dressed?"

"No," I answered, staring blankly at the floor tiles. "I'm fine."

I dragged my thumb across the glass, opening the entertainment feed.

The headlines flashed like neon blades.

*GOLDEN BOY MERCER SHOWERING FIANCÉE SIENNA COLE WITH CUSTOM LUXURY FLEET.*

The article displayed photos taken two hours ago outside the sports arena. Sienna leaned back against the hood of a brand-new matte-black sports coupe, smiling at a battery of cameras. Beside her, Blake held up a velvet jewel box revealing a five-carat emerald-cut diamond ring.

*Cole showed off Mercer’s generous gifts,* the text read. *Including his prized vintage leather travel duffels, custom training apparel, and an antique Swiss gold chronograph—heirloom pieces Mercer previously kept private.*

My eyes burned so fiercely they felt scorched.

Those duffel bags weren't heirlooms. I had worked eighty hours a week at a call center to buy that Italian leather for his twenty-second birthday. The chronograph watch was purchased with my entire year-end performance bonus so he wouldn't look out of place among senior players in the locker room.

He had handed every sacrifice I ever made directly into another woman's manicured hands.

I looked down at my left wrist.

A faded piece of braided nylon string hung loosely against my pale skin, secured with a cheap, tarnished copper clasp. Blake had bought it for fourteen dollars from a boardwalk vendor five summers ago.

*I can't afford gold yet, Nora,* he had promised under the rusted pier, his fingers tangling in mine. *Wear this until I can buy you the biggest rock in the state.*

Five years. I had worn that rotting piece of string every single day, keeping it clean, treating it like sacred glass. I had never asked for a designer bag, never asked for a vacation, never asked for a single diamond.

I pulled at the knot.

The frayed nylon snapped with a tiny pop. I dropped it into the metal wastebasket beside the bed.

"Discharge paperwork is complete," the nurse said, re-entering with a clear plastic bag of prescriptions. "Keep the cheek dry for forty-eight hours. The scar will be faint if you avoid sun exposure."

"Thank you."

I signed the slip with a steady hand, pulled my coat tightly around my shoulders, and walked out of the hospital doors into the raw morning chill.

Forty minutes later, the cab dropped me at the entrance of Riverside Terrace.

I stepped out of the service lift onto the top floor. The private corridor was silent.

I reached for the digital keypad beside the double oak doors, typing the six-digit code Blake and I had shared since moving in.

*Beep-beep-beep.* A red light flashed.

*Access Denied.*

I tapped it again.

*Access Denied.*

"Looking for a way inside, Miss Finch?"

A tall man in a gray maintenance uniform stepped out from the utility closet down the hall, a clipboard under his arm.

"My keycode isn't working," I said, keeping my chin lifted despite the throbbing in my face. "Reset the pad."

"I can't do that," he said, shaking his head. "Mr. Mercer's personal security team arrived at five this morning. They authorized a full lock change."

"This is my residence," I said. "My name is on the bank paperwork for the mortgage!"

"Take that up with legal," he said bluntly, gesturing toward the dead-end corner near the emergency stairwell. "Management told me to clear the floor. Your items are stacked over there."

I turned toward the alcove.

Three black garbage bags sat ripped open against the wall.

My winter coats were dumped onto the concrete floor, covered in boot scuffs. My ceramic tea sets, my sketchbooks, my recipe binders—all smashed together in broken cardboard crates like discarded rubbish.

A morning gust whipped through the open ventilation louvers at the end of the hall.

Letters, old utility bills, and bank statements fluttered out of the open boxes, scattering across the dusty floor.

I looked down at a torn sheet resting against the toe of my shoe. It was a receipt for the granite countertops in the kitchen, paid in full from my personal savings account.

"Do you need a hand hauling this to the dumpster?" the maintenance worker asked, watching me with mild curiosity. "Building rules say the hallway has to be cleared by noon."

A laugh slipped past my lips—short, quiet, and razor-sharp.

"Leave it," I said.

"Ma'am?"

"Don't touch a single page." I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped three clear, high-resolution photographs of the lock, the trashed belongings, and the signed receipts scattered at my feet.

Every drop of warmth in my chest had evaporated. The fragile girl who waited by a cold restaurant table until midnight was dead.

"Liora," I whispered to myself, letting the name settle into the marrow of my bones. "No more crying."

He took my money. He took my youth. He took my five years of quiet devotion and threw it in the dirt to build a pedestal for another woman.

I looked back at the locked double doors of the penthouse.

"Every single cent," I murmured, watching the camera screen save the files to my encrypted cloud. "You're going to pay back every single cent."

My phone buzzed in my palm—not a message from Blake, but an incoming call from an unknown private number.

I slid the green icon across the glass and brought it to my ear.

"Speak."

"Miss Finch?" a deep, unfamiliar baritone cut through the line, vibrating with smooth authority. "I saw the news from the plaza last night. I believe you and I share a mutual problem named Blake Mercer."