The Defenceman (Dman4)
Copyright© 2025 by Cold Creek Tribute Writer
Book 3 - DFMan Recap
Coming of Age Story: Book 3 - DFMan Recap - Building on Cold Creek's Dman3, Michael Steward rises from Olympic triumph into a world of honor, ambition, and peril. Between hockey, modeling, and his AI venture, he is drawn into battles across London, Japan, and Spain. Surrounded by allies, haunted by rivals, and entangled in the drama of women who shape his path, Michael’s journey is one of resilience, loyalty, and unexpected love.
Caution: This Coming of Age Story contains strong sexual content, including Romantic Celebrity Sports Interracial White Female Oriental Female White Couple Royalty
Michael Stewart’s life after his first year at Michigan had already been full of contradictions: the quiet student and AI coder who doubled as a fashion model, the hockey player balancing classes and dojo training. But nothing prepared him for what would follow when the world began to see him not just as a promising defenseman, but as a young man whose courage stretched far beyond the ice.
When Michael landed in New York, he thought his trip was about modeling contracts and maybe catching up with friends. Instead, a representative of the British Council was waiting. Their words struck him harder than any body check: the Queen’s granddaughter had gone missing. She’d vanished during her modelling internship, and whispers pointed to human traffickers operating in the city.
The Council admitted official channels moved too slowly. They needed someone discreet, courageous, and connected to the modelling world as time was of the essence. Against his instincts to say no, Michael agreed to help. He reached out to Mr. Carroll, whose ties in both the fashion and business world opened doors in the shadows. Mr. Carroll’s connections drew Michael into the underbelly of New York, far from the bright lights of the runway.
What he discovered chilled him. The missing women weren’t dead, not yet. They were being held, treated as property. The only way to extract them without sparking a massacre was unthinkable: Michael had to buy them. With cold fury, he played the part, paying to free them, his disgust hidden under the mask of arrogance and indifference to their suffering. The women were saved from sexual exploitation and delivered to Michael’s waiting car, but Michael carried the weight of every dollar exchanged and for the women he could not save.
The Queen responded swiftly. SAS teams raided the ring overnight and the remaining captives were saved. Unfortunately, some gang members slipped away and discovered Michael’s involvement.
The next day, not far from the British Embassy, they came for him. A sudden ambush, knives flashing in the morning light. Michael fought with desperation, every strike of his fists and kicks sharpened by dojo training, until he staggered away bloodied but alive. The world thought he was just a hockey player; the truth was he was now a marked man.
The Queen’s advisors placed Michael under the guard of an MI6 agent. At first, it felt like safety. But the agent carried a secret: her sister had also been taken. Desperation turned protector into betrayer. Michael realized too late that he was the bargaining chip, offered in exchange for her sister’s life.
He agreed anyway. He swapped places with the agent’s sister and strapped on the suicide vest that she had been wearing. His gamble bought the sister’s freedom. When the trafficker’s attention was divided, Michael lunged and struck the captor in the throat, disabling his captor and tearing away the detonator. The explosion never came. He walked away alive, but the near-death choice experience once again put him in the Queen’s sights. Honor, sacrifice, survival. They weren’t abstract ideas anymore — they were scars.
Weeks after saving Kim Yamamoto from the traffickers an unusual meeting happened at the Matsuda family restaurant. Mr. Kenji Yamamato, a very successful industrialist and close business partner of the Matsuda family, approached Michael to thank him for saving his daughter. Mr. Yamamoto presented him with a pair of priceless samurai swords. To Michael, they were too much, relics of centuries, not meant for a student. But Yamamoto bowed and insisted: in Japan, gratitude of that magnitude could not be denied. Reluctantly, Michael accepted. He would carry them forward, never forgetting that they were more than weapons; they were trust.
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