Pressure Points

The arena was deafening.
Flashes of cameras burst through the darkened corridors backstage, voices overlapping in English, Spanish, Georgian-everyone speaking at once as production assistants sprinted through the chaos of fight night.
"Doctor's on the way."
"Media in ten."
"Where's his manager?"
"He needs stitches now."
But Ilia Topuria barely heard any of it.
Blood dripped steadily from the cut above his eyebrow, sliding down the side of his face and onto the white tape wrapped around his knuckles. Sweat darkened the collar of his compression shirt, chest still rising hard from the five-round war he had just survived.
The UFC belt sat heavy across his lap.
Untouched.
Ignored.
Because his attention was somewhere else entirely.
"You're bleeding on the floor."
Her voice cut through the noise effortlessly.
Calm.
Unimpressed.
Familiar.
She stood in front of him wearing an all-black Venum quarter zip with a credential hanging from her neck, dark hair slightly messy like she'd spent the last hour dealing with production disasters instead of watching one of the biggest fights of the year.
Everyone else backstage looked at him like a champion.
She looked at him like he was a problem that needed stitches.
Ilia leaned back against the wall slowly, exhausted eyes dragging up toward her.
"There you are."