The doorframe holds my weight without complaint. I grip the bar I installed last night while she was unconscious, feel the familiar bite against my palms. The pull-ups begin. Today's count, starting fresh.
One. Two. Three.
Sofia left twenty-five days ago. I count them like I count reps, each one a small punishment. She chose Alexei Volkov over blood. Chose love over family. Part of me understands. The other part, the part that trained her, that built her into something that could survive, that part feels like I failed.
Fifty-one. Fifty-two.
Did I make her too hard? Push her too far from who she was meant to be? Or did I not push hard enough, leave her soft enough to believe in things like love?
One hundred and three. One hundred and four.
My shoulders burn, but I keep going. This is my meditation, my prayer, my penance. Four hundred and twenty-three yesterday. Today I'll push for more. Today I'll earn the exhaustion that makes thinking impossible.
Two hundred. Two hundred and one.
The AC unit hums, loud enough to mask footsteps. A vulnerability. Anyone could approach her door without her hearing. I file it away, another risk to mitigate.
Movement in the main room. Too early for Marisol. She won't surface before noon if her patterns hold. I drop from the bar, silent on bare feet, and move to investigate.
No intruder. Just the apartment itself, telling its story in debris.
I examine everything systematically. The kitchen: seven empty champagne bottles lined up on the counter like soldiers. The freezer contains vodka, ice, and what might once have been food but has evolved into something else. The fridge tells thesame story. More champagne, takeout containers conducting science experiments, one sad lime that's given up on life.
The living room: Her clutch is still on the floor, contents scattered. I collect the lipstick, the credit cards, carefully don't touch the small bag that isn't my business.
What interests me most is the bookshelf. The photos are dusty, like she doesn't look at them anymore and instructs her maid to stay away.
One shows a woman with Marisol's honey eyes and softer smile. Her mother, based on bone structure. Beautiful in that way that makes men stupid.
Another photo stops me cold. Marisol, maybe seventeen, genuine smile bright as she leans into a young man's shoulder. Dark hair, intense eyes, protective arm around her. Her brother, I think. This is before: before the mother died, before whatever sent him to the priesthood, before she started drowning herself nightly.
They look happy. Real. Nothing like the disaster I carried to bed four hours ago.
I study the photo, trying to reconcile this girl with the woman I met last night. Something broke her. Something specific and devastating, beyond just losing her mother. Maybe the brother's absence is a wound she's still bleeding from. Absent siblings can do that, i think, mind flitting to Sofia.
Movement on the rooftop catches my eye through the skylights. No threat, just morning birds. But it reminds me there's a whole other level to secure.
The private rooftop pool is pristine. Untouched. The water reflects the pre-dawn sky without a single ripple. Expensive loungers that have never held a body. An outdoor kitchen that's never seen food.
She owns a pool she never uses. In Miami. In a penthouse designed around water views.
Last night she avoided looking at it. The same way she avoids silence, avoids stillness, avoids being sober enough to feel whatever she's running from.
I understand the strategy. Different methods, same war. I exhaust my body until my mind shuts down. She exhausts her mind until her body gives up. Both of us running from ghosts, just in opposite directions.
Eleven AM. The bedroom door opens like a confession.
She looks like death went on a bender. Silk robe barely tied, last night's makeup creating abstract art under her eyes, hair defying several laws of physics and possibly threatening nearby aircraft.
She squints at me like I'm personally responsible for the existence of daylight. Shuffles toward the kitchen with the coordination of a newborn giraffe. Stops when she sees me at her island, eating eggs.
The silence stretches. I count: three seconds, four, five…
"Horse Man lives." Her voice sounds like she gargled gravel.
"Good morning."
"Is it? Is it good?" She gestures vaguely at her entire existence. "Because I feel like someone scraped me off a nightclub floor and reanimated me badly."
