Chapter 219: They Tied

​In our hospital suite, my entire family went dead silent. Kelvin gripped his knees tightly, Kalvin held his breath, and my father leaned forward in his chair, his eyes pinned to the screen. I laid flat against my pillows, my hand resting flat over my lower stomach, my fingers curling gently into the soft fabric of the blanket.

​The referee stepped between the two players, holding the puck high.

​Reid lowered his posture, his grip tightening on his stick. His dark grey eyes were deadlocked on the black rubber disk, completely unreadable, completely devoid of fear. He looked like a man who had already stripped away every distraction, every burden, and every piece of outside noise, leaving behind only the cold, pure fire of an athlete about to give everything he had left on the ice.

​The referee dropped the puck.

​Reid’s stick whipped forward with blinding speed, winning the draw clean back to Russo before the Dark Knights’ captain could even react.

​"Yes!" Kalvin shouted, slapping his knee as the Serpents immediately set up their offense.

​The game exploded into a brutal, high-octane battle. The Dark Knights played with relentless aggression, body-checking our wingers at every turn and trying to break Reid’s focus with heavy hits along the boards.

But Reid was a force of nature. He skated with absolute freedom, carving through their grey lines, distributing crisp passes, and playing with a joy and intensity that left the commentators breathless. He wasn’t just playing to win a trophy—he was playing with his whole heart, making every single second of his final game count.

Matthew Brooks, the imposing captain of the Dark Knights, skated right up to the face-off circle, leaning over Reid with a heavy, intimidating sneer cut across his jaw.

As the linesman paused to settle the deafening crowd, Brooks leaned in close to Reid, his voice low, raspy, and loud enough for the ice mics to barely catch the edge of his taunt.

"I was really looking forward to playing Captain Evans," Brooks sneered, tapping his stick against the ice with a cold, mocking rhythm. "The legendary Beta captain. But to think he became an Omega... too bad. He ruined his entire career, and you ruined yours right along with him, McCoy. All because of your cocky arrogance."

Brooks’ eyes glinted, deliberately trying to bait the rookie, trying to poke at the raw nerve of my shattered leg and the media storm surrounding our relationship, hoping to provoke a reaction, a cheap penalty, or a sudden loss of control.

On the TV screen, the broadcast camera zoomed in tight on Reid’s face.

In our hospital suite, my brothers let out collective groans of anger, Kelvin cursing under his breath while my father’s jaw set into a hard, rigid line. I held my breath, my fingers digging slightly into the thermal blanket over my stomach, waiting to see if Reid would take the bait.

Reid didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look Brooks in the eye.

Instead, a faint, terrifyingly calm smirk touched the corner of Reid’s lips. He adjusted his gloves, lowered his shoulder into position, and kept his dark grey eyes locked dead on the referee’s hand holding the puck.

"You talk too much, Brooks," Reid replied, his voice smooth, cold, and utterly unfazed. "Save your breath. You’re going to need it when you’re watching us lift the Cup on your home ice."

Before Brooks could spit out another insult, the referee dropped the puck.

Reid’s reaction time was instantaneous. With a single, explosive sweep of his stick, he won the draw clean, snapping the puck back to Russo while using his broad frame to shut Brooks completely out of the play.

Despite winning the opening draw, the first period turned into an absolute nightmare for the Serpents.

Driven by the deafening energy of their home arena, the Dark Knights launched a relentless, brutal offensive. Six minutes in, Brooks capitalized on a screen in front of Miller, snapping a dirty wrist-shot into the top corner. Before the Serpents could re-group, a bad bounce off the boards gave the Knights a breakaway, and they buried a second goal before the end of the period.

2-0, Dark Knights.

The home crowd was screaming, waving grey rally towels, creating a suffocating wall of noise. The commentators were shouting into their mics, declaring that the Serpents were crumbling under the psychological weight of the week.

In our hospital room, the tension was thick enough to choke on. My brothers were pacing, my mother had her hands pressed over her mouth, and my dad was staring silently at the score bug on the screen.

I sat up straight against my pillows, my jaw set, my pulse hammering against my ribs. I knew what the room on the road felt like right now. I knew the panic that tried to creep in when you were down by two on away ice in the final game of the series.

When the second period whistle blew, Reid stepped onto the ice, and the look in his dark grey eyes had shifted entirely.

The Serpents didn’t break. Instead of panicking, they began to play like men possessed.

Russo threw a bone-crushing hit along the boards that sent a Knights defenseman flying, setting the physical boundary. Miller made two unbelievable, acrobatic saves back-to-back, keeping us alive. And Reid... Reid threw himself into every single shift with a raw, desperate fire.

He was everywhere. He blocked shots with his skates, laid heavy body-checks, and drove the play into the Knights’ defensive zone with explosive, unstoppable speed. He didn’t play like a man trying to manage his final game—he played like an Alpha burning through every last ember of his soul for his team.

With four minutes left in the second period, Reid took a pass from Gerald, cut straight through two grey jerseys, and drew three defenders onto himself. Just as Brooks came charging in to plaster him against the glass, Reid executed a blind, backhand pass across the crease.

Jake was right there to slap it into the open net.

2-1.

"YES!" Kalvin roared, leaping out of his chair so fast he nearly knocked over his drink. "THERE IT IS! WE’RE IN THIS!"

The Serpents bench erupted, but Reid didn’t celebrate. He just tapped Jake’s helmet, grabbed the puck out of the net, and skated straight back to the center circle, his eyes fixed on Brooks.

The third period turned into a bloody, exhausting war of attrition.

The Dark Knights dug in, desperate to protect their one-goal lead, laying late hits and suffocating the middle of the ice. With only three minutes remaining on the game clock, the Serpents were still trailing 2-1. Time was ticking down, every second bleeding away like sand through an hourglass.

Devin pulled Miller from the net, taking the ultimate gamble and putting six skaters on the ice.

The arena was a roaring cauldron of noise. In our suite, nobody was sitting down anymore. Kelvin and Kalvin were standing directly in front of the TV, my sisters were clutching each other’s hands, and my father was standing near the foot of my bed, his arms crossed tight over his chest.

"Come on, Reid," I whispered into the quiet room, my hand resting firmly over my stomach, my heart beating in sync with the ticking clock. "Come on..."

With forty seconds left, Russo kept the puck inside the blue line by a fraction of an inch. He flung a desperate, hard pass into the chaos in front of the net.

In the middle of four grey jerseys, Reid fought through a high stick from Brooks, took the puck off his skate, and in one fluid, miraculous movement, spun around and fired a shot past the Knights goalie’s glove.

GOAL! 2-2!

The broadcast horn blared, drowning out the stunned silence of the host arena.

"THEY TIED IT! THEY TIED IT!" my brothers screamed at the top of their lungs, tackling each other onto the couch. My mother let out a loud, emotional laugh, and even my father threw his hands in the air with a deep, booming shout.

When my father caught us all staring at him after his outburst, he smoothed down his sweater, sat back in his armchair, and let out a stiff, heavy cough. He tried to reclaim his usual stoic posture, but his eyes were still gleaming with the undeniable fire of a lifelong hockey fan. He might have resented Alphas, and he might still be coming to terms with Reid, but the sheer, raw beauty of the sport was something no man in our bloodline could ever hide.

On the screen, Reid was mobbed by the entire team against the glass. When he emerged from the pile, he looked straight into the main camera lens, panting heavily, sweat pouring down his face. He raised two fingers to his temple in a sharp, quiet salute before pressing his gloved hand over his chest.

We were going to overtime. Sudden death for the Stanley Cup.