Chapter 3 The Forced Deal

Kael was still in the hallway outside Coach's office when two people in sharp suits came around the corner walking like they owned the building.

"Voss." The man in front didn't slow down. "Conference room. Now."

Kael pushed off the wall. "I just got suspended."

"We know." The woman beside him glanced at her tablet without breaking stride. "That's why we're here."

He followed them because he didn't have a better option.

The conference room was on the third floor of the athletic building, and Nova Blake was already sitting at the table when Kael walked in.

He recognized her immediately. Everyone on campus knew who she was after this morning. She had her arms crossed, her jaw set, and the kind of exhausted fury in her eyes that came from a night with no sleep and too much adrenaline. She looked like someone who had been through something and was running entirely on anger now.

Their eyes met the second he stepped through the door.

Hers went cold. Fast.

He looked away first and took a seat at the opposite end of the table.

The man in the suit, he introduced himself as Director Haynes, University Communications didn't bother with small talk.

He clicked a button on his laptop and the projector screen on the wall lit up with a promo reel for something called

Spotlight Hearts.

Upbeat music. Smiling couples. A live voting ticker running across the bottom of the screen.

"What is this?" Nova said.

"Spotlight Hearts pulled six million live viewers last season. They've done this before, athletes, influencers, public scandals. It's not entertainment. It's a reputational trial with an audience and a voting system.”

"The hockey program is losing sponsors," Haynes said. "Three pulled out this morning. Two more are reviewing their contracts. The university is looking at a significant funding gap, and the athletic department needs that resolved before it becomes a structural problem." He paused. "You two are currently the biggest story on campus.

Spotlight Hearts is offering us a way to use that."

Kael stared at the screen. "Use it how."

"The show needs one more couple for the new season. You go on. You participate. The audience votes weekly on how genuine your relationship looks, and those votes have real consequences for your scholarship review, for your standing with the program." Haynes looked at Kael directly. "Good numbers keep everything alive. Bad numbers accelerate the penalties already on the table."

The room was quiet for exactly two seconds.

"No," Nova said.

"Your journalism internship is funded through a university media partnership," Haynes said, without missing a beat. He didn't even look at her when he said it. Like he'd expected the refusal and prepared for it already.

"That partnership is currently under review pending your conduct with the podcast."

Nova's jaw tightened. "You can't …"

"We're not threatening anything," the woman beside Haynes said carefully. "We're explaining the situation."

"Those are the same thing," Nova said.

Nobody disagreed with her.

Kael watched her across the table. She was holding herself very still in the way people did when they were trying not to show how hard something had just hit them. Her hands were flat on the table. Her eyes were working through something fast, calculating, weighing, looking for another angle.

He recognized that look. He'd been wearing it since 3 a.m.

Then Haynes said: "There's also the matter of the investigation into your brother."

Everything in Nova went completely still.

The way a room goes still right before something breaks.

Kael didn't know what that meant. He filed it away.

"The hazing incident," Haynes continued, quieter now, like he at least had the decency to know this was a different category of leverage.

"The athletic department has the files. We can make sure the right people actually look at them. An independent review. Real resources. No more stonewalling."

He set a single sheet of paper on the table in front of her. "That can be part of the agreement."

Nova didn't look at the paper. She was staring at the middle distance, somewhere past Haynes's shoulder, and something had shifted in her expression that Kael couldn't name. It wasn't defeat exactly. It was worse than that. It was the look of someone realizing the thing they'd been fighting for was suddenly close enough to touch, but only if they reached for it through something they hated.

She turned to Kael slowly.

"Did you hurt her?" Direct. No preamble. Like she'd decided to ask it now, in this room, in front of these people, because she needed to see his face when he answered.

Kael held her gaze. "No."

"The video …"

"I know what the video looks like." His voice stayed even. "I was carrying her to my car to take her to the hospital. That's all it was."

Nova searched his face for a long moment. He didn't look away, didn't shift, didn't add anything. He'd learned a long time ago that over-explaining was its own kind of tell.

She turned back to Haynes. "I want Sienna's case investigated. Not campus security asking three questions. An independent investigator, a real timeline, and I want it written into the contract. If it gets buried, I walk. Whatever that costs me."

Haynes glanced at the woman beside him.

"And Marcus," Nova added. "Whatever happened at that party, he was involved. I want that looked at specifically."

"We can include that language," the woman said.

"Then I want it written before I sign anything."

It took twelve minutes. Kael watched Nova read every line of the amended contract twice, slowly, like she was memorizing it. She caught one clause she didn't like and made them reword it. They rewrote it. She read it again.

Finally she picked up the pen.

She held it for a second, not writing. Just holding it, jaw tight, staring at the line where her name was supposed to go. Like she was giving herself one last moment before she couldn't take it back.

Then she signed. Hard. Like the pen had done something to her personally.

Kael picked up his pen and signed without the pause. He'd made his decision in that hallway outside Coach's office. There was nothing left to deliberate.

Two hours later they were standing side by side under studio lights in a space that had been set up fast, cameras, a live feed monitor, a producer with a headset who kept telling them to stand closer.

Kael stood closer. Nova didn't move.

The lead producer counted them down with his fingers, grinning like this was the best day of his professional life. The live feed went active. The monitor showed the comment section loading in real time, thousands of notifications stacking before the man had even finished speaking.

"We are so thrilled," the producer said to the camera, voice enormous and warm and completely artificial, "to introduce our final couple for this season of Spotlight Hearts. Hockey star Kael Voss and podcast host Nova Blake." He paused for effect. "The accused and his victim's best friend. Live. On camera. Together."

The comment section detonated.

Kael kept his face still. He could feel Nova go rigid beside him without touching her, just that shift in the air, the way her breathing changed.

Cancel him.

She's insane for agreeing to this.

He's going to ruin her too.

Vote them out week one.

The approval rating appeared at the bottom of the monitor. A clean percentage, live, updating every few seconds.

Eleven percent.

The producer leaned in close, voice dropping under the noise. "First week votes determine whether the scholarship review gets fast-tracked or frozen. So." He smiled pleasantly. "You two should probably start being more convincing."

Nova's hand brushed Kael's at their sides, barely, accidental, the backs of their fingers for half a second.

She pulled away like she'd touched something hot.

Kael stared straight ahead at the cameras and the comments and the number still sitting at eleven percent, and he thought about his mom's voice on the phone this morning, and his scholarship, and the ice he hadn't been on in twenty hours, and the truth that nobody had been willing to hear yet.

Eleven percent.

The comments kept coming.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought formed that he didn't say out loud: whoever set that camera up in the ivy already knew what they were doing. And they were still out there. Watching.