Chapter 25
Dominic
Brooke and I burst through the arena doors with maybe fifteen minutes to spare, both of us panting from the sprint across the parking garage.
The Honda is probably parked illegally, but that’s a problem for future me.
Right now the only thing that matters is that we’re here, we made it, and Roman’s weigh-in hasn’t started yet.
Inside, the press area is pure chaos, the kind of organized madness that happens before every major fight but somehow still catches me off guard.
Reporters cluster around tables covered in credentials and media kits while camera crews jostle for position near the stage, and UFC staff dart between groups with clipboards and headsets, barking into radios and checking lists.
The air is thick with competing conversations in English and Spanish and what I think might be Russian from Volkov’s camp somewhere across the room.
We glance at each other, something passing between us that doesn’t need words, and then walk forward into the crowd.
Arena CDMX is massive, one of the biggest indoor venues in Latin America, with over twenty thousand seats rising in steep tiers toward a ceiling that seems impossibly high.
A huge centerhung LED screen hovers above where the octagon will be set up tomorrow night, and the whole place hums with pre-fight energy: camera crews, UFC staff with headsets and clipboards, the low roar of voices echoing off concrete and steel.
I spot Roman’s face on a banner hanging from the rafters, his image thirty feet tall next to Volkov’s.
I let it wash over me. My fighter’s face on a banner in a world-class arena, about to challenge for a championship belt. Several years ago Roman walked into my gym, and now we’re here, and I still can’t quite believe we actually fucking made it.
I glance over at Brooke, standing beside me with her head tilted back to take in the rafters.
Part of me didn’t want to pull into that parking garage at all, didn’t want the road trip to end.
The thought would have seemed insane just two days ago, but I think I could have kept driving with her for a while longer.
Exploring Mexico City together, just talking, stopping for tacos at roadside stands and strong coffee at whatever café looked good. Seeing where the road took us.
But none of that matters now, even if some part of me wants it to. Even if I feel like I got a glimpse of something on that drive, some version of us that might actually work. We both have jobs to do.
We walk along the edge of the press area, weaving between camera equipment and clusters of reporters, and I spot Roman near the stage talking to his agent.
He looks up, sees me, and his face goes through about four expressions in two seconds: relief, confusion, a quick glance between Brooke and me, and then a huge grin that I’m definitely going to have to answer questions about later.
I raise a hand to let him know I’ll be there in a second, then turn to Brooke, who has stopped beside me with her press credentials already in hand.
“Well,” I say, not entirely sure how to end this thing between us. It feels like we lived ten years in a day and a half, like we walked into that bar as two people and walked into this arena as something else entirely. “Thanks for... everything. The driving, the company, all of it.”
“You too,” she says, looking up at me with an expression I can’t quite read. “I’ll see you around the fight. Good luck tomorrow, Dom. Really. I mean it.”
“Thanks.” I want to say something else, something that captures what this trip actually meant, but the words won’t come and this isn’t the time or the place. “Good luck with your story.”
She nods, and for a moment we just stand there while the chaos of the press area swirls around us. Then she gives me a small smile, hitches her bag higher on her shoulder, and turns toward the media check-in table.
I watch her walk away, her dark hair swinging against her back, and I have to physically stop myself from calling out to her.
The part of me that wants to figure out what this is, what it could be, whether whatever we stumbled onto in those mountains leads anywhere real.
But that’s not a conversation for a crowded arena fifteen minutes before my fighter’s weigh-in.
I turn and head toward Roman. It’s time to get back to work.
The arena goes dark and the screaming starts, twenty thousand people on their feet, the noise so loud I feel it in my chest, in my teeth, vibrating through the floor.
Then Roman’s music hits.
The roar is immediate and deafening. The Mexican crowd has adopted him as one of their own, flags waving everywhere, people screaming his name, and I’m standing cageside with his manager and the rest of the team, close enough to feel the bass from the speakers in my bones.
Roman makes his walk through the tunnel of noise, and he enters the Octagon.
The lights shift and Volkov’s music thunders through the speakers, the champion’s entrance.
He’s built like a tank, striding toward the Octagon with his team flanking him, the current belt around his waist catching the light.
The crowd is a wall of sound, cheers and boos and chanting mixing together into something primal.
Brett Barton steps to the center of the cage and his voice cuts through the chaos. “IIIIIIT’S TIIIIIIME FOR THE MAIN EVENT!”
I’ve been to hundreds of fights, but I’ve never heard anything like this. The sound crashes over us in waves, and I watch Roman’s face on the big screen overhead, calm and focused despite the pandemonium around him.
Barton’s voice booms through the arena as he introduces Roman first, the challenger, then turns to Volkov and the crowd erupts again as he announces the defending champion.
When he said “Dark River, Washington” during Roman’s introduction, I felt a surge of pride and terror and hope all tangled together.
The referee calls both fighters to center, and I can see his mouth moving but I can’t hear a word of it over the endless roar of the crowd. Roman nods, Volkov nods, and they touch gloves briefly before returning to their corners.
Roman looks over at me through the cage, just for a second, and I give him a nod. Years of work, thousands of hours in the gym, everything we’ve built together comes down to this moment.
I turn and scan the press section looking for Brooke but it’s useless, just hundreds of bodies packed together, cameras flashing, everyone on their feet.
I do spot Miguel and Rosa in the VIP section though, Miguel looking like he might pass out from excitement while Rosa waves a small Mexican flag over her head with their daughter filming on her phone.
I force myself to stop scanning the crowd for Brooke and turn my attention back to where it belongs, back to the cage where Roman is bouncing lightly on his feet and Volkov is rolling his shoulders and three years of work is about to be tested in front of the world.
The horn sounds and the crowd somehow gets even louder, Roman moves forward, and the fight begins.
The rounds blur together. My hands ache from gripping the chain-link and my jaw is clenched so tight my teeth hurt, and I watch Roman work through the game plan we’ve drilled for weeks.
He’s faster than Volkov and he knows it, staying on the outside, peppering jabs, making the bigger man chase him.
Volkov lands a hard right in the second that buckles Roman’s knees, and my stomach drops, but Roman recovers and makes it to the bell.
In the third round Roman starts finding his range, landing combinations that snap Volkov’s head back and open a cut above his eye.
And in the fourth he hurts him with a body shot that folds the champion in half, and before Volkov can recover Roman steps in with an uppercut that lands flush on the chin.
Volkov drops like someone cut his strings.
The referee dives in waving his arms and the arena explodes, twenty thousand people screaming so loud I feel it in my chest, and then I’m through the cage door and Roman is grabbing me, pulling me into a hug hard enough to crack ribs.
He’s shaking against me, and I just hold on and let him have this moment.
They wrap the belt around his waist and the cameras go crazy and Brett Barton announces the winner by knockout in the fourth round. When he says “and NEW UFC Heavyweight Champion” the roar is deafening.
Roman does his post-fight interview while I stand off to the side with my arms crossed, watching him talk about the journey and thank his team and say all the things fighters say after a win like this. I let the words wash over me without really hearing them.
We did it. We actually fucking did it.
The chaos keeps swirling with officials and cameras and reporters shouting questions, and I should be completely locked in on this moment. Biggest professional win of my life. My fighter holding a championship belt and everything I’ve been grinding toward.
But my mind keeps drifting to Brooke. She’s somewhere in this building right now, doing her job, and tomorrow we go back to our separate lives. Yet, standing here with confetti falling around me and my fighter’s name echoing off the walls, she’s the person I want next to me.\
The afterparty takes over the rooftop bar of our hotel, the Mexico City skyline glittering behind while champagne flows and music pounds through the speakers.
Roman is in the center of the room with the belt draped over his shoulder like he was born to wear it, surrounded by his parents and his management team and a rotating cast of well-wishers who want their moment with the new champion.