The Devil You Know

LILA POV

Monday morning, nine o'clock sharp - three days after Thanksgiving, three days after Marcus's knee had folded the wrong way on national television, and Lila had spent every one of them staring at her phone, waiting for the Federation to decide her fate.

She crossed the parking lot with her coat pulled tight against the cold and climbed the stone steps two at a time, like arriving early might count for something. It didn't. The Federation boardroom smelled like old leather and older money.

Lila had worn her only blazer. It was thrifted, navy, and missing its second button, and she could feel every pair of eyes in the room doing math on her. Net worth, family name, the cost of her skates. She could practically hear the total coming up short.

Fourteen months until Olympic trials. No partner, no funding, no plan.

They had one. That was what scared her.

She sat down in a chair that was too big for her and kept her hand away from the empty spot where the button should have been. The table was mahogany, long enough to land a plane on. Portraits of past champions lined the walls in heavy gold frames, men and women with perfect posture and perfect teeth, looking down at her like she'd wandered in from the parking lot. None of them looked like her. None of them looked like they'd ever taped a skate together with drugstore tape.

Across from her sat three Federation officials. A man with a silver tie, a woman with a legal pad, and another man whose only job seemed to be nodding. No one offered her water. Lila decided not to ask.

"Ms. Hart," the woman said. "Thank you for coming on short notice."

"It was a three-day weekend," Lila said. "I wasn't busy."

Nobody laughed. The nodding man nodded.

They laid it out the way people lay out a diagnosis. Fast, flat, no softness on the edges.

Marcus was done for the season. Probably for good. The surgeon had been clear about the ACL, and the Federation had been clear about the timeline, and neither of them had been clear about whether Marcus would ever skate again. Lila's stomach twisted at that, because she could still feel his weight dropping into her arms on the ice, still hear the sound his knee had made. She made her face stay still.

Her solo career, the woman with the legal pad went on, did not have the technical ceiling for Olympic contention. She said it kindly, which made it worse. Lila had landed a quad throw entry alone at five in the morning on Thanksgiving, and apparently that counted for nothing without a second person attached.

"Pairs is your only path," the man with the silver tie said. "We want to be honest about that."

"I know it is."

"And there is exactly one elite male pairs skater in the country without a partner."

The room went quiet in a way that Lila felt in her teeth.

She knew who it was. Everybody knew. She'd watched the news clip in the lobby on Thursday, the anchor with her serious voice asking who would be crazy enough to skate with the Ice Prince. She hadn't known the man on the screen. She'd just known she didn't like the way the question was shaped, like the answer was obvious and nobody wanted it.

The man with the silver tie checked his watch, then glanced toward the door. "He should be here by now," he murmured, and the woman with the legal pad straightened the papers in front of her as if preparing for an audience.

The door opened.

Adrian Braxton was taller than she'd expected.

That was her first stupid thought. The photos made him look controlled and elegant, but they hadn't shown how much space he took up just by walking in. He was lean and pale and wore a dark coat that probably cost more than her rent. His hair was almost silver under the boardroom lights. His eyes were the gray of ice in January, and they went across the room, found her, and gave her nothing at all.

He was colder than the rink they were about to share. She'd bet on it.

He didn't smile. He didn't hold out his hand. He walked to the far end of the table and sat down like he was joining a board meeting he'd already decided to win.

The man in the silver tie cleared his throat. "Mr. Braxton, we were just explaining to Ms. Hart that, given the circumstances, the Federation has identified a possible - "

"I requested her."

Four words. He said them to the table, not to Lila.

Nobody moved. The nodding man stopped nodding. The woman with the legal pad looked up so fast her pen skidded off the page.

Lila looked at him. "You what?"

"I requested her." He finally turned his head, and those gray eyes landed on her like a hand. "The Federation didn't select you. I did."

She waited for more. He didn't give any. He just looked at her with that smooth, blank, closed face and let the sentence sit there. The room had shifted around it. She'd walked in thinking she was being handed a leftover, and now she was being told someone had picked her out of a lineup.

She wasn't sure that was better.

"Why?" she asked.

"Your throws," he said.

She didn't believe him. But she didn't know what the truth was, so she let it go and filed it away to chew on later.

Elena Markovic arrived ten minutes after that, and the boardroom stopped being the scariest room Lila had ever been in.

She was small and square, with silver hair pulled back in a bun so tight it looked structural, and she wore a track jacket in a room full of suits like she was daring someone to mention it. Lila had seen her at competitions for years. Elena coached the way other people prayed. Nobody talked to her at the boards.

She did not sit. She stood at the head of the table with her arms crossed and looked at Lila and then at Adrian and then back again, taking her time, like a person looking at two pieces of a machine and deciding whether they'd ever fit.

"I will train them," she said.

The Federation officials exhaled like they'd been holding their breath.

"On conditions," Elena said. "One contract. Binding. Both of them sign." She tapped the table once with a short, blunt finger. "You are married to each other until the Olympics are over. No other partners. No quitting. No excuses."

She said it like a woman who had watched a lot of partnerships die and had personally attended the funerals.

Lila looked at Adrian. His expression hadn't moved, but his hands were flat on the table, and his knuckles had gone pale.

"Married," Lila said. "Figuratively."

"Figuratively," Elena said. "If you want to try it literally, I charge extra."

Lila almost laughed. She caught it in her throat and turned it into a cough.

The contract ran six pages. She read every one, because no one in her family had ever gotten out of anything by skipping the fine print.

It didn't mention money. That should have worried her more than it did. Somewhere in her head, a small, tired voice said this is the part where you ask what it costs. But she looked at the line that said training provided at Federation expense and thought about her mother's hospital room, with its one window that didn't open, and she picked up the pen.

She signed. Not because she wanted to - she didn't know what she wanted. She signed because the alternative was going home, and she'd rather be bought than pitied.

Adrian signed after her. His handwriting was neat and fast, and he didn't look up once.

The hallway outside the boardroom stretched long and quiet, lined with more portraits. Lila walked down it with her shoulders back and her hand finally, finally allowed to rest on the missing button.

Her phone buzzed against her hip.

She almost ignored it. Probably Jenna, probably a string of caps lock and a skull emoji. She pulled it out anyway.

Unknown number. No name, no photo. One text.

Ask him what happened to his last three partners.

Lila stopped walking.

She read it again, then again, slower. The hallway lights hummed. Behind her, through the heavy door, she could hear Elena's voice, low and clipped, already giving orders.

Three partners. She hadn't even known there were three.

She turned to the tall window at the end of the hall. Down in the parking lot, a black car was pulling out, smooth and unhurried, the kind of car that had never once been late to anything. She watched it turn onto the street and disappear. Adrian had left without a word, without a glance, without a handshake, like the thing that had just happened in that room was a transaction he'd completed and filed.

She stood there with the phone in her hand.

Three partners. She was number four now.

And she'd just signed a piece of paper that said she couldn't leave.