Isabelle's phone sat on her desk, screen lit up with The Fighter's contact photo — some candid shot from a press conference where he actually looked relaxed. She'd called four times today. Four times straight to voicemail.
She leaned back in her office chair, chewing the end of her pen, desk cluttered with contracts and sponsorship offers that needed signatures. The overhead lights buzzed in that annoying fluorescent way, and outside her window, Chicago traffic crawled through late afternoon grey.
Fifth call. She hit dial.
It rang. And rang. And rang.
The voicemail greeting clicked on — his voice, clipped and professional, the one she'd made him record when he first signed with her three years ago. "You've reached—"
She hung up before it finished. Tried again immediately.
Still nothing.
Isabelle set the phone down, staring at it like it had personally wronged her. This wasn't like him. Sure, he went off-grid sometimes, holed up in the gym or locked in his apartment with Elena, but he always checked in. Always. Even if it was just a text: "Busy. Call later."
But now? Radio silence. For three days.
She pulled up her emails, scrolling through the mess. Sponsorship inquiries. Interview requests. A particularly aggressive one from Delaney Schulz at the Beacon Tribune — subject line: "Follow-up: Exclusive Fighter Profile." Isabelle deleted it without opening. She'd already told that woman no twice. The third time wasn't going to be any different.
Her phone buzzed. Not a call — a text. She grabbed it, hopeful.
Isabelle exhaled slowly, relief mixing with frustration. Fine. He was fine. But "space" didn't pay the bills or handle the dozen sponsors currently breathing down her neck about appearance schedules.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
That was it. No elaboration. No timeline.
Isabelle dropped her phone on the desk and rubbed her temples. She got it — she did. The media circus after the last fight had been brutal. The Delaney situation, the constant questions about Elena's attack, the headlines twisting everything into something ugly. She'd seen fighters crack under less.
But disappearing? That was new. And it scared her more than she wanted to admit.
Her desk phone rang — landline, old-school. She picked up without checking the caller ID.
Isabelle's jaw tightened. "I remember. And I already told you no."
Isabelle hung up before Delaney could respond. She sat there for a moment, pulse kicking up, staring at the stack of papers that suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
Her phone buzzed again. Another text, but not from Elena this time.
Isabelle deleted it immediately, blocked the number. Her hand shook slightly as she set the phone down.
She stood, pacing her small office, arms crossed. This was getting out of hand. Delaney wasn't just pushy — she was relentless. And now she had Isabelle's personal cell somehow.
Another buzz. Different number.
Isabelle stared at the screen, anger flaring hot and fast. She typed back before she could stop herself.
Send.
Block.
She dropped into her chair, breath coming faster than it should. This was escalating. And The Fighter was halfway across the world, unreachable, probably sitting on some balcony in France with no idea that his absence was creating a vacuum people like Delaney were eager to fill.
She opened her laptop, pulled up her contacts, and started drafting an email to the Beacon Tribune's editor. Professional. Firm. A formal complaint about Delaney's conduct.
But halfway through, she stopped.
What if pushing back made it worse? What if Delaney took it as confirmation that there was something to hide?
Isabelle closed the laptop, leaning back, eyes on the ceiling. She'd been an agent for five years, worked with athletes through injuries, scandals, retirements. She knew how to handle pressure. But this felt different. Personal. Like Delaney wasn't just chasing a story — she was hunting.
Her phone rang again. Actual call this time. She checked the ID.
Raul.
She answered immediately. "Finally. Someone who actually picks up."
They hung up, and Isabelle sat in the quiet of her office, the city humming outside her window. She pulled up The Fighter's file on her computer — fight records, contracts, medical history. Everything she'd built with him over three years.
She wasn't going to let some journalist with an axe to grind tear that down.
Her phone buzzed one more time. Another unknown number.
She didn't even read it. Just blocked and deleted.
Then she got back to work.
The fluorescent hum of Isabelle's office felt miles away as she stood in the foyer of the Faulkner residence. She had driven over on an impulse, fueled by a mixture of professional duty and a gnawing, instinctual dread that the "space" Elena mentioned was actually a euphemism for a slow-motion wreck.
Isabelle reached out to knock, but the door was already slightly ajar, as if someone had forgotten to engage the heavy deadbolt in their haste—or simply didn't care anymore.
The entryway was dark. The air inside felt heavy, thick with the scent of turpentine and something sharp, like ozone after a lightning strike. Isabelle stepped further in, her heels clicking too loudly on the polished floor.
The voice came from the large studio space toward the back. Isabelle followed the sound and stopped in the doorway.
Elena sat on a low stool, silhouetted against the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. She wasn't painting. She was just sitting there, draped in a black oversized hoodie that seemed to swallow her whole. Her hair—once a vibrant, defiant neon—looked ghostly in the moonlight, the roots growing in dark like a creeping shadow.
On the floor around her lay a scatter of printed papers. Isabelle didn't need to get closer to know what they were: stills from the gallery footage. Grainy, red-tinted images of Elena's fists, of Delaney's face, of the moment the world decided who Elena Faulkner really was.
Elena stood up, her movements jerky and stiff. She walked over to a canvas that was turned toward the wall and flipped it around. It wasn't the "City Fractures" series. It was a raw, ugly mess of charcoal—a man's silhouette, towering and jagged, with a small, blurred figure at his feet.
Isabelle looked at the girl—not the "Scene Queen" or the artist, but the traumatized fifteen-year-old who was still trying to survive her own father.
She walked toward Isabelle, stopping just inches away. The smell of turpentine was overpowering now. Elena reached out, her fingers hovering near Isabelle's phone.
Isabelle looked into Elena's eyes and saw the "perfectionist" paralyzed by her own perceived failure.
Elena looked back at the charcoal drawing, then down at her own pale, trembling hands. "You can't control a storm, Isabelle. My mother told me that a long time ago. You just wait for it to finish breaking things."