Page 81 of Iridescent
Five years ago.
I stop breathing.
A service corridor. Concrete walls. Industrial lighting. Back-of-house at the O2.
Two figures step into frame. A broad man in a dark suit. A woman in training gear.
My whole body goes still. Confusion strikes first. Recognition follows so hard it feels like impact.
Sasha Lenosky.
The name lands in me like something dropped down a shaft.
I know that stance. That build. I would know the shape of her anywhere. She was there on the worst night of my life. The night one body shot changed everything. The night pain split me open so cleanly I did not understand how bad it was until later. I know those hands.
A warning bell rings low in my chest. I ignore it.
Another tall figure steps into frame.
Black long-sleeved shirt. Dark sweatpants. Hair just long enough to brush the nape of his collar.
I know who it is before he lifts his face.
Something hot and sick floods through me as I watch the man I have loved for seven years go straight to them.
No hesitation. No pause to take in where he is or who he is looking at. He moves like a man arriving exactly where he meant to be.
Xavier stops in front of them. He hands over some sort of document, and she passes him a little box in return. Their mouths are moving, but the footage gives me nothing.
He pockets it without even looking down.
The suited man reaches for Xavier’s hand. A second later, all three of them are laughing, like they are sharing some private joke.
I stare harder, desperate for distortion. A glitch. The telltale wrongness of something fabricated. Anything that will let me believe this is not what it looks like.
But the footage holds.
Xavier met with my opponent before our fight.
My breath snags on the thought.
No.
Because that would mean none of it was an accident.
My mind skids into a cold, mechanical kind of override, every thought flattening into the same terrible line.
I close the video, open his contact, and hit call.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Amor.” The unmistakable patter of rain against concrete in the background nearly drowns out the strain in his voice, but I hear it all the same. “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry.
That word has been following me for days.
The question wedged in my throat comes out rough, torn on the way up. “Where are you?”
