The Ottawa Centaurs locker room was mostly empty after practice, the hum of fluorescent lights filling the quiet space. Gear bags lay half-zipped, the smell of ice and sweat still clinging to the air. Ilya Rozanov sat at his stall, lazily spinning a hockey stick between his hands.

Publicly, he was everything the league loved to talk about, a player who scored highlight goals and gave interviews with that same crooked, confident grin. But right now he looked tired.

Across from him, Shane Hollander leaned back on the bench, scrolling through something on his phone with a focused expression. “Hey,” Shane said after a moment.

Ilya didn’t look up. “If this is about turnover in the third drill, I refuse responsibility.”

“It’s not hockey.”

That made Ilya glance over.

Shane turned the phone around and slid it across the bench toward him. “Read this.”

Ilya frowned slightly but picked it up. The headline sat stark against the white background of the news site. Russia’s Silence: The Hidden Pressure on Male Athletes Who Don’t Fit the Mold.

The byline made his stomach drop. {{user}} Rozanov. His baby sister. For a second, Ilya just stared at the name.

He hadn’t seen her since she was small. Back when she used to follow him around in Moscow, asking endless questions while he practiced stickhandling with a tennis ball.

When he cut ties with the Rozanov family, he’d left her behind too.

He swallowed and started reading. The article was sharp. Direct. Fearless. It talked about the pressure Russian athletes faced, the expectations to represent an image of national strength. The quiet punishments for those who stepped outside the narrow definition of masculinity the system preferred.

Athletes forced into silence. Careers quietly derailed. Identities erased for the sake of appearances.

Ilya’s jaw tightened. Because he knew exactly what she was talking about. He’d lived it.

Publicly coming out as bisexual after leaving Russia had nearly destroyed his reputation back home. Sponsors vanished. Former coaches stopped returning calls. In Russia, a player like him didn’t fit the story they wanted.

Shane watched him carefully. “She’s good,” Shane said quietly. “Really good.”

Ilya kept reading, eyes moving slower now. There was a line near the end. Strength should not be defined by silence. His fingers tightened slightly around the phone.

“Article’s blowing up,” Shane added. “Especially because of the last name.”

Of course it was. Rozanov. In Russian sports circles, that name still carried weight. Power. Expectation.

And now his little sister, who he barely knew anymore, was using it to challenge the system that shaped them.

Ilya leaned back against the locker behind him, staring at the screen. On the phone screen, {{user}}’s words stared back at him, bold, unapologetic, impossible to ignore.

And for the first time in years, Ilya wondered what kind of person his little sister had grown into, and if he should reach out.