'Death' or: Un Poison Sans Nom

Previously

There’s a fine line ‘tween purpose and obsession.

Most folks don’t rightly know which side they’re standin ‘til the ground gives out from underneath ‘em. One minute, you’re chasin’ somethin’ that matters. The next, you’re neck-deep in madness; talkin’ to shadows, namin’ demons like they’re next of kin.

Take Daytona Diamonds.

Some folks say he ain’t nothin’ but a burn-out with rhinestones where his brains oughta be, but they ain’t seen nothin’ but what he lets ‘em see. Ain’t seen how he moves now, like a man diggin’ his own grave just to prove he ain’t scared of the dirt. Ain’t been sleepin’. Ain’t been thinkin’ straight neither. Ain’t talkin’ ‘bout nothin’ but Round Three; the rematch, the reckonin’ on the horizon, one name on his lips, always spoken through clenched teeth:

Jason Snow.

Name’s got weight now. A stone tied ‘round Daytona’s soul, draggin’ him down a little more every day. ‘Cause when Snow took that Intense Title…? It weren’t just a belt he was takin’...

It was an identity. The last thread holdin’ Daytona together. He didn’t just lose a match that night. He lost certainty and definition.

That thing let him puff his chest and pretend all the debts and drugs and failures didn’t matter none, but when that bell rang and his back hit the mat and the ref counted the one-two-three? Time stopped just long enough for the lie to catch up.

And Snow?

Well, he rode off into the sunset.

Left Daytona in the dust.

So, when The Almasy bracket locked in, it weren’t no surprise Daytona saw it for what it was: a shot at setllin’ the score.

And when Vera came walkin’ through the door, all high heels and sharp smiles? She didn’t find no heartsick cowboy.

She found a man sittin’ in the ashes, starin’ at the flames that burnt him, waitin’ to step back in.

❖❖❖

I

❖❖❖

“Ms. Venturi,” Elaine said. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

Petite merde, I thought. Crisp, composed, still clutching that iPad like a shield. Just enough warmth to suggest courtesy, just enough distance to suggest contempt.

She offered her hand. I let it hang between us, untouched.

“He’s expecting you?” she asked.

I smiled. “Would it matter if he wasn’t?”

She hesitated, just barely, and then turned, motioning for me to follow as the gates hissed shut behind us. The desert swallowed the sound.

“We just moved in last week,” she said. “Still settling in.”

A fresh cage. Gleaming. Humming with promise. He always preferred his breakdowns in places with clean lines and no witnesses. The house, if one could call it that, was obscene in its geometry. Jet-black glass, sharp corners, smooth concrete the color of stormclouds. It rose out of the earth like a secret weapon. Walled in on all sides, alone in the desert dust and scrub. More fortress than home.

A monument to his exceeding paranoia, his endless need to control what could not be controlled. Time. Pain. Memory. Me.

Elaine cleared her throat and walked ahead. I followed, heels clicking against the slate tile.

Love is a funny thing, non?

It makes fools of us all, eventually. Even me, bien sûr

I didn’t love him, of course. I loved the way he looked at me; like I was both his salvation and damnation. That kind of devotion, it has… utility. And he was so very devoted. Like a dog with its last bone. Jealous. Obedient. Dangerous, if mishandled.

China wasn’t my idea. It was theirs; the men from the Initiative, the ones who make gods out of broken bodies. They saw potential in him. A man like Daytona Diamonds, with his fire, his fury, his willingness to bleed for nothing? Perfect raw material.They said, “We can make him stronger.”

I said, “Good. Make him loyal.”

We stayed in a private villa nestled in the shadow of the Cangshan Mountains, where clouds hang low like curtains of gauze and the silence feels… intentional. No roads. Just a winding dirt path through terraces of jade-green rice and the occasional echo of a prayer bell from a village far below.

The days were long. He trained. He grew. I watched. I healed.

My vertebrae, crushed like porcelain beneath a hammer. The doctors in Paris said, “Madame, you will never walk again.” The Chinese weren’t so sentimental. Pas de morale. Just results. They offered something… experimental. Daytona took his serum. I took mine.

And when I walked again? I looked at him and said, “You see? We are reborn. Together.”

And he smiled, so wide and so stupid.

Perhaps I did love him, in that moment.

Not the man himself, but the idea of him; what I had built from blood and ruin. 

Mon pauvre monstre.

Mon imbécile.

And then came my time to leave, back to Paris without him.

I had done my part. I had steered him to their shores like a siren guiding a shipwreck. My debt was paid, my body mine again… but I yearned for him; not the pining of some lovesick poet, clutching photographs and replaying voicemails in the dark. That sort of nonsense is for weaker women.

No, my yearning was a quieter thing.

Un poison sans nom.

And so, I packed my bags.

I painted my lips.

I booked a flight.

Las Vegas, where the desperate go to feel immortal and where Daytona Diamonds, mon amour, was feeding at their trough like a starving king.

Through the foyer and down the halls, every inch of this place screamed containment. High ceilings, cold stone, recessed lights like surgical lamps. No art. No warmth. Just brutal function. Un mausolée pour l’ego.

Elaine stopped in front of a set of black double doors.

“He asked to not be disturbed,” she said.

I smiled sweetly.

“And yet, here I am.”

I pushed the doors open myself.

The stench hit first. Sweat, yes, but more than that. Stale blood. Metal, like rusted steel. Something faintly medicinal; sanitized, artificial. Sterile, but not clean. The lights were dimmed, one fluorescent overhead buzzing incessantly.

The room, a gym by all suggestions, was destroyed. Not messy; ruined. Equipment overturned. Mirrors cracked, spiderwebbed with fractures. A barbell bent, bowed like someone had tried to snap it over their knee. Foam padding shredded, the floor gouged in places. Dumbbells embedded in the drywall.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Every surface, covered. Plastered.

Jason Snow’s face, over and over. Promo stills. Match shots. Grainy screencaps from old broadcasts. Torn magazine pages with his name half-highlighted in red. And there, at the center of it all, was my darling Daytona.

Passed out on a weightbench. One arm draped over his chest, the other slack at his side. Sweat-drenched, motionless. A trickle of blood running from his nostrils. His breathing, shallow and uneven. Veins bulging, skin flushed, muscles twitching in uneasy sleep.

I stood there for a long moment, unsure whether to approach or to flee. This wasn’t the scene I had rehearsed in my head on the flight over nor the welcome I had anticipated. He was supposed to gasp when he saw me. Fall to his knees. Kiss my feet. Beg, plead, crown me as his queen.

But this?

This was something else.

“He gets like this,” Elaine said from behind. “When he overworks. When the medicine starts to wear off.”

I turned as she stepped past me, calm as a surgeon. From her coat, she produced a pre-filled syringe; long, glass, clinical.

“You’re still giving him the steroids…?” I asked.

She winced at that word.

“They’re not steroids,” she said. “It’s protocol. A complex blend. Stabilizers. Cognitive alignment compounds. Neuromuscular enhancers.”

“Steroids,” I repeated.

She didn’t argue again.

Instead, she knelt beside him, took his arm, and found a vein with practiced ease.

His body jolted once when the needle slid in; violent, like a spasm.

And for a moment, he looked at me.

Not with awe or recognition…

With confusion.

And then came the whisper, thick with slurred breath and static rage:

“Tell Snow…  I’m fuckin’ ready for him…”

❖❖❖

II

❖❖❖

When Daytona finally gathered what was left of his wits, there were no greetings. No hunger behind his eyes; at least, not for me.

He simply stared and said, “You’re here.”

As if I were a delivery. Like I was expected, but not desired.

Then he left.

Just like that. Back into the belly of his fortress. Training, sweating, muttering curses. I should have left, I know. Collect my belongings and what remained of my dignity. Let him rot in his palace.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I stayed. I told myself it was curiosity. Unfinished business. The faintest thread of concern. The truth was much simpler: I wasn’t ready to let go.

And so, I took to wandering his castle like a ghost haunting the wrong house.

For three days, I watched as he vanished into a brutal, graceless routine: up before sunrise, workouts that bordered on self-harm, hours in the film room watching old matches on loop, his own defeats like holy scripture. Jason Snow’s face flickered across every screen, every surface he could turn into a shrine.

I saw it in the kitchen, taped to the refrigerator door. In the hallway, projected onto the wall like an apparition. In the bathroom mirror, a clipping of Jason Snow’s face positioned just so; hovering over where Daytona’s own reflection might be, as if he needed to see them together.

It wasn’t devotion, it was desecration.

He built a template to his failure.

He didn’t speak to me. Didn’t ask why I was still there. I passed him in the corridor one evening, his eyes glassy, jaw clenched, hands shaking. He didn’t look at me. Just walked on.

As if I were a memory from another life.

I would be a liar if I said it didn’t hurt.

Elaine offered nothing more than her usual soft-footed presence and clipped replies. She made herself scarce during the worst of his episodes; when he screamed into the void of the film room or beat his fists bloody against the punching bag. When I asked her what he was taking now, she always deflected with clinical nonsense.

“He’s close,” she said once. “Almost complete.”

Complete. As if he were a machine finishing a software update. As if there were something waiting for him beyond collapse.

The only other person who seemed to care was his brother Franklin; newly minted as his manager, even if only in title alone. One morning, I watched from the mezzanine as he tried to talk to Daytona.

He failed, of course.

“You gotta ease up, man,” he said, pacing behind his brother like a nervous stagehand. “You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack…”

No response. Just the steady rhythm of fists against a punching bag. Thud. Thud. Thud. Beneath it all, a ragged whisper:

Snow. Snow. Snow.

“C’mon, Daytona. Just… just take five, alright? Maybe we can…” His voice cracked. “Jesus, is that blood…?”

Daytona didn’t even blink.

Another punch. Another curse. Another round of muttered fury.

Eventually, Franklin gave up. Later, he found me in the kitchen, sipping wine in that purgatorial space.

“Vera, right?” he asked from across the room. “Does he listen to you?”

I said nothing.

“Didn’t think so,” Franklin muttered, rummaging through the fridge. “Y’know, you were supposed to be the one who could keep him on a leash.”

I looked up at him.

“And you were supposed to stop enabling him,” I said. “It seems we’ve both failed our duties, non?”

He didn’t like that. Slammed the refrigerator shut and stormed off without another word.

He left the next morning.

I suppose answering with silence where words often fail runs in the family, hm?

There’s something to be said about men like that. The ones who vanish when things get ugly; who mistake proximity for involvement and call it love when it’s really just fear in better clothes. Franklin thought he could manage his brother the way one manages a fire: keep it small, keep it burning, keep it useful. But he forgot that fire only knows how to consume.

And Daytona? He was an inferno now.

The house grew quieter after Franklin left. Not in sound; Daytona still howled in the gym, still tore through the halls, still stapled photographs of Jason Snow on every surface, but in presence. There was no one left to pretend that this was salvageable.

Just me.

And Elaine, of course. Ever the loyal assistant, gliding through the compound like a medic on a battlefield. She never sighed, never cracked. It was almost admirable. I wondered if she ever slept at all.

I wondered if she dreamt of him too.

Mon cœur traître. I caught myself leaning into the sound of his voice when he passed outside my door. Listening for that whisper of Snow to shift, just once, into Vera.

Of course, it never did.

❖❖❖

III

❖❖❖

Jealousy is a funny thing, non?

People think it’s loud, that it rages.

But real jealousy, the kind that lives in your bones, the kind that curdles quietly in the corners of your mind, it doesn’t scream. It whispers.

It tells you to stay just one more night.

It tells you to knock on his door even when he hasn’t looked at you in days.

It tells you: Rappelle-lui qui tu es.

And so, I did.

I stood outside his bedroom just after midnight. Barefoot, wearing silk. Not red, not black. Something softer, something that said familiar and forgiving. I had done my hair up in cascading curls and painted my lips his favorite shade of red.

The hall was silent; no comfort, only warning. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath I stood there for a moment, hand resting lightly against the doorframe… and then I knocked lightly.

No answer. I didn’t expect one.

I turned the handle and let myself in.

His bedroom was pitch-dark save for the glow of a television in the corner of the room, looping footage I didn’t need to look at to know: Jason Snow. Always him.

Daytona sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, shirtless, body coiled tight. He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. I stepped inside; slow, quiet, like approaching a wounded dog.

“You’re not sleeping,” I said softly. “Again.”

I stepped closer.

“You used to sleep like a baby before a fight,” I said.

I climbed onto the bed behind him, the silk of my gown whispering against the sheets. I let my hands hover just above his shoulders before resting them gently against his skin.

He didn’t lean into my touch.

He just sat there, unmoving.

“You remember what I used to do for you, non?” I whispered. “How I could take the tension out of your shoulders… out of your head…”

My hands traced featherlight lines down the ridges of his back; scarred, swollen, overgrown with muscle.

He didn’t stop me.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” I murmured, lips mere inches from his ear. “Let me remind you who you are… remind you who we are…”

I moved my hands around to his chest, the heat of him radiating like a fever. I pressed my cheek against his back, closing my eyes… and that’s when I felt it.

The trembling.

Not desire. Not anticipation.

Rage.

Tight and shaking in his core, ready to explode outward.

He stood suddenly. Fast. I nearly lost my balance on the bed as he pulled away, stepping forward like the room was suddenly too small to contain him.

“Don’t you fuckin’ touch me.”

Fists tightening and untightening at his sides. Veins in his arms throbbing. Wild eyes, pupils like pinholes.

“You think I don’t know what’s goin’ on, Vera?” he asked.

“Daytona, please jus–”

“Oh, don’t you use that voice on me,” he said. “You came in here all pretty, all dressed up, lookin’ like a goddang dream. You really think that’s gonna work? You that fuckin’ stupid, Vera?”

He stepped toward me and I scrambled backwards across the bed. He slammed his fist into the wall so hard it left a dent. Dust rained from the drywall, a small, jagged crack blooming outward.

“He sent you,” he snarled. “Jason fuckin’ Snow. Sent you to distract me,  s’that right? Throw me off ‘fore my match?.”

He was grinning now. Wide. Manic. All wrong. The whites of his eyes were too wide, surrounded by red rimmed lids. He looked like he hadn’t blinked in hours.

“No one sent me, Daytona,” I said, but my voice was unsteady. “I… I just wanted t–”

“BULL-FUCKIN’-SHIT!” he screamed, slamming his fist into the wall again. “I can fuckin’ smell it on you! That Jason Snow stink! It’s all over you, baby! How’d he do it, huh? He pay you..? Wait, don’t tell me! You fuckin’ him now?! He took my belt and now he’s gotta take you too?! Is that it, Vera?!”

I went tumbling off the bed just as he tore the television from the wall, muscles straining as he held it over his head.

“WHAT’S WRONG, VERA?! AIN’T YOU WANTIN’ TO SNUGGLE UP WITH YOUR NEW BOYTOY?!” he screamed. “HERE! TAKE HIM, YOU FUCKIN’ WHORE!”

He hurled the television at me from across the room, Jason Snow’s visage still painted across the screen before the cord snapped. It hit the floor just inches from where I stood. Glass, sparks, and the dull whine of a dying machine.

“I AIN’T YOUR FUCKIN’ PUPPET NO MORE! I CUT THE GODDAMN STRINGS!” he screamed, lifting the nightstand from beside the bed and sending it airborne. “Y’HEAR ME?! I CUT THE FUCKIN’ STRINGS!”

He was on the bed now, looming over me, screaming gibberish.

He looked me in the eyes…

…and then he lunged.

I turned and ran just as he came crashing down onto the floor. Barefoot, breathless, the bedroom door slamming open against the wall as I burst into the hallway. From behind me, I could hear him scream, “You think I won’t catch you?! You think you can run from this?!”

I didn’t look back. My heel caught the edge of a rug and I fell hard, skin tearing on the tile, knees scraped raw. I scrambled to my feet, stumbling down the hallway as the overhead lights buzzed and flickered. I turned a corner and…

There was Elaine.

Calm. Composed. As always.

Keys held out in one proffered hand.

“Garage,” she said.

No questions.

I took them and ran.

I heard his garbled screams again.

“DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ LEAVE ME TOO!”

Down the hallway. Down the stairs. The walls seemed to close in with every footstep. My legs screamed, my lungs burned, my heart pounded like a war drum. Behind me, the sound of splintering wood and crashing furniture. It wasn’t Daytona chasing me. Daytona wasn’t even human anymore. What followed was rage incarnate.

He was tearing through the compound like a bull in a cathedral; decadent in his destruction. Doors ripped from hinges. Glass shattering. My name bouncing off the walls in a voice that barely sounded like a voice at all. Just gravel and hate.

The garage door was already rising by the time I skidded into the bay. A truck with a jet ski on an attached trailer, a ridiculous sight, mon dieu, sat waiting like a getaway car. I didn’t stop to think; just threw the keys into the ignition and turned.

The engine roared.

Behind me, so did he.

The wind tore in, dragging sand across the concrete like claws. I floored it. The truck lurched forward with a screech, the trailer fishtailing as it cleared the threshold just as Daytona came crashing into the garage.

Out into the desert night, past the concrete walls and into the endless black. In the rearview mirror, I saw him; still running, still chasing. Shirtless. Bleeding. Resplendent against the lights of his fortress, laughter echoing into the night.

When he stopped, one arm lifted up and he waved goodbye.

It wasn’t a threat or a plea.

It was a mockery; a parody of farewell.

The desert swallowed him in the mirror and I still drove. Faster than the fear, faster than the grief, faster than the memory of his voice ringing like a curse behind my ribs.

I didn’t cry.

Not then.

But sometime later, long after the highway had replaced the dirt road and the lights of Vegas flickered like distant lies on the horizon, I pulled over. I sat alone, the engine idling like a lullaby.

That was when the tears finally broke free, a dam cracked by silence and shame.

I went to reclaim something I thought I made. Instead, I found something much worse. Something that didn’t need me anymore; except maybe as a name to scream or a wound to pick at when the night got too quiet.

I wiped my face, put the truck back in gear, and drove.

Je ne me suis jamais retournée.