Chapter 5 The Carter House Rules

Author's POV

"You call this a report card, or a joke?"

Richard Carter did not even look up from the paper in his hand. He just slid it across the long dinner table, straight toward Ethan, like it was something dirty he did not want to touch anymore.

Ethan picked it up slowly. He already knew what was on it. He did not need to read it again.

"It's not that bad," he said.

"Not that bad." Richard finally looked at him, his eyes cold, his voice flat. "Two C's and a D, Ethan. A D. Carter men do not get D's."

"Carter men also don't play hockey," Ethan muttered. "But here I am."

"Do not be smart with me."

The dining room went quiet. A servant came in to pour water and left again without a sound, like she knew better than to stay in the room when Richard Carter had that exact tone in his voice.

"I am captain of the team," Ethan said. "We are undefeated. Doesn't that count for something?"

"It counts on the ice," Richard said. "It means nothing in a boardroom. And one day, that is where you will be sitting. Not on skates. Behind a desk, with my name on the door, and people watching every move you make, waiting for you to fail." He leaned back in his chair. "Carter men do not fail. We win. On the ice. In business. Everywhere. There is no room for anything less."

Ethan looked down at his plate. He was not hungry anymore.

He wanted to say that hockey was the only place he ever felt like himself, not a name stitched onto a company letterhead, not somebody's future employee before he had even graduated high school. But he knew saying that out loud would only make things worse. His father did not want to hear about feelings. His father wanted results.

"I heard about your little tutoring arrangement," Richard said, changing the subject like he was bored of the first one. "The scholarship girl."

Ethan's head came up fast. "Gabriella."

"Whatever her name is." Richard waved a hand like it did not matter. "Just make sure this does not turn into some public embarrassment. The last thing this family needs is our name attached to a failing student who cannot even pass basic algebra."

"She's actually a good tutor," Ethan said, surprising himself a little with how fast he defended her.

Richard raised an eyebrow. "Is she?"

"She's smart. Smarter than most people at that school."

"I do not care how smart she is," Richard said. "I care that you pass your classes and keep this family's name out of the tabloids. Do not embarrass me, Ethan. That is all I ask."

"That is all you ever ask," Ethan said quietly, standing up from the table before his father could say anything else. "Can I go now?"

Richard did not answer. He had already picked up his phone, scrolling through something, like the conversation had ended the second he stopped being interested in it.

Ethan walked out of the dining room and up the stairs, his shoulders tight, his jaw clenched. By the time he got to his room, he was still thinking about the way Gabriella had looked at him in study hall. 

The way she had not backed down. The way she had told him straight to his face that she had two jobs and a sick father waiting at home, and she still showed up on time.

Nobody talked to him like that. Not his teammates. Not the girls at school. Not even his own father, who only talked to him like he was a name on a spreadsheet, something that needed managing.

Gabriella talked to him like he was just a person. Like he was equal to her, not above her, not below her. Just equal.

He was still thinking about it when his phone buzzed on the bed.

Vanessa.

‘Heard you got "assigned" a tutor lol. Want me to handle her for you?’

Ethan stared at the message for a second before typing back.

‘Leave it alone, Vanessa.’

He waited. The three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then nothing.

She did not respond.

And that even bothered him more than if she had argued. Vanessa always argued. Vanessa always had something to say. The silence felt like a warning, like she was already planning something and just did not feel like telling him about it.

He set the phone down and stared at the ceiling for a long time, wondering if he should text Gabriella a warning of his own. Then he decided against it. She probably would not even want to hear from him outside of tutoring hours.

---

Downstairs, after Ethan's door had closed, Richard Carter walked into his private office and shut the door behind him.

He pulled out a second phone, the one he never let anyone touch, not even his assistant, and dialed a number he knew by heart.

"It's me," he said when the call connected. "Talk to me about the merger timeline."

A voice on the other end said something Ethan would never hear, would never know about, not yet.

"No," Richard said, his voice low. "That is not fast enough. I want it locked down before the end of the month." He walked to the window, looking out over the city lights below. "And the Walker file. It needs to be gone. Completely gone. Before anyone starts asking questions again."

Silence for a moment while the other person spoke.

"I don't care how you do it," Richard said. "Shred it, burn it, delete it, I do not care. That file cannot exist once the merger is done. Do you understand me?"

He listened again, his jaw tight, his eyes cold in the reflection of the window glass.

"Good," he said finally. "Because if that girl finds out even a piece of what is in there, it is not just the company that falls. It is everything."

He hung up the phone and stood there for a long moment, staring at his own reflection, at the city behind it, at the empire he had spent years building on top of something he had buried a long time ago.

Somewhere upstairs, his son had no idea any of this conversation had just happened.

Somewhere across the city, a girl with his father's ruined name still hanging over her family had no idea either.

But the file existed. And Richard Carter had just made it very clear.

It was not staying buried much longer if he had anything to say about it.