Chapter 5
To capitalize on those astronomical sums, Vance’s syndicate had done something monstrously greedy: they had taken all that public money and *laid* the position. They had accepted tens of millions in bets on Gabriel and Milo to win, keeping the stakes on their own books rather than hedging them across international exchanges.
Why? Because Vance believed the match was a certainty.
Vance didn't just have a fix; he had the match completely wired. Gabriel was contracted to dump the match in straight sets—0-2.
If Gabriel and Milo lost 0-2, Vance’s syndicate would keep every single penny of the multi-million-dollar bets placed on them by the global public. Furthermore, Vance had placed massive, highly leveraged secondary bets on the Spanish pair to win in straight sets through private Asian sports books at long odds.
The total net haul for Vance? Over twenty-five million euros.
And what was Gabriel’s reward? His four-million-euro baccarat debt erased, a one-way ticket to Lisbon, and Milo left behind as Vance’s personal collateral to guarantee Gabriel’s silence in the years to come.
Milo stared at the glowing numbers on the screen. His eyes narrowed, pupils contracting until they looked like black ink drops.
*The line has been capped at 14.5 million,* Vance’s text had said.
Milo traced the logic to its inverse.
What happened if Gabriel didn't lose?
What happened if the match didn't end in straight sets?
Worse: what happened if Gabriel and Milo *won* the championship?
Milo’s hands paused over the keys as the sheer, catastrophic scale of the mechanics hit him like an electric shock.
If Gabriel and Milo won, Vance’s syndicate wouldn't just lose their side bets on the Spanish underdogs.
They would be on the hook to pay out every single winning ticket placed by the public on the tournament favorites. Tens of millions of euros in winning bets, backed by zero liquidity, because Vance had operated on a naked book, entirely unhedged, assuming a guaranteed defeat.
The payout demand would hit Vance’s offshore accounts within thirty seconds of match point.
The syndicate would suffer an instant, catastrophic liquidity collapse. Vance would default on international clearinghouses. The high-stakes Asian cartels that Vance had used to leverage his positions would be ruined—and those syndicates did not sue in court. They collected blood.
If Gabriel won tomorrow night, Vance’s entire empire would detonate from the inside out.
And Gabriel? Gabriel wouldn't be walking away to a sunlit ranch in Portugal. Gabriel would be the man who cost the most ruthless criminal syndicate in Europe thirty million euros on live international television.
A low, trembling breath escaped Milo’s lips.
It wasn't fear.
It was the sudden, intoxicating rush of a prisoner realizing the bars of his cell were made of glass, and that he was holding the hammer.
Gabriel had spent three years treating Milo like an ornament. A fragile, talented child who needed to be tucked into bed, whose wrists needed to be wrapped by a master’s hands, who had to be shielded from the dirt of the real world.
Gabriel believed Milo was incapable of surviving without his shelter. Gabriel believed that when the time came tomorrow night, Milo would crumble under the Spanish baseline pressure, miss his returns, look to Gabriel for guidance, and quietly accept defeat like a good, obedient boy.
"You think I'm your victim," Milo whispered into the dim room, his eyes fixed on the flickering monitor. "You think you're selling me."
The bathroom door clicked open.
Milo’s hand moved instantly. With a single, smooth stroke, he pressed a hotkey that wiped the cache, closed the encrypted partition, and returned the laptop screen to a saved video analysis file of the Spanish pair’s first-serve patterns.
He leaned back in the desk chair, resting his chin on his palm, perfectly still.
Gabriel walked out, a plush white hotel robe tied loosely around his waist. His damp, sandy-brown hair was combed back, smelling of eucalyptus and steam. The faint redness on his right shoulder was hidden beneath the terrycloth, but his posture was loose, relaxed.
"Still studying tape?" Gabriel asked, walking over and placing both hands on Milo’s shoulders from behind.
The weight was heavy, oppressive. Gabriel leaned down, resting his cheek against Milo’s temple, peering at the frozen frame of the Spanish server on the screen.
"Look at his toss," Gabriel murmured, his breath warm against Milo’s ear. "He drops his elbow on the kick serve out wide. Easy to read. You’ll have no trouble chipping it back tomorrow."
*Chipping it back so you can dump the volley into the net,* Milo thought.
"He likes the body serve on crucial points," Milo said aloud, his voice entirely steady. "If he jams you on the backhand, you won't have room to extend that shoulder."
Gabriel gave a soft, dismissive chuckle, his fingers kneading the muscles at the base of Milo’s neck with hypnotic, practiced rhythm.
"Don't worry about my shoulder, sweetheart. I told you, I’ve got it managed. When the pressure comes, you just stick to the baseline. Don't try to be a hero. Don't over-hit. If a ball looks too deep, let it go. We don't need you tearing an oblique trying to chase down lost causes."
*Don't try to be a hero.*
Milo closed his eyes, leaning his head back against Gabriel’s chest. He felt the steady, thumping cadence of Gabriel’s heart against his skull. It was rhythmic, calm, completely devoid of guilt.
How could a man’s heart beat so calmly while he plotted to abandon the person in his arms to wolves?
"Gabriel?" Milo whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Do you love me?"
The hands on Milo’s shoulders paused for a fraction of a second. Just a fraction. Then Gabriel turned Milo’s chair around, dropping down onto one knee so they were eye to eye, exactly as he had done in the locker room.
Gabriel took both of Milo’s hands into his own. His amber eyes were luminous in the desk lamp’s glow, filled with that sweeping, tragic devotion that had captivated Milo from the very beginning.
"More than my own life," Gabriel said, and there was so much raw, aching sincerity in his voice that a lesser man would have believed him even while standing on the gallows. "Everything I’ve ever done—every dirty compromise, every match I’ve had to swallow—I did it so we could have a life where no one could touch us. You are the only clean thing in my world, Milo. Never doubt that."
Milo looked at the man he had worshipped.
He saw the tiny crow’s feet, the sharp, noble bridge of his nose, the soft curve of his mouth that had kissed Milo through victories and feverish nights in hotel rooms across the globe.
Gabriel really believed his own lie. That was the most terrifying part. In Gabriel’s twisted, narcissistic martyr complex, selling Milo wasn't an act of treachery—it was a tragic necessity, an agonizing sacrifice Gabriel was making for his own survival, while convincing himself that Milo would somehow be fine, that Vance would treat him well, that Milo was adaptable.
Gabriel didn't love Milo as an equal human being.
Gabriel loved Milo the way a collector loved a rare, fragile bird. And when the collector ran out of money to pay his debts, he would sell the bird to a private menagerie, shedding a single, noble tear as he pocketed the cash.
