My Boyfriend Cheated in Front of My Brother's Rival

"Brooks, do not cut my locker room swearing into inspirational subtitles."

The heavy wooden door to the Vancouver Breakers' locker room slammed shut right in my face. The metal hinges rattled from the force.

"Don't worry, Vale," I called out, adjusting the audio receiver strapped to my belt. "I have plenty of material without digging through your trash."

The door swung open again. Declan stepped into the corridor, fully geared up in his dark practice jersey and heavy shoulder pads. He gripped his composite hockey stick, and I noticed the fresh split in the skin between his thumb and index finger. Bright red blood welled against the white athletic tape wrapped around his lower hand. He had not lowered his training intensity at all, despite the PR team's mandate to take it easy on camera.

"Is that going to mess with your stick grip?" I asked, pointing my camera lens at his gloves.

Declan stopped walking. A mocking smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Didn't Grant teach you not to care about the rival captain?"

I lowered the camera rig, meeting his stare. "Grant is Mason's on-ice mentor. He is also my coworker. In the three years I dated Evan, Grant never crossed a single boundary."

The amusement vanished from Declan's face. His jaw set into a hard, unforgiving line.

"Then at least he knows the rules better than your ex," Declan said.

"Evan's lack of rules is exactly why I am standing in this hallway instead of producing my own campaign," I shot back, checking the battery pack on my monitor. "So let's just stick to the schedule."

"Fine by me," he muttered, turning toward the ice.

We moved out to the practice rink. I set up my tripod on the concrete walkway, shooting through the thick, scuffed plexiglass. Declan skated a quick, aggressive circle in the defensive zone before braking sharply right in front of my lens. A massive spray of shaved ice slammed against the barrier.

"I am not asking how you plan to fix your public image," I told him, speaking into the headset microphone that fed directly into his earpiece. "I want to know why you target Mason. Every time you match up against Seattle, your physical intensity doubles."

Declan leaned his heavy forearms on the top of his stick, his skates carving slightly into the frozen surface. "The most dangerous thing for a rookie isn't a lack of skill. It is the entire league telling him he is special."

"So you hammer him into the boards as a public service?"

"I make him pay a physical toll every time he crosses the blue line," Declan countered, his rough voice coming through my headphones crisp and cold. "Because that is exactly what he will face in the playoffs. If he wants to survive April, he needs to learn how to bleed for the puck in November."

I pressed my lips together, adjusting the focus ring on my lens. He was right. It mirrored my exact frustrations regarding my brother's career. Mason spent hours watching his own highlight reels on social media, soaking up the praise, but he scrolled past every turnover and missed assignment.

"If you see it so clearly," Declan asked, tapping his gloved fingers against the carbon fiber shaft of his stick, "why do you let everyone in this league call you the rookie's sister?"

"I corrected them for a year," I said, checking the exposure levels on the monitor. "Eventually, I decided to just put my head down and do my job."

Declan lifted his stick and struck the heavy blade against the glass. The sharp thwack made me flinch backward.

"Silence isn't consent, Brooks," Declan said, his gaze piercing right through the scratched barrier. "But people will take it as consent."

My fingers tightened around the metal tripod handle. The words dug straight into the bruised part of my pride. I had stayed quiet while Evan chipped away at my confidence. I had stayed quiet while Sloane paraded my private work around the charity mixer.

"I am not staying silent anymore," I told him, hitting the stop record button. "That is why I took this assignment."

Declan nodded once, a faint trace of respect flashing in his eyes before he pushed off the boards and skated back to the center ice.

By noon, the arena emptied out for lunch. I sat on a hard plastic folding chair in the concrete corridor, transferring the morning video files to my secure backup drive. The hum of the ice chillers filled the quiet space.

A voice echoed from the corner intersecting the weight room.

"Do not put the house on the market."

Declan. His tone lacked any of the arrogant drawl he used for the cameras. It sounded strained. Urgent.

"My bonus comes in next week," he continued, pacing just out of sight. His heavy footsteps echoed off the cinderblock walls. "I will handle the Vale Family Grill payment. Just give me five days."

A long pause stretched through the hallway.

"Just don't tell my sister," he finally muttered. "I don't want her worrying about the bank."

I grabbed the side handle of my camera and swung the lens away from the corner, aiming it dead center on the empty Zamboni entrance. I did not hit the red record button. I kept my hands busy coiling an XLR cable.

Heavy footsteps rounded the corner. Declan stopped short. He still held his phone in his taped hand. His eyes darted from my face to the camera rig, his posture instantly shifting into a defensive wall. He braced himself for the inevitable questions about his family's money.

"Private finances are not in the authorization," I said, keeping my focus entirely on the laptop screen.

Declan stared at me. He searched my expression for any sign of a lie, any hint that I was going to exploit his debt to manufacture drama for the documentary. I just plugged the coiled cable into my bag and closed the zipper.

"You heard the numbers," he challenged, taking a step closer.

"I heard a private conversation that has nothing to do with your on-ice performance," I replied, finally looking up at him. "My camera was pointed at the ice."

The tension eased from his shoulders. He checked the angle of my lens, then looked back at me.

"You really didn't record it."

"No."

Declan tucked his phone into his pocket. "Then I owe you the same courtesy. If I find anything on Sloane or Evan, I send it to you. I don't turn it into gossip."

My laptop chimed before I could answer. A message from Marcus Thorne filled the corner of the screen.

Secondary Cold Front tagline confirmed in Sloane's sponsor deck. It never existed on a Seattle server. Bring your personal access logs and every backup device to Legal at eight. Someone copied the private version.

I read the message twice. Only three people had ever touched that private file: me, Evan, and whoever had taken my silver drive at the charity event.

Declan saw my face change. "What happened?"

I closed the laptop. "Tomorrow I find out exactly how much of my work was stolen."