“Theo.”
“Yeah.”
“I—” he stops. Looks at the floor. Looks back up. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
I cross the room and put my hands on his shoulders. He doesn’t move into me, doesn’t move away. Just stands there, holding what just happened.
“You don’t have to do anything with it tonight,” I say. “Just let it be true.”
Two days after Reese leaves, a fighter shows up at the gym at noon.
Marco knocks on Victor’s office door frame. “Boss. Guy out front says his name’s Rodriguez. From Dawson’s gym.”
Victor looks up. “Rodriguez.”
“Yeah.”
A pause. We both know who Rodriguez is—the project Dawson’s been bragging about for nearly a year, the fighter Dawson said yes to when he said no to others.
“Bring him back.”
Marco nods and leaves.
Victor doesn’t get up. Doesn’t fix anything on his desk. Just sits, waiting.
When Rodriguez comes in, he’s in a hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts, hands still taped from a workout. Mid-twenties, welterweight build. He stops in the office doorway like he’s not sure crossing the threshold counts.
“Mr. Kaine.”
“Rodriguez.”
“I won’t take much of your time.”
“Take what you need.”
Rodriguez’s jaw works. He glances at me, then back at Victor. Embarrassed, but not enough to leave.
“I want out of Dawson’s gym. I want to sign with you.”
Victor doesn’t react. I watch him not react, the same way I watched him not react two days ago when Reese pitched him. Discipline he’s built across nine years of running this place.
“Walk me through it,” Victor says.
Rodriguez looks at the floor. Then back up. “He had us in the locker room yesterday morning. The whole roster. He was talking about you.”
“Go ahead.”
“He said you’d lied to every fighter in your gym for a decade about who you were, and that’s why nobody could trust you to tell them anything true, because you’re… I don’t want to repeat the word he used.”
The room goes still.
“He said it in front of everyone,” Rodriguez continues. “And the room was quiet. Nobody pushed back. Not one guy. And I sat there and thought—that’s the gym I’m in. That’s the gym I’ve been in for a year. I’m twenty-six years old, and the room I’m in goes quiet when a man lies about another man’s character and speaks about someone like that.”
He looks at Victor. His chin is up.
“I don’t know you, Mr. Kaine. I’ve fought against your guys. I trained for two days against one of your fighters, and he told me that you stayed late with him to work on his footwork because he didn’t have anyone at home who could. I don’t know if you remember that. He remembers.”
Victor doesn’t move. His face doesn’t move.
