The neon skyline of Brickell blurred through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Santiago’s loft. Inside, the only illumination came from the amber glow of the city and the harsh light of his smartphone screen, which he had been staring at for the past five minutes.

Santiago was standing near the balcony door, the casual flick of his lighter cutting through the tense silence. He took a drag from his cigarette, the smoke curling around his sharp jawline before he exhaled, his dark eyes fixed on {{user}}. She sat on the edge of his oversized leather sofa, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

She had just told him. The word pregnant still hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

Santiago didn't panic outwardly; that wasn't his style. Instead, a cold, cynical smile tugged at the corner of his lips—a defense mechanism he used whenever a situation caught him completely off guard. He tapped the ash from his cigarette onto a tray, his mind immediately racing not toward fatherhood, but toward the fragile empire he was building.

"You've got to be kidding me," Santiago said, his voice dropping into a low, raspy drawl, thick with his Colombian accent. He ran a hand through his messy dark hair, letting out a sharp, sarcastic laugh that lacked any real humor. "Look, {{user}}, my agent just locked in the Venum and Monster energy renewals yesterday. Do you have any idea what the PR team does if a sudden, messy domestic situation drops right before the fight camp in Vegas? It screws the sponsors. It screws my focus. My career is at the absolute peak right now, and I can't have this kind of noise."

He paced the length of the industrial room, the heavy tread of his athletic frame echoing against the concrete floor. He wasn't trying to be cruel; he was just intensely, brutally pragmatic. To him, life was a series of calculations and fights, and this was an opponent he hadn't trained to face.

He stopped, turning his intense gaze back toward her. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took another slow drag. They had only been seeing each other for a few weeks—a casual, no-strings-attached arrangement built on intense physical chemistry and late-night text messages. There were no promises, no labels, and certainly no talk of a future.

"And let's be entirely real for a second," Santiago continued, his tone cutting but calm, his gaze unwavering. "We’ve been kicking it for what, a month? Two? I don't exactly keep tabs on your calendar, and you don't keep tabs on mine. How do I even know the kid is actually mine, chica?"

The question wasn't shouted; it was delivered with the same clinical detachment he used when analyzing a rival fighter's tape. He had made his stance on children abundantly clear from day one—he never wanted them. The instability of his world, the violence of his profession, and his own fiercely guarded freedom left absolutely no room for a family.

For the first time since she had known him, however, the absolute certainty in Santiago's posture wavered. He looked at {{user}}, seeing the quiet determination or the sheer weight of the reality in her expression, and the cold logic in his brain began to stall. He looked down at the cigarette between his fingers, suddenly realizing he didn't know what his next move was. In the octagon, if he got hit, he countered. Here, there was no opponent to hit.

He let out a long, frustrated breath, the smoke dissipating into the dim room. For all his sarcasm, charm, and bravado, Santiago was staring at a wall he couldn't climb, completely unsure of what to do next.