Chapter Text
2015
He was on fire tonight. Shane has always been a star player his whole life. With the junior gold, silver Olympic medalist, and one Stanley cup under his belt he was unstoppable. An alpha with more speed and a slimmer frame he could fly. Order and routine was what got him this far and if he could just push a little harder in this overtime he could skip any shoot out and eliminate the risk.
He had it. He knew as Shane always did that he was lined up to make a perfect shot with zero issue. He bends his knee to kick his blade off the ice and feels it. A direct hit from some rookie right on his side. His knee bends completely inward.
He was down. All he could do was scream in his closed mouth. His team could not see this let alone hear his pained cries. His knee was bowlegged and swelling fast. There is an ambulance ride with a morphine drip. There is a doctor telling him he will never step on the ice again. And there is a break in a routine he has never not had.
He took a phone call.
2016
Ilya had taken ownership over the Russian Mob. While political unrest and crack downs have killed most of the mob, there are seedy corners. Dark lit halls and quiet bars to get word around. Oligarcs and a smart few families tie themselves to what power they have and jump with it tied around their waste. Drowning in the past.
Ilya knew better. Of course drug trafficking had always been a stable income and a business they continued to this day. He also knew about cyber crime. The basic stuff at first with a few fake rerouting websites for seniors to fall for. Then graduating to a phone center. Then taking over a major media studio to produce and farm misinformation porn to the masses to earn whatever revenue off the engagement. Cyber crime was much quieter than the loud brawls of the 1990s and still got the power the Rozanov's were feared for.
He also knew that recently the Japanese mob had lost a leader. While the rules were completely different and they were half a world away he had also heard murmurs of his favorite hockey stars relation the late great Yuna Hollander. She had been a very controversial promotion as an illegitimate daughter who had fled to Canada for half her life. Then suddenly old man Hollander kicks the bucket and Yuna is taking over.
With little news and seemingly little impact the first Woman, let alone alpha or omega to lead a mob in the country. He had always found some level of respect for her having hardly interacted. His father had traveled there years ago back when “mobs meant something” according to him. Ilya had come with as a young boy and the level of intention and pheromones she had had really humbled him. While he could hardly remember her face he could remember a photo of Shane Hollander on the wall with her civilian husband.
He wonders why she would want to give everything up for some rando and a bastard son only to come back. How stupid.
6 Months Later
Shane had become a hockey player under his dad’s guidance. His mom had left when he was 12 in the middle of the night with no note. Never an answer or anything to tell Shane that his dad and him weren’t the reason. He had presented in the middle of his first juniors on ice. He had felt a fever coming on and his father had been at the hotel bar and was less than helpful.
“Go in the bathroom and take care of it. I don't know kid how the fuck do you think I would know. You're an alpha now, just like your cunt of a mother so maybe she should have stuck around to help. Monsters together.”
He knew his dad hated him for driving his mom out the door. He knew he was a drunk and used the endless hockey stadiums as a reason to get beer cup stacks started and to fill his travel mugs with whiskey. He had no clue how to make up for that and sincerely hoped that the Stanley cup for his first pro season made it worth it.
As he sees his condo building fade into the skyline he knows it's really over. He knows that his dad won't see him again. He also knows he needs to find someone in Japan that cares for him. No one came and saw him in the hospital. No one showed up because they knew the truth, he was now useless. So sure. If he can't skate, why not have control over all of Japan's political ecosystem? Why not move to a country where he doesn’t speak the main language. And why not live in the place his mother actually left to hopefully find an answer to why the mob was of more value than his life.
2018
So Shane took the position. Ilya had hoped he would be willing so that there would be some excuse, some reason, anything to bring him to Japan. Since the news of Yuna's passing he had been obsessive online. Pumping news that his team had dropped him in the dust after news of psychotic break. Carefully planting drug scandals with a rehab photo of someone who could have won a Shane look-a-like context walking out of a rehab facility. AI bots flooding comment sections with hatred and accusations.
All the while as per tradition, the new boss is secluded from any outside contact for a year. Getting prepped, readied, meeting powerful leaders. All in a bubble with nothing but information overload to make sure this new boss is suitable without the world powers hearing much. Now the year was coming closed and Ilya had been itching for an invite the compound Shane had been stowed away in.
Due to some times with money laundering and the power structures the Russians had set up with various short term contracts, he was now “Inner-Circle” as personally requested by Shane. News had come that Shane had seen benefit for a short term agreement to be reached for a drug trafficking channel to be opened between the groups. The meeting would be in a month and Ilya would be ready.
A month Later
Ilyas Jet lands, he snorts one last line, kisses Svetlana goodbye as she hands him his pistol and deboards the plane feeling like god.
Shane sees him and soaks it all in. His new life had hardly set in but pieces of a future has begun to reveal itself. Women, drugs, money anything he wanted but with no one giving a fuck about who he was. His head had grown big. Hockey gave him self control but being the boss of a 10,000 member gang had given him strength. Learning combat and culture had been leaving little time for diplomacy. But with controlling policy and the police he had more pressing matters to focus on.
A little Russian group had caught his eye, led by one Ilya Rozanov. His lineage ran deep with mob ties but now with dwindling numbers and crack downs he had nothing. So why not see what he could milk out of the dying mother cow.
“Hello Ilya, so glad we could meet.”
Ilya nodded, “Da. I know it is great to meet the best hockey player not on the ice.”
"What?" The statement threw Shane off. The rest of the diplomats he had met had been somewhat understanding what power Shane had come into. While he obviously had a target on his bad no one had spoken to him like this. His senses were being spun out of whack with the smell of pure lust overwhelmed him. He paused to breathe when Ilya pulled a gun.
“Do you want to fucking die?”
As Shane's men pull their guns out of their holster, Ilya did something Shane would not have believed if he had not seen it himself. lya pulls the gun out, aims it at his own head, and asks “Do you want me too?"