On the eve of the fight, Vera took Rof to a proper restaurant. A place where you sit down, with cloth napkins and a menu that spanned more than a single page. Rof immediately felt out of place, dressed in his least raggedy jacket which still had a tiny tear on the left elbow.
Vera, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease. She could fit in anywhere, a trait that was somewhat unnerving. They ordered their meal. Vera chose something light, while Rof, being a broke 24-year-old, selected the largest item on the menu. After all, someone else was footing the bill.
"Tell me something true about yourself," Vera demanded, cutting through the silence between ordering and the arrival of water. Rof looked at her quizzically. "Why?"
"Because you're about to fight the most intelligent man in the tournament tomorrow, and I need to know if there's anything he can exploit. Fears. Guilt. Things that would make you stop fighting to protect." She adjusted her fork with precision. "Silas doesn't just read your body language. He talks during fights. He identifies weak spots and fills them with words."
Rof pondered on this. "What kind of words?"
"Last fight, he told a man his daughter would be humiliated watching him." Vera held his gaze. "The man gave up in the fifth round. Just stopped. His daughter was only eight years old."
The water arrived and Rof took a sip.
"He investigates his opponents before the fight," Vera continued. "He's already aware of your father. The factory. The money. He knows about your mother leaving." She studied his reaction. "I'm not saying this to frighten you. I'm telling you so it won't be a shock when he brings it up in the ring. Old news doesn't shake people. Only surprises do."
Rof put his glass down. "You seem to know a lot about breaking people."
"That's my specialty."
"Why?"
Vera took a moment to think, not avoiding the question but genuinely considering it. "Because broken people are unpredictable," she finally said. "And unpredictable people are dangerous. And dangerous people are the only ones worth being around." She looked at him intently. "You're not broken. That's what makes you unique."
Their food arrived and they ate mostly in silence. Rof ate quickly, a habit from years of uncertainty about meal interruptions. Vera ate slowly, as if eating deserved her full attention.
Midway through the meal, Rof announced, "He's going to bring up my mother."
Vera looked up.
"That's the weak spot he'll target," Rof explained. "Not my father — everyone knows about him. That's too obvious, and Silas isn't predictable. He'll go for my mother. Her departure." He stared at his plate. "Because that's the one I haven't come to terms with yet."
Vera put her fork down and watched him closely, her gaze neither warm nor cold, but attentive, like a caring surveillance camera.
"What will you do when he says it?" she asked.
Rof thought about the photograph in his pocket. A smiling boy in a white room, a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll already know something he doesn't," Rof said. "About her. About what she did." He absentmindedly touched his jacket pocket. "That changes the game. He's going to use a version of my mother that's outdated. That's not a vulnerability. That's just noise."
Vera picked up her fork again.
She was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, almost to herself, "You're smarter than you look."
"We all are," Rof replied.
That night, Silas called.
Rof had no idea how he got his number, but he didn't ask.
"Leon," Silas began, his voice the same as in the gym — quiet and scholarly, like a man reading aloud from an invisible text. "I want you to know something before we step into the ring tomorrow."
"I'm all ears," Rof said.
"I've fought thirty-one men in this tournament over the past three years. I've studied each one before the fight. Every time, I learn something — about human nature, about patterns, about how people behave differently when they're scared. But you... you're the first one I can't figure out. I can't find your limit. Every man has a limit beyond which they cannot rise. But you, I can't seem to find yours."
Rof sat on the floor of his room, his back against the wall, a cross pendant resting against his chest.
"Is this supposed to intimidate me?" Rof asked.
"No. It's meant to motivate you. I fight better when my opponent is giving it his all," Silas replied, his voice even and steady. "I want to see your speed. I want to see what you're truly made of. And for that, I need you to come in tomorrow not just to survive, but to annihilate me."
"And if I do?"
"Then one of us will learn something that changes everything." Silas paused. "I've been searching for the limit my entire career. Thirty-one men and none of them had what I was looking for. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't." Something in his voice changed, almost human. "But you're the first man I've been genuinely curious about in three years, Rof Leon. Don't waste that opportunity."
He hung up.
Rof sat in the darkness, contemplating the concept of limits. Then he thought about a white room, a chair, and a hand on the shoulder of a five-year-old boy who came home and slept for two days.
He pressed his palm flat against the floor.
What are you? He asked the entity within him. What did they instill in you?
It didn't respond.
It never did.
It simply waited.