And what a debut it was.
“This is fucking incredible,” Lotte whispered.
“It really is,” Bash agreed.
The door to the home theater opened just as Adonis reached the crescendo. Sophie stood in the doorway, out of breath and wide-eyed.
“Kinderen, kom onmiddellijk. Jullie vader ligt op sterven.” Children, come immediately. Your father is dying.
Bash and Lotte were on their feet in an instant, drinks spilling on their chairs, popcorn upended. They raced after their mother, just as Adonis’s song finished on the screen and he took an exhausted bow.
Chapter 24
Adonis
Adonis gasped for breath, holding his arms up at the end of the song. He collapsed in a bow. People cheered and clapped, and the announcers shared his scores. He heard none of it. It was white noise in his ears.
He hadn’t pulled this off on his own.
For months, he’d practiced this routine as a way to blow off steam. Clarisse had occasionally helped him, offering feedback on his choreography. Neither of them had ever expected him to debut it anywhere, let alone at the Olympics, but they had made sure that his routine included all the moves that a free skate program required.
After Damien had appeared in Adonis’s room and officially categorized himself as a piece of shit, Adonis had gone to some of the older members of Team USA, specifically to Emily Bogdanovich and Clarence Tupper, a pair of ice dancers who were on their third Olympics.
“I need help,” he said.
“With what?” Clarence, who had been kind enough to show Adonis some of the ropes of the Olympics earlier, said.
Adonis had told them his plan: he wanted to change his song for the free skate without telling his mother or Damien Zelinksi. He didn’t care if Team USA knew, but he wanted to keep it from his personal management team, knowing they would try to stop him.
Emily and Clarence had both thought this was an incredibly foolish idea, but they compromised by asking Adonis to perform his new routine for them. When the routine left them both in tears, they said they would help him. They told him what strings to pull, what people to talk to, and how he could make it happen.
He followed their instructions and practiced the routine in secret. Damien didn’t reach out to schedule any more practices, and apparently told Anamária that he’d come down with a nasty case of food poisoning. When Anamária told Adonis about this, Adonis scoffed. “Poor guy,” he said, but there was venom in his voice.
Anamária had looked at him curiously, but Adonis had refused to elaborate. He didn’t trust his mother after what Damien had said. Blackmailing HPD to get him on the team? What thefuck, Anamária?
With this routine, he hoped he could prove that he was meant to be here, on his own, with his own skill.
This routine had never been touched, never even been seen, by Anamária or by Damien. If he did poorly, it was entirely on him. If he did well, then he hadearnedit, goddamn it.
Immediately before the performance had started, he had texted his mother the recording of his interaction with Damien.
The rage of that memory had fueled his performance.
Now the performance was done, and it was time for him to get off the ice.
He didn’t even hear the results as the announcers read them off. His mind was numb to anything but the steady beat of his heart.
When he exited the ice, Anamária was waiting for him. Her eyes were wide, almost fully round.
He had already prepared a full defense for his choice to change the song. “Mom, I—”
She pulled him into a fierce hug. “Adonis, that was incredible,” she said into his shoulder. When she released him, her eyes were wet. “Now, where’s that piece ofshit, Damien?”
——
Coaches, trainers, and the like were put up in a nice hotel not far from the Olympic facilities in Milano. Anamária screamed (in perfect Italian) at the concierge of the hotel until they were let up to Damien’s room. Adonis followed his mother, a few steps behind, out of breath, as she stormed through the hotel. She swiped an access card from an unattended cleaning cart just before they got to Damien’s room.
She banged on the door with the force of a disgruntled FBI agent.
