Chapter 1: The Champion’s First Gift
The door hissed open on well-oiled hinges, and the attendants brought her in. They weren’t gentle. Her bare feet scuffed on the polished concrete floor, and she flinched when one’s grip tightened on her upper arm. She was wrapped in a sheer silver robe, something a sponsor had probably chosen, and it did nothing to hide the map of bruises on her skin or the way her body vibrated with a silent, sustained terror.
Andrey Volkov set his book down on the leather arm of his chair. The movement was deliberate, calm. He didn’t stand up. He just looked, and the two men in their sharp suits froze where they were.
“Let her go,” he said. His voice was a low rumble, the sound of stones grinding deep underground.
They released her arms as if her skin had burned them. She stumbled forward a step, her eyes fixed on the geometric pattern of the rug, her arms wrapped tight around herself. The robe gaped. She smelled of sponsor-cigars and cloying, expensive perfume, layered over the sharper scent of fear-sweat.
Andrey rose then. He was a huge man, all controlled power, but he moved with an unnerving quietness. He crossed the room, his shadow falling over her. She didn’t look up. Her breathing hitched, going shallow and quick.
He didn’t touch her. He walked to the oversized walnut armoire, pulled out one of his own shirts—a simple, soft button-down in dark grey cotton. He returned and held it out, letting it unfold between his hands.
“Put this on,” he said, not a command, but an offering.
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then, her eyes flickered up to the shirt, to his face, and back down. Her fingers, trembling badly, fumbled with the thin belt of the robe. She couldn’t get the knot loose. Andrey waited. Finally, with a choked sound of frustration, she let the robe fall in a whisper to the floor.
The bruises were worse than he’d guessed from a distance. Finger-shaped marks on her biceps, the bloom of yellow-purple along her ribcage, a scrape on her collarbone. Alexander’s work. Alexander, who had lost to him last night in the main event, his tenth successful title defense. The fight had been clean, technical. Andrey had noticed the slight hesitation in Alexander’s guard in the third round, the opening that wasn’t really an opening unless you wanted it to be.
He threw the fight.
The realization had settled in Andrey’s gut later, in the quiet after the roar. Alexander hadn’t said a word, just spat blood on the canvas and nodded once, deeply, before the medics came. He’d meant well, as best he could. He was a brutal man living a brutal life, and his way of showing concern was to ensure she went to someone who wouldn’t break her completely. But his hands were tools for breaking. He kept hurting her without meaning to.
Nadya Romanova. Former princess. Current prisoner. A prize. A status symbol.
She finally took the shirt, her movements jerky. She pulled it on, fighting with the sleeves that swallowed her hands whole. She looked drowned in it, a ghost in grey cotton, but some of the terrible tension in her shoulders eased a fraction once the fabric settled around her.
Andrey turned to the attendants, who were still hovering by the door like vultures waiting for scraps. “Get out.”
“Mr. Volkov, the Manager said we were to ensure the transfer was—”
“It’s done,” Andrey interrupted, his tone leaving no room. “Tell him she’s here. Tell him nothing else. Go.”
They went. The door sealed shut with a definitive thunk, leaving a sudden, vast silence in the suite. The only sounds were the faint hum of the city thirty stories below and Nadya’s ragged breathing.
Andrey didn’t always talk much. But he wanted to be clear with Nadya.
He walked to the kitchenette, a sleek expanse of black marble. He ran a glass of water, then opened a small medical kit he kept in a drawer. He carried both back to the seating area and set them on the low table between the deep leather sofas.
“Sit,” he said, nodding to the sofa across from his chair.
She stood frozen for a beat, then shuffled forward and perched on the very edge of the cushion, as if ready to bolt. She kept her gaze lowered, a curtain of dark hair hiding her profile.
Andrey sat in his chair again, the worn leather creaking under his weight. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, making himself smaller. “Look at me.”
It took a long time. Her eyes, when they finally rose to meet his, were the colour of winter twilight, wide and hollow with exhaustion. There was intelligence there, though, sharp and observing, peering out from the wreckage.
“My name is Andrey,” he said. “This is my space. You are in it. As long as you are here, no one will touch you without your permission. Not the attendants, not a sponsor, not me. Do you understand?”
She stared. He wasn’t sure if she believed him. He didn’t blame her.
“You need to drink,” he said, nudging the glass of water toward her. “Then I need to clean that scrape on your collarbone. It will get infected.”
He sat back, giving her room. For a full minute, he thought she might not move at all. Then, with a tremble that made the water shimmer, she reached out and took the glass. She drank in small, desperate sips, her eyes closing briefly. She drained it.
“Good,” Andrey said. He soaked a piece of gauze in antiseptic from the kit. The sterile, bitter smell cut through the room’s notes of leather and old paper. “This will sting.”
He moved slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. When he dabbed at the raw patch on her collarbone, she stiffened, a sharp inhale hissing through her teeth, but she didn’t retreat. Her skin was cold. He worked quickly, with a clinical efficiency learned from tending his own countless wounds. He placed a clean pad over it and taped it down.
“There,” he said, leaning back. “That’s all.”
She was still watching him, that searching look in her eyes. She was in bad shape, sick with fear and whatever else they’d put her through. But she was here now. Andrey just did his best to take good care of her, even though she was so sick and scared. It was all he knew how to do in this place.
He pointed to the long, upholstered bench under the window. “That pulls out into a bed. The blankets are in the trunk at its foot. The bathroom is through that door. Everything in it is for you to use.” He paused. “Are you hungry?”
A barely perceptible shake of her head. No.
“Okay.” He picked up his book again, a signal that the intensity of the attention was over. “The room is yours as much as it is mine. Do what you need to do.”
He pretended to read, his eyes on the same paragraph, not taking in a word. He listened to the rustle of fabric as she finally curled up on the sofa, pulling her knees to her chest inside the enormous shirt. He listened to her breathing gradually deepen, the sharp edges of panic slowly wearing down to sheer fatigue.
Later, when the neon from the streets below painted shifting blue and red lines across the floor, he heard a sound. A whisper, so faint he thought he imagined it.
He looked over. Her head was tilted against the back of the sofa, her face turned toward the window. She was asleep, or close to it. But one of her hands had uncurled from its defensive knot and rested palm-up on the cushion beside her, open and vulnerable.
It wasn’t much. But it was a start.
But it was a start.
The hours bled into each other, marked only by the slow crawl of light around the edges of the heavy drapes. Andrey didn’t sleep. He dozed in the chair, a half-aware state where every shift of fabric or sigh from the sofa registered. He heard her get up once, a whispered shuffle across the floor to the bathroom. The door clicked shut. A long silence, then the sound of the shower running on the lowest setting for a very long time.
When she emerged, her hair was dark with dampness, her face scrubbed raw. She’d put the grey shirt back on. She paused, seeing him awake in the chair, and froze like a animal caught in a beam of light.
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice gravelly with disuse. “Whatever you need.”
She slipped back to the sofa, a faint scent of his own sandalwood soap trailing behind her.
Morning came, a pale grey seepage into the room. The silent routine continued. Andrey moved to the kitchen, made two cups of strong black tea. He set one on the table near her, then took his to the window, pulling back the drape just enough to look down at the waking city. The traffic was a silent, gleaming river.
He heard the faint click of ceramic. When he glanced back, the cup was in her hands, steam curling around her face. She was staring into it.
“You should eat something,” he said.
No response.
He wasn’t a cook, but the suite was stocked. He toasted thick slices of rye bread, slathered them with butter and a layer of sharp cherry jam. He put one on a plate and placed it on the table beside her cooling tea.
He ate his standing by the window. The bread was good, dense and tangy. After several minutes, a small, torn piece of the crust from her slice appeared on the edge of the plate. Then another. She was eating, crumb by crumb.
Progress was measured in stolen glances and the quiet cessation of flinching every time he moved too suddenly. He spent the day as he often did: maintenance. He stretched, did bodyweight exercises in the clear space of the living area, his muscles bunching and stretching under old scars. He was aware of her eyes on him, not with fear now, but with a clinical, assessing curiosity. The look of someone used to evaluating threat.
He didn’t address her. He just existed, allowing her to watch.
In the late afternoon, the comms panel by the door chimed, a soft, insistent pulse. Andrey saw her whole body lock, the teacup in her hand trembling. The water shivered.
“It’s just the Manager,” Andrey said. He walked over, pressed the accept button. “Yes.”
“Andrey.” The Manager’s voice was smooth, cultured, devoid of static. “A courtesy call. Your schedule is clear until Thursday. A sponsor dinner has been requested for Friday evening. You and your companion.”
Andrey’s jaw tightened. “Noted.”
“Is she settling?”
Andrey’s gaze found Nadya. She was staring at the wall, her face a blank mask, but her knuckles were white around the cup. “She’s fine.”
“Excellent. We do appreciate your… cooperative attitude. It reflects well on everyone.” The line went dead.
The silence that followed was different. It was thick, charged with the unsaid thing. Sponsor dinner. Your companion.
Andrey turned from the panel. She was looking at him now, and the hollow fear was back, but underneath it was a spark of something else. A desperate, silent question.
“It’s five days away,” he said, answering it. “A lot can happen in five days.”
He needed to do something, to break the static dread that had flooded back into the room. He walked to the armoire, dug past his own clothes, and found what he was looking for. A pair of soft, drawstring trousers and a long-sleeved t-shirt, both in charcoal grey, from his own smaller days. They would still be too big for her, but better than the shirt alone.
He placed the folded stack on the arm of her sofa. “These might fit better.”
He then went to the small desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a deck of worn playing cards. He sat on the floor, his back against the leather sofa opposite hers, and started to lay out a complex game of solitaire. The soft snick of card on card was the only sound.
He felt her move. The faint rustle as she gathered the clothes. The soft pad of her feet to the bathroom. When she returned, she looked less like a ghost. The trousers were rolled at the ankles, the shirt’s sleeves covered her hands, but she was covered. Protected. She stood uncertainly for a moment, then slowly sank to sit on the floor, mirroring his position against her own sofa. She watched his hands.
He didn’t look up. “Do you know any card games?”
A shake of her head, barely perceptible in his periphery.
“I’ll teach you one,” he said. “It’s simple. It passes the time.”
He gathered the cards, his movements slow and clear. He began to explain, his voice a low, steady drone. He spoke about numbers, about suits, about the objective. He laid out a practice hand between them on the low table.
“Your turn,” he said.
She stared at the cards. A full minute passed. Andrey didn’t rush her. The city’s light began to shift outside, the grey softening into the neon-tinged indigo of early evening.
Her hand emerged from the too-long sleeve. Her fingers were slender, pale, marked with faint, faded scars at the knuckles. She reached out, hovering over a card. Then she tapped it—a seven of diamonds.
“Good,” Andrey said. He played a card from his own side. “Now that.”
The game was slow, halting. She learned quickly, her moves becoming more confident. She didn’t smile. But the terrible, frozen silence around her had thawed, just a degree. It was replaced by a focus so intense it was almost tangible.
When the game ended, he gathered the cards again. “Again?”
She nodded. Once.
He was dealing when she spoke. Her voice was a rustle, dry and unused, so quiet it was almost absorbed by the hum of the air filtration system.
“Why?”
Andrey’s hands stilled for a fraction of a second. He finished dealing, aligning the edges of the cards perfectly. He knew what she was asking. It wasn’t about the cards.
He chose his words with the same care he used in the ring. “Alexander lost to me. On purpose. He wanted you here. He’s not… he’s not a good man. But he understood the alternative was worse.” Andrey met her eyes. The winter twilight in them was sharp, clear. “I don’t break things that are already broken, Nadya.”
She held his gaze for a long, long moment. Then she looked down at her cards, her fingers tracing the edge of the queen of hearts.
“Your turn,” she whispered.
Andrey looked at his hand, but he wasn’t seeing the cards. He was seeing the first, fragile crack in the wall she’d built around herself. It was enough. For now, it was everything.
He played a card. The game continued in the quiet fortress of the room, as the city, and the world that held them prisoner, glittered coldly below.