Page 30 of Thawed Gladiator: Victor

Tires crunch near the curb outside, making us both tense. Tony’s men, doing their regular drive-by. The sound reminds us of the danger still surrounding us.

“What do we do now?” I ask softly.

“We continue our path until a better one reveals itself.” His arms tighten around me. “I will fight in Tony’s tournament, as expected. But now we plan not just for survival, but for freedom.”

“The other gladiators—they’re being helped to adjust. Given choices about their futures. You deserve that, too.”

“Perhaps.” His fingers trace patterns on my back. “But first, we must free ourselves from this web. And protect your father, despite his foolish choices.”

His desire to help my father, who was partially responsible for this shitstorm, hits me with a jolt. “Why do you care what happens to him? He got us into this mess.”

His smile carries ancient wisdom. “Because you care. And because every man deserves a chance to choose a better path.”

Perhaps another day, I’ll tell him how many opportunities my father has had a chance to choose better paths.

A key rattles in the front door—Marco doing his nightly check. We separate smoothly, years of training allowing us both to appear perfectly composed when he clomps up the steps and peers into the bedroom.

“Everything quiet?” he asks, suspicious eyes taking in the scene.

“Just reviewing tomorrow’s training schedule,” I say calmly. “We’ll need to adjust the intensity as we get closer to the tournament.”

After he leaves, Damian and I share a look laced with understanding. We’re still trapped, still in danger from multiple directions. But now we face it together, without lies between us. His hand finds mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining.

“Rest,” his tone is gentle. “Tomorrow brings new challenges.”

As we settle into our now-familiar positions in my bed, no longer maintaining that careful space between us, I realize something has fundamentally shifted. We’re no longer trainer and fighter, pretend owner and pretend slave. We’re partners in whatever comes next.

Laura’s warning about the pharmaceutical companies is like a physical thing. But with Damian’s warmth beside me, his quiet strength supporting me, even that threat feels less overwhelming.

Tomorrow, we’ll play our roles again. But tonight, we hold on to this moment of truth, of trust, of something deeper growing between us despite two thousand years of separation.

For the first time since this started, I fall asleep without guilt weighing on my conscience. Whatever comes next, we face it together—the trainer and the gladiator, the modern woman and the ancient warrior, each of us choosing our own path at last.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Damian

Maya’s breathing has settled into the gentle rhythm of sleep beside me, but my mind races like a chariot without reins. Two thousand years. The words echo in my skull, impossible yet explaining so much. Everyone I ever knew—not just dead, but dust. Centuries of dust with no one to remember them but me.

My chest constricts as the magnitude crashes over me. Mother, carrying fresh-baked bread to the morning market. My little sister Melina, chasing butterflies in the garden. Even Father, whose wisdom I’ve clung to like a lifeline, is lost to history, their graves long since erased by time.

Rolling carefully away from Maya’s sleeping form, I press my knuckles against my mouth to silence the sound trying to tear from my throat. My whole world, everyone I ever loved… I wasn’t just taken from them. I was ripped from time itself.

The strange lights of this age filter through Maya’s window, casting shadows on things I still don’t understand. Machines roar past outside, their sounds a constant reminder of how far I am from everything familiar. Even the air tastes wrong—too clean, too processed, lacking the wood smoke and incense that once marked civilization.

Anger rises suddenly, hot as arena sand at midday.Maya knew. She knew everything while watching me struggle to understand this world’s mysteries. Each time I knelt, each time I called herDomina, each time I played the dutiful slave—she knew the truth and let me continue the charade.

My hands clench into fists. All those careful explanations about the technology of her place, about local training methods… she must have been laughing at my ignorance. Did she enjoy watching me try to make sense of this world with only fragments of understanding? Did my confusion amuse her?

It takes all my self-control not to roll over, wake her, and shout, accuse and confront. She should know how her actions hurt me. She shouldpay.

“A wise man masters his anger before speaking,” Father’s voice whispers from memory. “Else his words become weapons that wound their speaker first.”

But what wisdom prepares a man for this? What teaching covers waking two millennia from your last memory? The magnitude threatens to overwhelm me—not just my personal losses, but the weight of history itself. She told me empires have risen and fallen, gods have been forgotten. The whole world has transformed beyond recognition.

Maya shifts in her sleep, one hand reaching subconsciously toward where I usually lie. The sight of her familiar gesture cuts through my anger like a blade through leather armor. She lied, yes. But she also showed kindness when others would have exploited me. Offered protection when she could have turned me over to those who would treat me as a specimen rather than a man. Could have profited from me, rather than protecting me at a cost to herself.

“Judge actions by their intentions,” Father taught. “For the same deed can spring from love or malice.”

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