Page 134 of Thawed Gladiator: Flavius

“That tracks.”

“Tonight?” he asks, lowering his voice. “You and me. Your notes. My hands. Your breathing.”

Heat curls low in my belly. “Definitely tonight.”

His expression softens again—deeper now, steadier, a man who knows he’s loved and is no longer afraid of deserving it.

“Sophia Vitale,” he says quietly. “You are… radiant today.”

“That’s because I slept,” I tease. “Unlike the month of the complaint.”

His eyes deepen. “I remember. I watched you fight. I will always watch you fight. And when you want company in the battle? I am already there. I have been there since the beginning.”

“I know,” I whisper.

He takes my laptop from my hands without asking, sets it aside, and pulls me into his chest. Not possessive. Not hiding. Just… home.

My cheek rests over his heart—once a place of armor, now a place of truth.

“Ready?” he murmurs.

“For what?”

“For your work,” he says. “For your future. For the world that did not get to break you.”

My throat tightens. Not with fear, but with gratitude so fierce it feels like a new kind of strength.

“Yes,” I breathe. “I’m ready.”

He presses his forehead to mine again—slow, deliberate, grounding.

“Good,” he says. “Then let the wheel turn.”

And for the first time, I’m not watching the wheel turn and bracing for what it might cost me. I’m just… living inside it.

Flavius

Her hand is small in mine. Strong. Steady.

We walk toward the cabin, toward the day, toward whatever future waits for us.

She is not shrinking anymore. I am not pretending anymore.

The Jester still lives in me. The fighter too. But the man… The man is new.

And she helped build him.

I carry the weight of memory. She carries the shape of tomorrow.

Together, we are not afraid.

I tighten my fingers around hers.

“Sophia,” I say softly.

She looks up.

“I love you.”

Her smile breaks the world open.

“I love you too.”

The sun catches the rosemary, the arena dust, her hair, my hands—and everything feels lit from the inside.

The wheel turns. The world waits.

And for the first time in my life…

I walk toward it unarmored, unhidden, and unafraid.