"You gave him the password, Riley."

Marcus Thorne, head of Seattle’s legal department, tapped his pen against the printed timestamps I had just submitted.

"Evan had authorized access to your shared workspace," Marcus continued, his voice void of sympathy. "He saw the drafts. That does not prove theft. More importantly, it does not explain how Sloane acquired the secondary tagline. That file never even touched the team server."

I gripped the edge of the conference table. "She took it from my personal backup drive."

"Which you left unattended at a public charity mixer," Marcus countered.

My supervisor, David, sighed from the corner of the room. "We are pulling you off the Cold Front winter campaign. The team cannot afford a public intellectual property war with a popular creator."

"That is my concept," I argued, keeping my voice steady.

"You keep shooting the Vancouver documentary," David instructed, ignoring my protest. "But if this investigation concludes that internal team assets leaked through your private cloud authorization, we will be reviewing your professional judgment."

The door clicked shut behind me a minute later. Evan was not in the meeting, but his ghost sat right next to me, turning my own trust into a weapon. I was paying the price for mixing my career and my relationship in the same cloud account.

Two hours later, the smell of cheap floor wax and frozen water hit me inside the community rink.

"I am not signing sticks for a B-roll montage," Declan told the foundation director, adjusting his helmet strap. "Get the cameras off me. Film the kids."

I kept my lens focused on the ice. I expected the league to force a standard bad-boy-plays-nice narrative for his image rehab. Instead, Declan directed the production crew to focus entirely on the volunteer coaches and the first-time skaters wobbling on the blue line.

A small boy in oversized shoulder pads hovered near the bench, refusing to step onto the ice.

Declan skated over and crouched, his skates carving a sharp edge into the surface.

"Are you scared of hitting the ice, or scared of them watching you hit it?" Declan asked.

The boy gripped the boards. "Both."

Declan nodded. He stood up, took two strides, and threw his weight backward. He hit the ice hard, his massive frame sliding comically into the corner boards.

The entire group of kids erupted into laughter.

Declan sat up, brushing snow off his jersey. He looked at the boy and held out his massive gloved hand. The kid smiled, grabbed it, and stepped onto the ice.

I recorded the raw footage. I did not adjust the lighting to make him look softer. I did not plan to cut it with emotional acoustic music.

During the water break, Declan skated over to my position by the glass.

"Will the engagement metrics look good?" he asked, leaning on his stick.

"Doesn't matter if they look good," I told him, checking my audio levels. "At least it isn't fake."

Declan stared at me through the scuffed plexiglass. "You should save that line for yourself."

My thumb paused on the dial. He already knew about the internal investigation from Jenna. He knew my job was on the line, but he did not use the moment to ask about Evan.

Ten minutes later, Declan’s phone rang on the bench. He answered it, his posture instantly stiffening. When he returned to the ice for the shooting demonstration, his focus was completely gone. He snapped a wrist shot too high, sending the heavy rubber puck crashing into the safety netting above the glass.

I found him in the locker room corridor after the session. He sat on a metal bench, staring at his phone screen.

I stepped closer to hand him the microphone pack. My eyes caught the bright white email display on his screen.

Vale Family Grill - secured account review.

Below the subject line, I saw the name Sarah Vale and the words residence collateral.

I shifted my gaze immediately to the floor.

Declan slammed the phone face-down on the bench. The sharp crack of the plastic case echoed in the narrow hall.

"How much did you read?" he demanded, his voice turning dangerously cold.

I dropped the microphone pack onto his gym bag. "I wasn't trying to read your email."

"You were standing right over my shoulder."

I squared my stance, refusing to back up. "I cut the camera feed twice for you yesterday when you asked. I do not steal private information to get ahead."

Declan stood up. He towered over me, his chest rising and falling heavily. The hostility radiated off him, thick and suffocating. But as he searched my face, the rigid tension in his jaw slowly cracked.

"I'm used to people taking a detail and turning it into a story," he muttered. It was a terrible, jagged apology.

"Then get used to me asking to film first," I fired back.

We stood there in the concrete hallway. Neither of us walked away. For the first time, we let the conflict burn out in the space between us instead of retreating.

At eight o'clock that night, Sloane went live on her channel to officially launch the Cold Front project.

I sat at my kitchen island, watching the stream on my laptop. The details were worse than the charity mixer. The duo glove-tap challenge I had specifically designed for Mason and Grant Keller was now playing out on screen between Sloane and a random minor-league player.

My phone vibrated on the marble counter.

Grant: This isn't just overlapping ideas. She ripped the entire sequence.

A second message popped up. Declan. No text, just a link.

I clicked it. It opened an archived database of Sloane’s content from the past two years. The search parameters were already set. It proved she had never used a winter-survival concept before this week. Declan offered no comforting words, just hard evidence.

I compiled the link, the stream screenshots, and my original storyboard into a new folder. I was going to send it straight to Marcus Thorne in legal.

My phone rang.

Evan’s name flashed on the screen.

I answered it, putting him on speaker.

"You really outdid yourself with the stream, Evan," I said.

"You need to drop the IP claim, Riley," Evan replied. His tone was perfectly calm. It sounded exactly like the voice he used when asking what I wanted for dinner last week.

"She stole my work. You handed it to her."

"If you keep chasing the Cold Front campaign," Evan said, his voice dropping to a smooth, threatening pitch, "I will call Jenna Ortiz and tell her you brought Seattle’s internal media assets to Vancouver just to secure your filming access with Vale."

"I am not dropping the claim."

I slid my unlocked phone across the polished mahogany table, pushing it straight toward Marcus Thorne.

The head of Seattle’s legal department stared at the screen. Evan’s call logs glared back at him in bright white pixels, alongside the raw export data from my shared workspace.

"He threatened to tell the league I am funneling Seattle assets to Vancouver," I said, keeping my hands flat on my lap. "I want full transparency on my end. Now."

Jenna Ortiz’s voice clipped through the speakerphone in the center of the table. "Evan knows you need Seattle’s historical footage to build the rivalry angle for Declan’s documentary. If he spins this to the press, they won't care about the context. They will just see a Comets employee handing confidential files to the enemy."

"Then we lock the process down," I told her.

"Every file you export requires a second team signature," Jenna ordered, her tone leaving zero room for negotiation. "No exceptions, Riley. It is an ugly look, but it protects the league."

I nodded at the plastic speaker. I didn't need blind trust right now. I needed an audit trail. A clean, undeniable link of evidence that anyone could verify.

Two hours later, Grant Keller stood by my desk in the media room. He did not lean into my space. He did not try to offer a comforting hand on my shoulder. He just stared at the tablet in his grip.

"File 402," Grant read aloud, his voice steady and clinical. "Usage: B-roll. Export time: two fourteen."

"Matches the drive," I confirmed, hitting the copy shortcut on my keyboard.

Grant signed his name with the digital stylus. He handed the tablet back.

"Thank you for doing this," I said, taking the device.

"I am just reading numbers," he replied, sliding his hands into his track jacket pockets. "But since we are clearing the air, my offer for coffee still stands."

I stopped typing and looked up at him.

"I liked you long before Mason got drafted," Grant stated, meeting my gaze head-on. "Last year, during the community drive. You fought the sponsors to keep the kids' faces off the main broadcast. You had a boyfriend then, so I kept my distance."

"I need to get through this crisis first," I told him.

"I can do later," Grant smiled faintly. "Just do not let the drama across the border convince you that stable means boring."

He didn't mention Declan by name. He didn't list his own stats or try to prove he was the better option. That restraint carried more weight than any loud sales pitch. I appreciated the respect, but I reminded myself quietly that his decency did not obligate my affection. Accepting someone's boundaries and choosing them were two very different things.

Mason blocked the doorway to the editing bay an hour before practice.

"I am glad Keller is signing your sheets," my brother said, leaning his heavy frame against the metal frame. "At least he won't drag you into the opponent's locker room mess."

I turned away from my monitors. "Grant is a coworker, Mason. He is not a safety monitor you assigned to watch me."

"I just want someone I trust around you," Mason argued, crossing his arms over his chest guard. "I would never accept Vale."

"Why does a relationship that doesn't even exist need your approval?"

"Because Vale spends every shift trying to take my head off!" Mason shouted, his voice echoing down the empty hall.

I grabbed my mouse and clicked open the team scheduling portal. "You can hate each other on the ice. Do not draw me onto your tactical board."

I highlighted Mason’s entire social media request queue. I dragged the folder out of my directory and dropped it straight into Chloe’s inbox.

"What are you doing?" Mason asked, dropping his arms.

"Transferring your personal video schedule to Chloe," I said, hitting the final send button. "You want to dictate my personal life? I am removing myself from yours."

Mason stared at the screen, his jaw tight. He finally realized I wasn't throwing a tantrum. I was rewriting our boundaries, and it was going to change exactly how we worked together.

At seven o'clock, the Vancouver arena felt like a concrete freezer.

Declan sat in the swivel chair next to my temporary editing station. He wore his dark home jersey, still sweating from the warm-up skate. He stared at the digital transfer log on my tablet, his eyes locking onto the bottom line.

"The league finally assigned you a Seattle-approved chaperone," Declan remarked.

He tossed the tablet onto the desk. The metal casing smacked sharply against my keyboard.

"Are you jealous?" I asked, pulling the device closer.

Declan let out a harsh laugh. "Of Keller? The stable, reliable, media-friendly alternate captain? I don't need a PR badge to prove my worth."

He bit out every compliment like a curse word. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the armrests of his chair.

"Safe is not an insult," I shot back, spinning my chair to face him fully. "What is actually dangerous is a guy who packages all his worst impulses and calls it honesty."

The mocking grin vanished from Declan’s face. He leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on his knees. The space between us shrank instantly, the air growing thick with unspoken challenges.

My phone buzzed on the desk. Jenna’s name lit up the screen.

"Read it," Declan commanded, his eyes never leaving mine.

I picked up the phone, swiping open the message. "Jenna says we have to stay in the empty arena after your game tonight. The long cut goes live tomorrow morning. We don't leave until it is rendered."

Declan stared at me, the harsh lines of his face cast in the blue glow of the monitors.

"Then tonight you better not use Keller as a comparison," Declan warned, his voice going rough and low. "I have no interest in losing the editing room to a guy who isn't even here."