They Thought I Was Weak, I Am Their Only Hope novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Flag on the Floor
Gregor Vasko tears down the Anvils flag while his son livestreams Mara as a useless rich girl, and Mara signs the emergency roster form herself. Vasko dares her to show up at a televised open skate.
Our team flag had slid off the locker room wall, and Gregor Vasko was the one who picked it up.
He shook the dust out of it and held it out to my father with a warm smile.
"Heavy old thing," he said. "Here, Aldo. Take it back."
My father stood with his hands open at his sides and did nothing.
Vasko waited, shrugged, and let the flag drop to the floor.
That was the part that scared me.
I was by the door with an iced coffee and my mother's grey case between my feet.
The case was locked, and I had carried it everywhere since the day she died.
In the whole year I had lived in my father's house, he had never asked what was in it.
My oldest brother was already up off the bench.
My middle brother sat with his right leg out in a cast, because somebody had put him down a flight of stairs three weeks ago.
"Get out of our room," my oldest brother said.
Vasko smiled at him.
He owned the rival team, and he had hated my father for longer than I had been alive.
My oldest brother was Paolo, and the one in the cast was Luca.
"Look at this," Vasko said. "Twenty-two years, Aldo, and look what's left of the great Brescias."
He pointed at Luca's cast.
He pointed at Paolo's taped ribs from last week's beating.
Then he pointed at me.
"And the daughter you finally dug up. A rich little decoration who can't even hold a stick."
Behind him, his son Lev lifted a phone.
Lev played for him, and he streamed everything.
"We're live," Lev said to it. "Say hi to the Brescia family, everybody."
The comments came up so fast the screen blurred.
Lev turned the phone on me.
"That's her. The famous long-lost daughter. The one who ate cannoli on the news while her brothers did the interview."
He laughed, and the phone shook.
"Tell me she's not the worst thing that ever happened to this team."
I looked at my coffee.
It was too sweet.
Next time I would ask for it unsweetened.
"She's drinking coffee," Lev told his audience. "Her whole family's about to lose everything and she's drinking coffee."
Paolo crossed the room and went for the phone.
"You do not film my sister."
Lev stepped back, and a Harbor Kings player I had never seen shoved Paolo in the chest with both hands.
Paolo hit the bench and the bench hit me.
The cup flew out of my hand and burst across the floor.
I looked at the cup.
Then I looked up at Lev for the first time.
His hair was pale blond and thick, and I had only ever seen him with none.
A year ago, in a closed bakery in Allston, a man with a clean-shaved scalp had shouted that he would beat Ghost one-on-one.
He lost in under four minutes.
He had promised to shave his head if he lost, and he did, on a folding chair, while forty people laughed.
That was Lev Vasko.
Nobody in the room knew I had spent ten years on illegal rinks in a black visor, and that down there they called me Ghost.
Not my brothers.
Not my father.
I had told myself I was done with all of that when I came home.
Vasko turned to my father.
"Opening night is Saturday, Aldo. Your star forward is in a cast and your captain can't lift his arm."
"We'll field a team," my father said.
"With whom?" Vasko said. "The league closes the roster at midnight. Put a legal forward on the ice by the first puck or hand me the points and the franchise."
Nobody answered him.
Luca pushed himself up on his crutches.
"I can still play," he said, and put his weight on the cast.
His face went white and he sat back down.
Paolo was holding his ribs.
My father looked at both of them, and for a second he looked old.
"Aldo, put the daughter in," Vasko said. "Let the whole league watch her."
Lev laughed again, and the comments rolled on, and a hundred thousand people were watching my family stand on its own flag.
I stood up.
"Dad," I said. "Where's the emergency roster form?"
He looked at me.
"No."
"The bylaws say the owner can sign any player in when a forward is injured. I read them last night."
I had.
I had not been able to sleep.
"Mara, you can't skate three laps," Paolo said.
"I'll do four."
"She's serious," Lev told the phone. "Oh, this is gold."
I walked up to Vasko and stopped close enough to smell his cologne.
"Anyone who wants to play me," I said, "should pick out a hospital room first."
The room went quiet.
Then Vasko laughed so hard he had to put a hand on the wall.
Lev's comments filled with laughing faces.
Paolo said my name again.
My father took the clipboard off its hook and held it a long moment.
"If I sign this," he said, "I can't take it back."
"I know," I said.
He signed.
His pen hand shook, and he did not look at the grey case once.
Vasko did.
He looked at it for a long time, and the smile on his face changed.
"Ten a.m. tomorrow, the Garden," he said. "Open skate, every camera in town."
He stepped over our flag on his way out.
"Bring your skates, sweetheart. Nobody's going to carry you."
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