Chapter 2: The Gift Unwrapped
The silence in the Champion’s Suite was a different creature than the bathhouse’s. Here, it was loaded, swollen with the ghost of the crowd’s noise and the brittle tension of two strangers sharing a space meant for only one. Nadya stood just inside the doorway, the plush carpet swallowing her footsteps. She was wrapped in the same white towels from the bathhouse, her hair a dark, damp blot on the linen.
Andrey moved through the room like he was disarming it. He went to the wall of windows first, drawing the heavy velvet drapes with a sharp hiss of runners, cutting off the view of the city’s indifferent glitter. He flipped a switch on a sleek panel, and a low hum died—the ambient hotel music, she realized. He paused by a small, ornate vase on a side table, sighed, and carefully tipped it on its side. A tiny, almost invisible lens glinted from within the floral arrangement before going dark.
“They watch,” he said, his back to her. It wasn’t an apology. It was a fact, like the weather.
“I know,” Nadya whispered. Her eyes were everywhere, cataloging the obsidian surfaces, the deep burgundy velvet, the cruel elegance of it all. A king’s ransom. A prison cell.
He finally turned, his large frame seeming to absorb the light from the single lamp he’d left on. He’d changed into a simple gray t-shirt and sweatpants, the fighter’s physique now just a man’s tired shape. He looked at her, then quickly away, rubbing a hand over the sharp line of his jaw.
“You hungry?” The question was absurd. The fight, the gifting, the terror—it was a universe away from hunger.
She shook her head.
“You should eat,” he said, and walked toward the kitchenette, a slab of black marble and steel. He moved with a deliberate slowness, telegraphing every motion. He opened the refrigerator, its light painting him in a cold blue rectangle. “They stock it. Part of the… thing. Part of the win.”
He pulled out eggs, butter, a block of cheese. He found a pan. The domestic sounds—the click of the stove, the crack of a shell—were surreal in the grandeur. Nadya remained frozen, a statue of towels and watchful eyes.
“Sit,” he said, not looking up. “Anywhere. The floor if you want. I don’t care.”
She didn’t sit. She watched his back, the play of muscle under cotton as he whisked. The scars she’d seen in the bathhouse—a knot of tissue near his left shoulder blade, three parallel lines across his ribs—were hidden now. But she remembered them. They were a language she understood.
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice was stronger this time, thready but clear.
He stirred the eggs in the pan. The smell of butter bloomed, real and achingly normal. “Because I have to feed you,” he said, then corrected himself. “Because I chose to feed you. There’s a difference here. Small. But it’s there.”
He slid the soft scramble onto a plain white plate, grating cheese over the top. He brought it, along with a fork, to the low table in front of a vast sofa. He placed it down and retreated to the kitchen island, leaning against it, putting the width of the room between them.
It was an invitation, not a command. Her choice. Her agency, served on a plate.
Her stomach, traitorously, clenched. The scent was overwhelming. She shuffled forward, each step a negotiation with her own fear. She lowered herself onto the very edge of the sofa, the towels tucked tightly around her. She picked up the fork. The first bite was a shock—warm, salty, rich. It tasted like before. A memory of a morning in a sunlit kitchen that no longer existed. She ate another. Then another, mechanically at first, then with a desperate focus that shut out everything else.
Andrey watched, his arms crossed. A faint flicker of something eased around his eyes. When she was finished, he pushed off the island. “There’s clothes. In the bedroom. Not… not what they gave you. My stuff. It’ll be big.”
He walked toward a closed door. He opened it, reached in to flick on a light, and then stepped far back, giving her a wide berth to pass. “Take the bed. I’ll be out here.”
Nadya stared at the open doorway. A bed. The last bed had been a stage for expected horrors. This was a test. Every kindness was a test.
She stood, clutching the towels, and walked past him. The room was dominated by a massive platform bed, dressed in charcoal linen. Neat, severe. On the foot of the bed lay a folded stack: a black t-shirt, a pair of soft-looking gray sweatpants, socks. Simple. Human.
He was at the door again, ready to pull it closed. “Lock it if you want,” he said. “From the inside. There’s a bolt.”
“You’d let me lock you out?” The question was out before she could stop it.
He met her gaze then, and the intensity in his tired eyes was like a physical pressure. “Yeah. I would.”
He closed the door. She listened to his footsteps move away. Silence.
Her fingers trembled as she let the towels fall. The chill air raised goosebumps on her skin. She dressed quickly in his clothes. The fabric smelled faintly of clean cotton and something else, something woodsy and sharp—him. The shirt fell to her mid-thigh, the sleeves swallowing her hands. She rolled the waistband of the sweatpants three times. She felt small. Insignificant. And, for the first time in a very long time, covered.
She looked at the door. At the small, brass bolt.
Her hand reached out. Hovered.
She did not lock it.
The darkness was absolute behind the drapes. Nadya lay rigid on the left side of the enormous bed, the mattress feeling like a raft on a perilous sea. Every sigh of the building, every distant thump of bass from a floor below, was a potential threat. Sleep was a continent she could not reach.
The door handle turned.
Her body went wire-tight, breath trapped in her chest. The door opened a sliver, a wedge of light from the sitting room slicing across the floor. Andrey’s silhouette filled it. He wasn’t coming in. He was standing there.
“Can’t sleep?” His voice was a low rumble in the dark.
She couldn’t answer. A stone of fear was lodged in her throat.
“Me either,” he said. A pause. “The bed is too soft. I hate it.”
A absurd, hysterical thought bubbled up: He’s complaining about the mattress. The Champion. The man who broke bones for a living was vexed by a luxury pillow-top.
“I usually take the sofa,” he continued, as if they were having a normal conversation. “It’s firmer.”
He was explaining himself. Justifying his presence at her door in the middle of the night. The simplicity of it undid her. A tear escaped, tracking hot and fast into her hairline. She hoped the dark hid it.
“I have something,” he said. He disappeared for a moment, then returned. He didn’t cross the threshold. He set something down just inside the door—a large, nondescript lump. “It’s a weighted blanket. It’s… it helps. Sometimes. With the… the feeling.” He fumbled for the word. “The feeling of floating away.”
Then he was gone, pulling the door softly closed behind him.
Nadya lay there for a count of a hundred. Then she slid from the bed, tiptoed to the door, and retrieved the bundle. It was heavy, yielding. She dragged it back, crawled under the covers, and pulled the dense weight over her.
It pressed her into the mattress. Solid. Containing. It didn’t feel like a restraint. It felt like an anchor. Like the earth holding her down so she wouldn’t spin off into the black void of memory.
Her breathing, for the first time all night, began to slow. The scream of her nerves softened to a hum. She floated, but the anchor held.
Minutes or hours later, a new sound seeped through the door. Not the city, not the Hotel. A deep, regular, rhythmic rasp.
Andrey, on the sofa. Asleep. Snoring.
It was the most comforting sound she’d heard in years. A sign that the predator was dormant. That, for a few hours, the world was still.
She drifted, caught between the weight of the blanket and the sound of his sleep. Just before unconsciousness finally took her, a thought, fragile as a moth’s wing, brushed her mind: He’s trying.
Morning came as a gray slit around the drapes. Nadya woke with a start, the foreign sensation of actual rest leaving her disoriented. The weight was still there. The suite was quiet.
She peeled back the blanket and padded to the door. Opened it a crack.
Andrey was on the sofa, one arm thrown over his eyes. The silver championship belt lay on the floor beside him, discarded like a piece of trash. He was still in his sweats and t-shirt, a plain wool blanket tangled around his legs. In the thin light, he looked younger. Weary.
She must have made a sound. His arm moved. His eyes opened, instantly alert, finding hers in the doorway. He didn’t startle. He just looked.
“Coffee?” he asked, his voice graveled with sleep.
She nodded, once.
He sat up, ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Good,” he said. He stood, a massive unfolding, and walked to the kitchen. He filled a sophisticated machine, his movements practiced. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Just… black.”
He nodded. As the machine gurgled, he spoke to the counter. “They’ll expect things. Today. A appearance. A walk through the galleries. They’ll want to see you. With me.” He glanced back at her, assessing. “We don’t have to talk. You just… stay close.”
The reality of the day crashed back. The performance required. She was his prize, on display. Her hands twisted in the long sleeves of his shirt.
He brought her a heavy ceramic mug. She took it. Their fingers didn’t touch.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, not like he believed it, but like it was an order he was giving to the universe. He took a long swallow from his own mug. “Just stick close.”
He looked down at her, at his clothes draped on her slight frame, at the wary comprehension in her eyes.
“And maybe,” he added, the words gruff, “we’ll find you some pants that fit.”