The Czar: A Standalone Hockey Billionaire Novel

by Selena Laurence

  I shove my head deeper under my pillow, but Marissa won’t stop the pounding, and she’s ringing my cell phone at the same time.

  “Shut. Up! I’m coming already,” I growl into the phone as I climb out of bed. I stomp to the door, glaring at Ambrose as I do, and swing it open.

  “Well, look at that, she is alive!” Marissa crows as she marches past me into the kitchen.

  She starts pulling things out of a brown paper bag and setting them on the bartop.

  “Sit,” she commands, pointing to a stool. I do as I’m told, but make sure to give her plenty of dirty looks too.

  “Ceviche,” she says, pointing to the first Styrofoam container. “Tapas,” she says, pointing the next. “And a shit ton of French fries from Marnie’s Diner just because the horseradish for those things is amazing.” She sets down the final container, and pops the top, grabbing a fistful of fries and dipping them in the sauce.

  “Now,” she continues after she’s inhaled six or seven fries all at once. “Eat up, then clean up, you’ve got things to do.”

  I sit and glare at her some more.

  “I’m serious, chica. Stuff. To do. You need to get moving.”

  I get a whiff of something really delicious and can’t help myself as I pull the lid from the ceviche and pick up the fork next to it.

  “I don’t have anything to do,” I mutter before taking the first taste of the lime and chile and tender fish. “And where did you get this? It must have cost you a fortune.”

  “Eh, I asked Rosa for some help,” Marissa says with a wave of her hand. Rosa is an old friend of both our mothers. She’s an amazing cook and has actually worked at some of the top restaurants in Chicago.

  I continue eating. “I still don’t have anything to do.”

  “I disagree. There’s job hunting to conduct, and God knows you need to take a shower and put some clean clothes on, you smell like a locker room.”

  “Job hunting? You’ve got to be kidding. Haven’t you heard? I’ll be working at McDonald’s from now on. Because I’ve been fired. From one of Chicago’s premier employers, and favorite corporations. I won’t be able to get a decent job now even if I paid them to hire me.”

  She shakes her head, giving me the oh, you poor dear look.

  “Solana. You’ll get another job. It’s not going to be as fancy as the last one, but it’ll be a job that’s appropriate for a recent MBA grad. You aren’t going to have to work at McDonald’s.”

  I feel the tears start to flood my eyes. “No,” I say, my voice rough. “I won’t. There is no way to explain what happened at Petrovich.”

  “So don’t put it on your resume. It’s only been a few months since you graduated. You can say you were spending time with family and are just now entering the job market.”

  She has a point, I know she does, but I don’t want to be optimistic right now. I don’t want to think that there’s hope for my career. Because I already know there’s no hope for my happiness.

  “Seriously, chica, you have to get over this fixation you have on belonging to some important corporation. There are dozens of businesses in Chicago that would kill to hire your talent. This fantasy you have of being this corporate superstar is holding you back at this point. You need a job, and I know once you get one you’re going to feel better.”

  I slap my fork down on the counter, getting fish juice everywhere. “No, I won’t. I’m not ever going to feel better, because no matter where I work I won’t have Mick.”

  Then I finally break down, laying my head on my arms and sniffling for a few minutes while Marissa quietly cleans up the food and then leads me to the living room sofa.

  “So, you finally ready to talk about it?” she asks.

  “What is there to talk about? I lied. He hates me. End of story.”

  She shakes her head. “I really doubt he hates you. But even if he does, don’t you think you’ll feel better if you have some closure?”

  “What does that even mean?” I grump. “Closure. Everyone always uses that term. When people are gone they’re gone. What’s there to close? What’s the point in dragging it out longer?”

  Marissa wraps her arm around me and I lay my head on her shoulder. It’s comforting, and I realize I probably shouldn’t have kept her away these last few days. She’s the one person in my life who’s never left me, I need to remember not to punish her just because no one else sticks around.

  “Chica,” she says softly as she pets my hair. “You really liked him. I can see that, and even if there’s no hope, you have a right to discuss what happened with him. When your dad left, and when Sam left—even when your mom left—you never really had a chance to say how you felt. They all just made their decisions and left you behind. Don’t let that happen again. Make him listen to you. You made a mistake, but you didn’t do it because you’re a bad person, or you were trying to hurt anyone. You did it because you were scared. Scared of losing one or the other, and it paralyzed you. Don’t be paralyzed now. Say what you need to say. Get the closure. It’s time.”

  And maybe Marissa’s right, maybe it is time I finally got a chance to tell someone what I’m feeling. Maybe it’s time to get some closure—for a lot of things in my life. Maybe it’s time to grow up and move on.

  29

  Mick

  I’m watching my girls warm up before practice starts, and all I can think about is the look on Solana’s face when I walked into my father’s office a week ago today.

  I’ve seen plenty of people get caught lying in my life. Reporters trying to pretend they have business in the restaurant you’re eating in. NHL players trying to say they weren’t at that strip bar last night while their wife was home with their kids in another city. Household staff telling little boys their mother has a headache and can’t see them right then even as she’s slurring her words and vomiting on the other side of the door.

  Yeah, I consider myself to be an expert in what people’s faces look like when they’re caught in lies.

  Solana didn’t have that face. Solana had the face of someone who was in anguish, who was more concerned about who she’d hurt than in what she’d been caught at. But no matter how true that rings for me, I can’t bring myself to see her or talk to her.

  Because it hurts.

  More than I would have dreamed possible, it hurts. I feel like a fool, like the village idiot. And I feel like I’m missing something, something that might have been amazing.

  “You aren’t coming out on the ice?” Deke asks as he skids to a stop in front of me. I’ve been cleared to skate—recreationally, of course—for a few days now, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

  “Not today,” I tell him, my eyes on Amanda as she snatches the puck from one of our other forwards.

  “You worried about it?” he asks, looking concerned.

  “Not about the hip. I know it’s healed and it’ll do fine. But I need to be in the right frame of mind, and I’m not, so I’ll wait.”

  “Why don’t you talk to her?” Deke asks after a few quiet moments.

  I snort. “What would be the point? She’d probably just lie to me.”

  He shakes his head. “Look, it sucked, but maybe there’s more to it. You still don’t know why she did it. Don’t you think you at least deserve to know why?”

  The sigh oozes out of me like the hopes and dreams I had the day I walked into my father’s office. I don’t think I realized how deep in I was with Solana until I saw her standing there and watched my shiny new future vaporize right in front of my eyes. There I was, thinking it was all about taking a new job and finally declaring hockey was it for me, even if I couldn’t play anymore, when really, it had been about taking a new job, declaring hockey was it for me, and falling in love with a beautiful, intelligent woman.

  “I can’t imagine anything she could tell me would change how I feel about it all.”

  “Maybe not, but at least you’d know the whole story,” he says, picking up a stick that’s leaning against the wall
of the arena.

  I nod as he moves to gather the girls and begin our first set of drills. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to talk to her. But before that, there’s someone else I need to talk to also.

  “Mikhail,” my dad says as he grasps the back of my neck with both hands and kisses me on either cheek. “I’ve missed you, and I’m glad you have come to see me.”

  I nod at him and then we both sit down in the seating area in one corner of his office.

  “Before you say anything, I want you to know that I fired her. I had no idea she was lying to you—she was lying to me as well. I—” He shakes his head sadly. “I was just as shocked as you, and so terribly disappointed.”

  I slouch on the sofa, trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happened.

  “I’m not pissed at you, Dad. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m pissed at her. I’m just…”

  He smiles slightly. “I think, son, you felt strongly about Solana and your heart is hurting.”

  God, does it ever. I don’t want to admit that to him, but it does hurt. So much. It aches for what was, it burns for what might have been. And it’s not getting better.

  “You might be right,” I admit grudgingly, “but I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came to talk about what’s next for me.”

  I can see my father stiffen, but then he takes a deep breath and exhales, and I realize he does know—he may not acknowledge it much, but in his heart, he knows.

  “You’ve come to tell me you will not be joining the company—no matter how long I wait or how many injuries you get.”

  A pang strikes me hard in the gut, and for the briefest moment in time I wonder if I’m making the right decision. But then I look over at his desk, covered in papers and all the detritus of a corporate career. And I know I’ll never want this, no matter how much I wish I could make my father’s dream come true, it’ll never be my dream.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I tell him, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.

  “Don’t be,” he says, surprising the hell out of me. “You are one of the greatest hockey players of your generation, you have achieved the very highest honors in your sport, you are smart, and honorable, and I could not be prouder to have you for a son. This company—it was my dream, and I achieved it. Along the way I also taught you and Dmitri to achieve your own dreams, and you both have. This means I did my job. That’s all I can ask.”

  I feel like a weight has been lifted from my soul as he smiles at me. He’s not just saying it to make me happy, he means it, and that means everything to me.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “That means a lot to me. And thank you, Dad. Thank you for showing us how to make dreams come true.”

  “I’m afraid I failed you in one regard though.” He looks around the room thoughtfully, then stands and walks to his desk where he picks up an eight by ten display board.

  When he sits back down he hands it to me. It’s two pictures, one at the top of the page, the other on the bottom. Both are sepia toned, and the top one shows my father sitting at an old metal desk in a warehouse somewhere, me at the age of about three on his knee. He’s holding up a bottle of Petrovich Vodka and I’m pointing to the label, my little chubby cheeks puffed out in a smile.

  The bottom picture is the same as the one I destroyed in the hallway the day I discovered Solana’s secret life as a Petrovich employee. Looking at it closely now, I see it all—the love in my father’s eyes as he stands looking at me while I hold up the Gold medal, the joy in my face as I lean my head into his embrace while he says something in my ear, undoubtedly because the crowds in the arena around us were so loud.

  Then I read the slogan that runs across the middle of the page—Petrovich. Gold Medalists in the Olympics of Life.

  “That top one was at the first offices we ever had,” he tells me. “Do you remember the old warehouse by the railroad tracks?”

  “A little, yeah.” I run my finger gently over the photo, my mind sifting through images of big crates covered in Russian lettering, and my mother’s entreaties to stay away from the forklifts that drew me like a fly to honey.

  “You used to come visit me every Wednesday after you and your mother did the playtime at the church. We still lived in the Ukranian Village then, and your mother did a lot with the church.” He pauses for a moment, seeming to collect his thoughts.

  “It was never about the liquor, Mikhail.”

  My brow furrows as I look at him.

  “None of it was ever about the liquor—not this business, not the reason I couldn’t save your mother. I could have sold goldfish for all I cared, I only wanted to earn money and be successful so that you boys and your mother would have the best life imaginable. I chose Vodka because with a Russian surname I knew it would lend credence to my expertise. I didn’t actually know anything about Vodka other than how to drink it, but Americans assumed because I was Russian I was an expert.”

  I chuckle. “You’re telling me Vodka isn’t your passion?”

  “It isn’t,” he says definitively. “You are. You and Dmitri and your mother. Those were my passions. This business is my passion only because it serves my real passions.”

  “Dad…”

  “Wait. I’m not finished. I didn’t lose your mother because I was in the liquor business—” He holds up a hand to stop me when I try to interrupt again. “I didn’t keep her from rehab because I was afraid it would damage my business. It’s true the board had concerns about how it would look, but that’s not what kept me from forcing her to go. I know that’s what you’ve always thought, but it’s not true. I lost her because I was too afraid to keep her.

  “When your mother’s drinking started to be a problem, I did all the things people normally do—I asked her to slow down, I begged her, I tried to bribe her, I even threatened her with rehab or taking you boys from her, but she knew I’d never do it.

  “I loved your mother and I wouldn’t deny her anything—not even the thing that killed her. I didn’t refuse to send her to rehab because I thought it would be bad press, I refused to send her because I couldn’t bear to make her do something she didn’t want to. I indulged her while she fed me lies for years.”

  I swallow the lump that’s climbed up my throat. During my life we’ve only ever talked about my mother in the best of ways—things she liked, what she loved to say to us, how she felt the days we were born. My father has never broached the subject of her drinking and how he handled it.

  “I was an enabler, son. I allowed her to drink herself to death. By doing that, I not only let your mother be taken from you, I gave you an example of a man for whom love meant no pushing, no questioning, no asking for what we all really needed.”

  He leans forward now, elbows on his knees. His face that looks so much like mine is more weathered, but he’s still a powerful man, big, strong, everything a little boy wants his father to be. And yes, he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good father, and he loved us without reservation, and in the end, maybe that’s all that really matters.

  “If you love someone, Mikhail, you have a right to ask them for things. You have a right to expect things from them. Truth is one. Ask her for it. Don’t let her get in a car and drive it into a tree. Make her face you and give you what you deserve—the truth. I should have made your mother face me and make the hard choices. I didn’t, but you can.”

  I nod, and then I look back down at the ad campaign in my hand.

  “Where will this be shown?” I ask quietly.

  “Magazines, billboards, the Internet,” he answers.

  “It’s a beautiful campaign.”

  “It was designed by a lovely woman,” he answers.

  My gaze snaps to his.

  “Yes, this was her campaign,” he tells me. “She knew us the moment she walked in the door.”

  She did. And I think we knew her too.

  It’s almost eight o’clock when I go next door and put my fist to the wood. I hear Ambrose meowing at me through the door, and
then the scuffle of feet and the silence as I’m sure she sees it’s me through the peephole.

  I lean my forehead against the door. “We need to talk, Solnishka. It’s time.”

  The locks slide open, and then the door, and there she is, standing in front of me, and she’s so fucking beautiful I nearly forget what I’m there to do.

  “Hi,” she says, cheeks pink, her gaze searching mine for some hint of what I’m here to do.

  “May I come in?” I ask, gesturing to the living room.

  She stands aside silently and I walk past her, trying my damnedest not to notice the aroma of lilacs that surrounds her, or the way her big eyes watch me so warily.

  I sit in the living room on the sofa, and she follows me, but chooses to take an armchair. Strangely, this disappoints me, and I swallow the bitter taste down before I speak.

  “I need…”

  “I need…”

  We both say the same words at the same time. Then we both chuckle in embarrassment.

  “Go ahead,” I tell her.

  She gives me a tight nod. “I need to tell you how it happened.”

  “Good. I need to hear how it happened.”

  And so she talks and I try to listen, try not to remember all the times she could have told me the truth and didn’t, or how it felt like someone had taken a knife to my guts when I first laid eyes on her in my father’s office.

  And I hear her say she’s been left behind a lot in her life, and it scares her. That she thought being part of a company like Petrovich would be a way for her to never be left again. But then she met me, and she didn’t want me to leave her either.

  I realize she tried to push me away, and she even stayed away—she wanted to do the right thing.

  “So now I got exactly what I was so afraid of,” she continues. “I’ve lost the job and you. But this time it wasn’t because anyone left me, it’s because I forced them away with my lies.”