Chapter 3 The Transaction
AVELINE POV
"Absolutely not," I said, slamming my palms onto the wooden dining desk in our shared apartment. The impact rattled a stack of old scripts and sent a cold coffee mug teetering. "Are you completely out of your mind, Elaria? I am a journalist, not an actress for your trashy network."
Elaria didn't flinch. She stood in our tiny kitchen, holding a thick, cream-colored document bearing the official gold seal of the Bellerose University Board of Trustees. The blue light from her smartphone illuminated her determined face, casting sharp shadows under her cheekbones. Outside the window, the campus bell tower chimed midnight, but neither of us had slept in what felt like days.
"Ave, please just look at the terms before you throw a tantrum," Elaria urged, her voice dropping to a serious, pleading tone I rarely heard from her. She crossed the room and placed the contract in front of me, her neon-pink fingernail tapping a highlighted paragraph. "The university is canceling the funding for your podcast network at the end of the week. The Dean already signed off on it. They're classifying your investigative work as a campus disturbance." She paused, letting the words settle like lead in my stomach. "Without that funding, your equipment lease is revoked, and you won't be able to submit your final portfolio for the Sterling Fellowship. Your career will be dead before you even graduate."
I stared at the paragraph, my reflection ghosting across the glossy page. The Sterling Fellowship was named after my grandfather, a man who had built his reputation on uncovering political corruption in the state capital. It wasn't just a prize, it was my legacy, the only inheritance my family had left after my father's business collapsed. Without it, I had no network, no platform, and no way to pay back the loans that were already accruing interest. Elaria wasn't threatening me. She was showing me the corpse of my future.
"So your solution is for me to sell my soul to the athletic department?" I hissed, pushing away from the desk and pacing around the small living room. My footsteps echoed on the thin carpet. "To fake-date a violent hockey player who thinks he can punch his way out of every problem? I wrote an entire article calling him a symptom of a corrupt system! If I do this, I'm a hypocrite." I thought of my father's face the night he signed the bankruptcy papers, the way his hands had shaken, the way he'd whispered "I'm sorry" as if the failure was his alone. How could I sit across from Caspian Vance and pretend to care about him, when every instinct in my body wanted to expose him?
"And this is how you expose that system from the very inside!" Elaria countered, stepping into my path and holding up the contract like a shield. She flipped to page four with practiced precision.
"Look at the clause. Right here. If you agree to play his girlfriend on The Ice House for six weeks, Bellerose Live will completely fund your podcast independently of the university." Her finger moved lower. "Not only that, but the athletic board has legally guaranteed you an exclusive, completely unfiltered, unedited live exit interview with Caspian on the final episode. You can ask him anything about his violence, the cover-ups, the money. You can expose his entire world on national television, and they cannot censor a single word." She leaned in, her eyes burning. "It's the ultimate journalistic trap."
I froze, my words dying in my throat. My breath hitched as I looked down at the fine print on the page. There it was, black ink on cream paper, signed by three athletic board members and notarized by the university legal office. No edits. No veto power. No hiding behind PR statements. Sixty minutes of uninterrupted interrogation, and Caspian Vance would have to answer.
An unfiltered, prime-time interview with the nation's top NHL prospect, backed by a legally binding non-censorship clause. It was the kind of explosive journalistic leverage that would instantly land me a job at any major news network in the country upon graduation. I could see the bylines already, Aveline Sterling, Investigative Correspondent, hear the respect in my father's voice when I called to tell him we were safe. It was the key to securing my future, to ensuring my family would never have to worry about money or debt again. I would be using Caspian Vance to destroy the very culture that had ruined my father. The irony tasted like ash, but the logic was undeniable.
"He actually agreed to this?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly as the reality of the situation settled in. I lowered myself onto the arm of the couch, suddenly aware of how fast my heart was beating.
"He didn't have a choice," Elaria said softly, her expression turning sympathetic for the first time that night. She sat across from me, folding her hands on her knees. "It's this reality show, or the university kicks him off the team and cancels his scholarship. His family is in debt, Ave, like, really in debt. Medical bills, I think. He's cornered. Just like you." She said the last part quietly, not as a weapon but as a mirror.
I looked away, staring at the faded poster of Nellie Bly on my wall. Cornered. Yes. I knew what that felt like. But knowing didn't make the choice any less vile.
Two hours later, I found myself sitting in the back corner of an upscale, dimly lit campus coffee shop that had been cleared out by the production crew for "developmental purposes." The barista had been sent home, the pastry case emptied, the usual hum of espresso machines replaced by an artificial silence. A single, small camera drone hovered silently near the ceiling, its green recording light blinking like a malevolent eye. I had changed into a black sweater, something that looked intentional but felt like armor—and I clutched a cold latte I hadn't taken a single sip of.
The brass bell above the door chimed, and a cold draft of winter air swept into the room, making the candle on my table flicker. The scent of snow and wool followed.
I looked up. Caspian Vance walked in.
Without his bulky hockey pads and uniform, he looked leaner, but his broad shoulders still dominated the space. He wore a dark wool coat, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His dark hair was slightly messy from the wind, and up close, I could see the faint purple bruising along his jawline and the stark white athletic tape covering his right knuckles. But it was his eyes that caught me off guard. They weren't arrogant or angry as they had been in the viral video. They were profoundly exhausted, shadowed with a deep, defensive wariness that mirrored my own. For a split second, something shifted in my chest, not sympathy, but recognition. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in weeks. Someone who was also running out of options.
He stopped at my table, looking down at me for a long moment before speaking. His gaze swept over my face, my posture, my clenched hands around the coffee cup. "Aveline Sterling?"
"Caspian Vance," I replied, keeping my voice as cold as ice, refusing to let him see that his physical presence intimidated me. "Take a seat. We have a business arrangement to discuss."
He pulled out the metal chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floorboards. He sat down, leaning back and draping an arm over the chair to project a sense of calm indifference, but I noticed his left boot was tapping a rapid, anxious rhythm against the floor. The camera drone adjusted its angle with a soft whir.
"Let's get one thing straight," Caspian said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that felt entirely too loud in the empty shop. "I know you think I'm a monster. I know you write those little articles to make yourself feel morally superior to the rest of the campus."
"I write the truth," I shot back, leaning forward, my eyes locking onto him. The latte sloshed against the side of the cup. "You beat a man half to death on a live stream, Caspian. Where I come from, ordinary people go to jail for that. They don't get handed a reality TV show to fix their image."
A sharp, dangerous flicker of emotion crossed his face, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked along his cheek. "You don't know anything about what happened in that tunnel, Sterling."
"Then enlighten me. Tell me why you did it."
"I don't owe you my life story," he snapped, suddenly leaning in, his face inches from mine. Up close, I could smell mint and the crisp, sharp scent of winter air clinging to his jacket. His eyes were darker than I'd expected, ringed with fatigue. "We are here for one reason and one reason only. You need your fellowship funded. I need my draft spot. We play our parts for the camera, we smile like idiots for six weeks to fool the public, and then we never speak to each other again. Do we have a deal?"
I stared at him, the tension between us so thick it felt physical, a heavy static in the air. I loathed everything he represented, but as I looked at the contract sitting between us, I knew I couldn't walk away from the future it offered.
"Deal," I whispered, reaching out to sign my name.
