Chapter Text
Ilya’s past week had been difficult, and even Shane hadn’t been able to pull him out of it the way he usually did in recent years.
That Thursday, he finally decided enough was enough. He would leave the house and head to the gym, just to get his body moving again. He always had the option of using the one in their condo, but that wasn’t the point.
Shane hadn’t wanted to go with him, even though Ilya had said he didn’t mind the company.
“I think it’ll be good if I’m not hovering over you. I know I’ve been a bit intense these past few days.”
Ilya didn’t mind. Yes, sometimes it was a little overwhelming, the number of times Shane asked how he was feeling during these episodes. The way Shane watched him, even from across the room, how he followed him from the kitchen to their bedroom, as if letting Ilya out of his sight might make him disappear at any moment. But deep down, even with his mind drifting to darker places, he knew Shane did it because he cared. Because they loved each other and tried to be there for one another, especially in the hard moments.
Sometimes, the way they showed that care wasn’t the best, but the intentions were good.
“Oh, but I love it when you’re all over me,” Ilya said, his tone turning sensual. “And I know I haven’t been nearly intense enough.” As he said it, he backed Shane up against the wall, knocking him into it a little roughly. One hand came up to his neck and squeezed, not enough to cut off his breathing. And yet, when he kissed him, it was gentle, before resting their foreheads together and staying there for a moment.
“Hey,” Shane said, wrapping his arms around him and tracing circles along his back. “It’s okay. We’re okay. And you’re going to be okay too.”
Ilya knew Shane was probably right, that this episode would pass, like all the others before it. But deep down, he couldn’t help wondering when the last one would come. The final episode he wouldn’t be able to recover from and… No. He knew better than to follow that line of thought. His therapist had given him enough tools over the years to know it wasn’t healthy to imagine disastrous what-if scenarios. Besides, deep down, he knew he wasn’t at his lowest. It had lasted longer than usual, yes, but the fact that he already had the energy to leave the house meant the worst had passed.
Shane started to worry when Ilya didn’t respond, so he tried to lighten the mood a little.
“Besides, I’ve been pretty busy this past week. It’s been a while since I’ve watched some of the videos,” he joked.
And it worked.
Ilya pulled back slightly, causing Shane’s arms to slip from where they’d been around his back.
“Oh, is that so, Hollander?” he said, tightening his grip on Shane’s neck just a little more. “When I get back home, you’re going to tell me exactly how many orgasms you had over these past few days. And you better be ready for your punishment, depending on the answer.”
Shane had the nerve to smile a little, which made Ilya completely cut off his ability to breathe.
Their gazes had both darkened, but Shane’s arms remained at his sides, making no move to stop him, even as the seconds passed and Ilya kept his grip just as tight.
At some point, Shane’s smile had completely faded. He could feel his heartbeat pounding through his entire face, and for a moment, he wondered what would happen if Ilya didn’t let go this time. It should have scared him, the thought that he might not. That Ilya could probably suffocate him to death, and Shane wouldn’t even try to break free from his grip. But maybe it was because, deep down, he knew he would never do that to him. Was he naïve for thinking that?
Every time he thought about how much he loved Ilya, the feeling overwhelmed him. He had never believed anyone could love another person like that.
Suddenly, he felt tears slipping down his cheeks, and the sensation of them, mixed with the pounding in his face, started to make him uncomfortable, and yet he remained completely still.
The seconds kept passing, and it had been more than a minute now, right?
Just as he thought he was about to pass out, Ilya let go.
Instinctively, he brought his hands to his knees, breathing in desperately. Ilya stepped to the side to give him space and placed a hand at the back of his neck. When Shane’s breathing began to steady, Ilya started to move his thumb gently.
Shane wiped the traces of tears from his cheeks before slowly straightening up. When their eyes met again, Shane let out a soft sigh.
Ilya gave him the faintest smile before suddenly pulling him into a tight embrace, as if his life depended on it. “Oh, Solnyshko, I don’t deserve you.”
He would never stop being amazed by Shane’s submission and devotion. The way his gaze had turned soft and gentle, even when Ilya had been cruel enough to deny him air.
It had taken them years to get where they were, and their relationship and their dynamic had changed as much as they had over time. But Ilya still couldn’t understand how the love he felt for Shane only kept growing, and growing.
Nor could he explain, even if he wanted to, the dynamic he currently had with him.
It wasn’t that they had a 24/7 power exchange, but the ease with which Ilya slipped into a dominant role would have driven anyone else but Shane crazy.
It had taken years of conversations (once they had finally learned how to communicate), of discussing boundaries and respecting them, of sharing fantasies and bringing them to life.
It was almost absurd how perfectly they were made for each other, and how their only real hard limit was not involving third parties in their dynamic. Everything else was open for discussion.
“Of course you do” Shane replied.
They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms for a long while, until Ilya decided it was time to get moving, or he’d end up adding another day without leaving the house.
While Ilya took a shower, Shane focused on making breakfast and decided he’d use the morning to head into the city. They didn’t spend much time apart, especially after he’d retired from hockey as well, and he wanted to see if he could find a gift for Ilya with Christmas approaching.
..........
They went together into the city, and Ilya dropped Shane off near a shopping center before heading to his own destination.
He hadn’t expected to spend that much time at the gym.
Usually, an hour and a half was enough to get through his routine, maybe two if he took it easy and had a conversation or two, or fifty minutes if he really pushed himself and barely took breaks between sets when he was short on time, though that hardly ever happened anymore. Just a few brands have reached out to him now. A few interviews were offered, and even fewer were ones he accepted.
He had retired at thirty two, when he still had plenty of hockey left in him, but very little desire. That had been four years ago, and not once had he regretted the decision.
When he finished his usual routine and was about to text Shane to meet up and grab something to eat together, he realized he was still restless. It felt like all the energy from the week had come rushing back at once, and he didn’t want to leave yet. He didn’t even reach for his phone to let Shane know, he simply moved on to the next machine and kept going.
He didn’t want to think too much about what he was doing. Didn’t want to consider that maybe he was punishing his body because he didn’t know how to punish his mind for betraying him that past week. It was irrational, but Ilya knew he had never really been normal anyway.
His phone was on Do Not Disturb, but if Shane got worried and tried to reach him, his number would get through the filter anyway.
It wasn’t until his earbuds gave a low battery alert that he realized how long he’d been working out. They were old, he’d had them for almost four years, so the battery didn’t last as long anymore, but for them to be down to fifteen percent meant he’d been there for at least three hours.
He wiped the sweat from his face and decided it was time to text Shane to see if he was done with whatever he’d been doing, so he could pick him up, or just meet him wherever he was now.
When he finally picked up his phone, he frowned. Eight missed calls from Yuna. Five from David. A flood of messages from both of them telling him to call as soon as possible. Two missed calls from an unknown number.
His heart felt like it was about to burst. It hadn’t even been beating this fast while he was working out.
He knew he should call Yuna back. Or maybe David. But his finger went straight to Shane’s contact.
"We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service."
He tried again, even though he knew it wouldn’t change anything.
He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. Part of him didn’t want to call his in-laws back. Another part of him wanted to die right there, because it was obvious something had happened to Shane. His Shane.
Coward, a voice in his head said, and it was right. He allowed himself one more breath before quickly gathering his things, calling Yuna, and heading toward his car.
“Yuna,” was all he managed to say before she started bombarding him with questions. Where he was, if he was okay, if he was hurt. Only after Ilya confirmed that he was fine and at the gym did she give him all the information he needed.
“It’s Shane. He’s alive. We’re at TOH.”
Ilya yanked open the car door and threw everything he was carrying, except his phone, onto the passenger seat.
“I’m on my way,” he said, starting the engine. His phone connected automatically to the car’s Bluetooth, like it always did.
“Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?” Yuna asked gently, and Ilya’s eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them away.
He’s alive, she’d said — not he’s okay.
Ilya needed to stop being such a fucking coward and ask.
“What happened, Yuna? How is he?”
Yuna let out a shaky sigh. An irrational part of her wanted to demand that Ilya tell her where the hell he was and why he hadn’t been with Shane at the mall. She knew they couldn’t be glued together all the time, but still. She was angry that Ilya hadn’t answered when the hospital called, or when she did, or when David tried.
Another part of her wanted to hug him and tell him they had been worried about him all week, that just moments ago, they had been even more worried, thinking that if Shane was in the hospital, maybe Ilya was too, and that was why they couldn’t reach him. And she felt frustrated because she couldn’t say any of that.
Not when those thoughts had flashed through her mind in a split second and, the moment she knew Ilya was okay, all her attention had gone back to Shane.
“We don’t know what happened yet, but they found him in a bathroom at a shopping center. He was unconscious, so they called his emergency contacts as soon as he got to the hospital.”
They called you, but you didn’t answer, was what Yuna didn’t say, but Ilya heard it anyway.
“But he’s okay, right?” he said, more sharply than he intended, driving as fast as he could, ignoring every speed limit.
Yuna let out another sigh, her voice breaking on some of the words as she said, “I don’t know, they haven’t given me any more information yet. We haven’t been here long. We were on our way to the other house when we got the call, so we turned around, but we were already pretty far away, and it took us some time to come back.”
They had been on their way to their own cottage when her phone rang.
Yuna had thought the worst was behind them. She loved hockey, but she knew how dangerous it could be, so when her son had played his last game a few months ago and officially retired from the MHL, a part of her had felt relieved. They had received a couple of calls like this in previous years, though those had come from coaches. And usually they were already watching the game on TV or at the arena, so the calls weren’t even a surprise.
Strangely, she had never thought something could happen to her son off the ice. Not at his age, not with the healthy lifestyle he led. Not in a relatively safe city like that. And a treacherous part of her told her that wasn’t true. That sometimes she did think they might get a call like this, but from Shane’s neighbors, and she tried not to dwell on it.
Yuna stayed on the phone with Ilya, even though he never actually said whether he wanted her to or not. It was a comfort to both of them. Yuna felt like she was about to scream at someone. She felt helpless, unable to do anything but wait for more news about Shane.
Even when Ilya reached the hospital in nearly half the time it should have taken him, they didn’t hang up. He simply disconnected the phone from the Bluetooth, got out of the car, and went inside. They only ended the call when they saw each other, and both Yuna and David pulled Ilya into a hug.
“We were worried about you, son. At first, we thought something had happened to you too,” David told him, and no matter how much he blinked, this time, Ilya couldn’t hold back the tears running down his cheeks.
It wasn’t until two hours later that a doctor finally stepped into the waiting room and asked for the family of Shane Hollander-Rozanov.
A few heads turned, and Ilya could have hit him right then. As much as he was desperate to get the information as soon as possible, he knew the room’s attention had somehow shifted toward them. Shane hadn’t been retired for long, so his name still drew a lot of attention, and Ilya was certain everything would become public if they discussed it there.
Fortunately, the doctor seemed to realize, because he cleared his throat and, after glancing around, asked them to follow him.
The room they entered was small, with an exam table on one side, a desk with a computer, and two chairs facing each other. The doctor sat down, but no one took the seat across from him, even though both of them insisted that Yuna should sit. Ilya felt… not calmer exactly, but no longer on the edge of a cliff like before. He liked to think he was good at reading people, and this doctor didn’t look like someone about to deliver the worst news in the world. But then he wondered if maybe the man was simply desensitized after seeing so much in this hospital, and the wave of anxiety about Shane’s condition came rushing back just as strong.
“He’s stable, but his condition is delicate,” the doctor began, and Ilya forced himself to focus on the word stable instead of the other.
“He didn’t lose that much blood, but he does have a cut on his head, and it’s deep. He also has a concussion. What concerns us is that, given Mr. Hollander-Rozanov’s line of work, this isn’t his first one, and he didn’t respond the way we would have expected, both with the paramedics at the scene and here at the hospital. The bruising on his body is extensive, but fortunately, there are no broken ribs or other bones, and no internal bleeding…”
Ilya stopped listening at that point. He moved to lean back against the exam table, bracing one hand on it and dragging the other over his face.
Shane had another concussion. That fucking beautiful head of his.
A few days after retiring, he had told him that now that he had the time, he would have liked to try another contact sport, something like MMA, just as a hobby, but after looking into it he realized how dangerous it could be because of the risk of concussions. So he had given up the idea, only to end up with another goddamn concussion anyway.
Ilya didn’t know how much time had passed, but he felt a hand on his shoulder and realized David was beside him, and that Yuna and the doctor were already leaving the room.
“We can see him now,” David said when he noticed Ilya had missed the last part of the conversation.
On the way to Shane’s room, he tried to focus on the present. He had to keep it together.
When he and David caught up with Yuna, they talked about the other details that mattered now that they knew Shane’s current condition.
“I don’t think anyone should sign an NDA,” he told her, though there was doubt in his tone, and she nodded. He was in a private room, so that part was already taken care of. Ilya kept wondering what had happened to Shane in that bathroom for him to end up like this, and once again, he tried to stop his mind from conjuring the worst possible scenarios. He knew he should be thinking about something else, but he couldn’t figure out what. His head had already been a mess before this, and it was hard to think clearly.
When they finally reached the room where the love of his life lay, Ilya opened the door as quickly as he could without making much noise and moved toward the bed where Shane was propped up.
He didn’t realize he was crying again until a few drops fell onto Shane’s hospital gown, and he stared for a moment, watching the fabric absorb his pain.
He cupped his face gently, brushing his thumb over his favorite freckles. Some came and went with the weather, depending on how much time Shane spent in the sun, but over the years, Ilya had learned that his favorite constellations always remained.
Yuna and David had moved to the other side of the bed. David was crying too, and Yuna’s heart tightened as she watched her husband take their son’s hand with such care.
“ Solnyshko,” she heard Ilya say, with a devotion and a depth of love that made her glance at him for a moment.
Her relationship with Ilya was complicated, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
At first, she had accepted him with open arms, after the initial shock, of course. They were in love, and you’d have to be blind not to see it. She had learned to see her son’s rival as another son. Even now, she sometimes found herself talking to Irina about him, something she would never admit to anyone.
But after they found out about the relationship, the years went by, and she started noticing strange things. Bruises or marks that didn’t look like hockey injuries at all, and very much like finger marks. Or something else. The places were strange too, and it didn’t help that it always seemed to happen when they weren’t expecting to see her or David. Especially during the summers, when they would practically lock themselves away in their cottage for weeks without seeing anyone, and she and her husband would show up unannounced.
The first time had been accidental, but Yuna found herself doing it on purpose the next few times.
She didn’t talk about it with anyone except her husband.
A part of her wanted to ask Hayden, who spent far more time with him than she did, and who saw Shane’s body almost daily in the locker room, but she had no idea how to even approach the subject.
So she decided to look things up online, and of course, she started paying closer attention.
There were little things, like how sometimes, with just a glance from Ilya at Shane’s plate, and then at him, Shane would stop pushing his food around and actually eat. It was good, but it was… strange.
The marks kept appearing out of nowhere, on his neck, on his wrists, but it was never a black eye or any kind of truly serious injury.
When Shane told her one day that he was thinking about retiring, he had just turned thirty, and it was the first time Yuna openly asked him if Ilya was pressuring him into making that decision. It ended in an argument, one that brought up other unresolved issues between them that had never been discussed, and she didn’t see either Shane or Ilya for three weeks. During that time, Shane barely replied to her messages, while Ilya responded as usual. She had read about how an abusive partner might try to isolate and control someone, and it made sense that Ilya would try to do that, but in the end, it was Ilya who retired first.
She wasn’t proud of some of the things she had done, but he was her son, damn it. So she found herself casually but unexpectedly touching Shane, raising her voice, or making sudden movements near him, just to see if he would react in any unusual way. But she never really saw anything that matched what she had read.
Yuna brought it up again with Shane during that time, but it ended in another argument. “You know him. I don’t know how you can think he would do something like that to me,” was the last thing he said to her that time, and he pulled away again, for almost two months. Ilya kept replying to her as usual, and during both of those periods, Yuna didn’t know how to ask him for pictures of Shane without sounding crazy. She didn’t know how to ask him to include something that would show the date, so she could be sure the photos were recent.
David spoke to Shane a third time. Yuna never knew exactly what was said, but it didn’t end in a fight, just with David telling her he believed everything was fine and that she shouldn’t keep worrying.
Then came the other period, when Ilya retired, but Shane was still playing. Yuna and David were able to spend much more time with Ilya.
During one of their first outings without Shane in that time, she asked him bluntly if he wanted her son to retire soon as well, testing the waters, but Ilya simply shrugged. “I would never interfere with Shane’s career at all. That’s his decision.” He sounded so sincere that she had no choice but to believe him.
It didn’t help that Ilya was so charismatic. When Shane had to travel for several days, sometimes Ilya stayed with them. During those days, he helped her with the garden, did puzzles with David, and cooked meals from his home country for them. When Shane played in the city, they went to his games together.
Every time they were in the same room with her, Yuna kept observing, but she couldn’t reach a conclusion. Or rather, she did. She kept coming back to the same one: that Ilya would sooner hurt himself than do anything to Shane. But because it didn’t fit the narrative she had built in her head, she kept watching.
Ilya was jealous, but she had never seen him make a real scene in front of them. He hadn’t liked Hayden at first, but she had never seen him try to separate her son from his best friend. Ilya was attentive to Shane. He knew how to calm him during his anxiety attacks, something she had never been able to do, and if there was one thing Yuna didn’t doubt, it was the love he felt for her son. But she still wondered how healthy that love really was.
And then there were moments like this, in the hospital, when she saw Ilya look at her Shane as if his whole life began and ended with him, and she questioned whether she had misunderstood everything.
Even so, Yuna told herself she would never stop watching, especially in this new stage, when they would both be retired and spend less time in the public eye.
..........
The first time Shane woke up, it was only for a few seconds. He repeated Ilya’s name a couple of times and then passed out again.
The second time, only Ilya was in the room.
“Ilya…” he said, his voice rough.
“Shh, Solnyshko, it’s okay, I’m here.”
But Shane tried to say more, and Ilya couldn’t understand him. “You… Ilya… You have…” and then he lost consciousness again.
The third time he woke up, Ilya and David were both in the room.
“Ilyaaa…” Shane said again, this time much more aware. He sounded almost happy as he said his name, and Ilya nearly collapsed with relief.
“I was gonna ask you…” Shane said, and for a moment, Ilya felt himself pulled back to another hospital, years ago. To cheer him up, he said, “Of course I’ll go with you to the cottage this summer."
Shane smiled for a moment, and Ilya wondered if he was thinking the same thing, but then he frowned. “No, no, Ilya, my phone. I was going to ask you about my phone. You have to block it. Ilya, the videos. You have to block it,” and the machine connected to Shane began to beep faster as he tried to sit up and pull out the IV in his arm.
“Okay, shh, it’s okay, Solnyshko, it’s done, it’s okay,” Ilya said, trying to keep his face calm to soothe him, gently holding his wrists to keep him from hurting himself, while inside his head, he was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Of course, it wasn’t done. They had told them they would return all of Shane’s belongings later, but that hadn’t happened yet, and Ilya had assumed Shane’s phone, along with his wallet and his ring, were there. Ilya’s phone was still on DND, and he hadn’t bothered to check it, since the most important person was right there in the room with him, and all he had done for the past few hours was watch Shane.
By some miracle, Ilya managed to calm Shane by telling him everything was fine, and when he fell asleep again, the first thing Ilya did was pull his phone out of his pocket.
“What videos, Ilya,” David asked, his tone filled with concern, but Ilya couldn’t deal with that right now. He was never putting his phone on Do Not Disturb again.
He had more notifications than when he’d checked his phone at the gym. Transactions made with the card from their shared account, alerts to change his email passwords. Shit, shit, shit.
“Ilya…” David said again, more demanding this time, making him finally look up.
Videos of us that are going to make you look at me differently. Videos that might make you hate me. Videos that could ruin everything.
His throat went dry.
And maybe… send me to prison.
“We’ll talk later, David,” Ilya said, and for a moment, the man looked taken aback by his tone.
David wasn’t stupid. Of course he could guess what kind of videos Shane was talking about. It didn’t help that he might know a little too much about his son’s sex life.
When Yuna had become fixated on the idea that Ilya was mistreating Shane, he started paying closer attention to the details, even though it wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed them before.
But in the end, he decided to simply talk to Shane. They could speculate all they wanted, but even if it were all true and Ilya was abusive toward his son, with the almost nonexistent evidence they had, there was nothing they could do unless Shane reported it himself. And to give him the confidence to make that decision, they needed to be receptive.
The conversation went well, better than the ones Yuna had had. Though at some point, David held back from making a face when he told him it was okay if they argued sometimes. He kept his expression as neutral as possible when he said that all couples had their differences. That sometimes things got physical, but it didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. That he understood.
All of it was meant to get Shane to open up to him, but all their son did was look horrified and say that wasn’t okay, and that as much as he was his father, he hoped that wasn’t the case with him and Yuna, because there would be consequences if it was. David only sighed, and the conversation improved from there, because although he ended up knowing more than he wanted about his son’s private life, everything made sense to him when Shane had explained.
The point was that having all the information he knew about his sons, because yes, he absolutely considered Ilya his son too, didn’t help with the fact that now, on top of everything else, he also knew there were videos.
And that Shane’s phone had apparently been stolen. With those videos. Oh god...
........
Ilya left the room for the first time in hours. He froze both of their bank accounts, changed Shane’s social media passwords, and his own as well, just in case. He tried to recover Shane’s email passwords that had been changed, but he couldn’t regain access to his iCloud account. While doing all of that, it was impossible not to think about the videos Shane had on his phone. It was wrong. He didn’t want anyone, ever, to see Shane like that. But then he imagined what the people who had stolen and beaten his husband might do.
The worst-case scenario was that they would post the videos online. Within that, the best outcome would be porn sites. The worst would be Twitter. The worst of the worst, Twitter with hashtags of their names.
The best-case scenario was that they would try to extort them. It was still a bad scenario, but nothing like Twitter. The best of the best-case scenarios was that nothing would happen at all, that somehow they simply wouldn’t notice what was there, or wouldn’t care. But Ilya knew his entire lifetime of luck had already been used up the moment Shane entered his life, when they became exclusive, when another video of them was made public and the world didn’t end, when they got married. The luck of at least three lifetimes had been spent by having Shane by his side, so he had to act quickly for everyone’s sake.
After doing what he could with the accounts, he moved on to their Twitter and Instagram. He really didn’t want to, but he started searching for any recent messages asking for money or any real threat in them.
When he found nothing there, he searched their names on every site he could think of, but nothing unusual came up.
Finally, he decided to call one of his lawyers. They each had their own, and that hadn’t changed over the years, even though they had shared an agent when they were still playing. When something legal involved Shane or him, the four of them would simply meet together. He didn’t think it was necessary to call Farah, but maybe he needed to talk to Harris about what to do if all the material on Shane’s phone ended up online.
One step at a time, Ilya told himself, and called Shane’s lawyer instead of his own.
“Mr. Hollander-Rozanov, good evening,” she said in a formal but friendly tone.
“We have a problem,” Ilya said, forgetting his manners.
“That’s fine. Is Shane there as well? Am I on speaker?”
“Shane is… not here,” he said, not sure how he was going to explain any of this.
“Okay,” she said, her tone doubtful, but she simply waited for him to continue.
“They stole his phone. There are videos on it. Of us. Nothing is online yet, but it’s… I don’t know what to do, Emil.” He couldn’t even pretend to be composed.
“Ilya,” Emil said then, in a tone that was meant to calm him but somehow did the opposite. “You know that at the end of the day, Shane is my client…”
“We’re at the hospital. Shane is unconscious. I’m… I need your help with this. I don’t know if I should be doing something else.” And then Ilya explained what he had done so far.
“That’s good. That’s perfect. You also need to block the number through the carrier, not just the phone itself. What time was the report filed? There’s a 99% chance the bank will cover the transactions made by the attackers, especially if the report was filed before they were made.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what happened. Shane has been waking up in and out, and just a few seconds ago he managed to tell me his phone had been stolen. I wasn’t even paying attention to mine.”
“Okay. Let me look into this and I’ll call you back with what I find. You’ll probably want to contact a PR specialist who handles crisis management in case the videos come out. If Shane agrees, I can handle the legal side, since distributing sensitive material is a crime, as well as a violation of privacy, among other things.”
Ilya knew he had to say it now or never. He would have preferred having the conversation in person, but there was no way he was leaving his husband alone in the hospital.
“There’s something else… about the videos.” God, Ilya hated how unsure his voice sounded.
“Mhm,” the woman replied, waiting for him to continue.
“Some of them are… private.” Apparently, there was no limit to his stupidity. Of course they were private, he had already implied that earlier. “But that’s not all,” he forced himself to go on. “There are… especially one or two that could be misinterpreted. Like…”
His English hadn’t failed him in years, and of course, it chose the worst possible moment. He decided to just get it over with.
“If someone sees them, they could misinterpret them,” he said again, then added, “it might look a little violent. Or like it isn’t consensual.”
“In that case, I would strongly recommend not discussing this over the phone with me and consulting your lawyer instead.”
Ilya had to give her credit. Her voice didn’t waver for even a second. It didn’t even sound annoyed.
“No, that’s not true,” he defended himself, even though Emil hadn’t actually accused him of anything. “It was consensual. All of it. All the videos, but they aren’t complete, they were just clips on Shane’s phone, they’re taken out of context.” He hoped it didn’t sound as bad out loud as it did in his head.
“Ilya, you really need to speak with your lawyer about this.”
“But wouldn’t that make it look like I’m guilty? If they get leaked. If I get legal advice now, even before anything comes out…” And there it was. The real reason Ilya had called Shane’s lawyer instead of his own.
Emil let out a sigh. The first real reaction to everything happening.
“But you’re already seeking legal advice from me,” she pointed out. “We shouldn’t be discussing this in case those videos become public and Shane wants me to be his lawyer during that process.”
Ilya didn’t want to ruin Shane’s ability to have Emil represent him, so he let out a resigned sound. And she was right, he was already trying to get legal guidance from Shane’s lawyer so it wouldn’t look as bad if everything ended up online.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Okay. Can you still call me if you find anything?”
“Of course. But Ilya, when Shane wakes up I think he should be the one to contact me from now on.”
“Okay,” was all Ilya managed to say again.