Chapter 5
Two weeks had passed since Madison's eyes promised war from that hospital bed, and she'd kept her fucking promise.
The USA Gymnastics headquarters felt like a tomb when I walked into that sterile conference room. Madison might have been on crutches, but she'd been busy as hell.
"Gabriella," the federation president began, his voice dripping fake sympathy, "we think it's best if you take some time away from the team."
Time away. Fancy words for "get out."
I'd watched Madison's masterclass in manipulation from the sidelines. Poor injured Madison, tearfully describing the "toxic environment" she'd endured. Social media posts of her rehab sessions, subtly painting me as the villain who destroyed her dreams.
She'd played victim perfectly, and America swallowed every lie.
"Team harmony considerations," the president continued. "We believe this break will benefit everyone."
I stared at him, hands folded, face blank. No begging, no tears. Just ice-cold acceptance.
"How long?"
"Indefinitely."
In my previous life, this word would've shattered me. This time, it only made me sharper.
"Understood," I said, standing slowly. The silence stretched between us like a loaded gun.
I walked out without another word. Let them sit with their decision.
Dad's press conference that afternoon was the final nail in the coffin. I sat in my car across from Elite Gymnastics Academy, watching reporters swarm the steps like vultures.
Madison had orchestrated this perfectly. Even on crutches, she was still pulling strings.
"Madison represents the true spirit of Torres Academy," Dad announced, his voice carrying across the parking lot. "She is our future."
Our future. Not me—fifteen years of blood and sweat on those mats, learning to bend my spine backward until my feet touched my head, training my body to defy gravity in impossible combinations. Madison, who'd been here less than two years and was currently rehabbing a busted knee.
Miguel stood beside him, nodding like a loyal dog. My own brother, helping erase me from our family legacy.
I hit record on my phone. Evidence for later.
"What about Gabriella?" a reporter called out.
Dad's face hardened. "Torres Academy stands by integrity and sportsmanship. Anyone who doesn't embody those values has no place here."
The dismissal was complete. I was officially dead to them.
Erase me? I watched Miguel unlock the Academy doors. Fine. But I'll come back as something you never saw coming.
I started the engine. Time to disappear completely.
Two days later, I was on a plane to Bucharest with nothing but a duffel bag and a contact number I'd memorized from my previous life.
The private training facility looked like a fucking warehouse from the outside, but inside, it was a temple. Equipment that resembled medieval torture devices filled every corner—parallel bars that could be adjusted to impossible heights, beams no wider than a credit card for balance training, vault tables that looked like they could launch someone into orbit.
Dimitri Volkov stood center floor, white hair catching the harsh lights—the legendary coach who'd forged Soviet champions.
He'd agreed to see me after one phone call.
"So," he said, his accent thick as molasses, pale eyes dissecting me. "You are Torres girl who destroyed her own team."
"I'm the Torres girl who's going to destroy a lot more."
His smile was the first genuine thing I'd seen in weeks. "In Romania, we don't train athletes. We forge weapons. Are you ready to become weapon?"
I looked around at equipment that could break bones if used incorrectly, at the man who'd turned broken girls into legends.
"I'm ready to become whatever it takes to destroy my enemies."
Dimitri's eyes glinted with something that might have been respect. "Good. We start now."
The first month nearly fucking killed me. Dimitri's methods made American coaching look like summer camp—six hours drilling movements that pushed my joints past their natural limits, three hours of conditioning that rewired my nervous system, mental exercises that rebuilt my brain from the ground up.
"Again!" he shouted as I crashed into the foam pit for the hundredth time. My body had just attempted something no woman had ever completed—sprinting down a runway, launching off a springboard, and spinning three complete rotations while flipping backward through the air.
Blood seeped through my torn grips. My shoulders felt like they were on fire. But I climbed out of the pit anyway.
"I will become unstoppable!" I roared, chalk dust coating my arms. "They will regret the day they betrayed me!"
Dimitri nodded approvingly. "Now you understand. Pain is your friend. Anger is your fuel."
By month two, something fundamental had shifted. My body moved with precision I'd never achieved—every muscle fiber responding instantly to my brain's commands. I could feel exactly where I was in space during the most complex rotations, my inner ear calibrated like a gyroscope. The broken girl who'd fled America was dead.
Something deadlier was taking her place.
But physical transformation wasn't enough. I needed ammunition.
In a dingy internet café downtown, I built my war chest. Encrypted emails with the private investigator I'd hired—a former FBI agent who specialized in exposing sports corruption.
His latest report made me smile in the dark.
"Three victims, documented medical evidence, recorded conversations. This could destroy him."
Ryan's sins were finally surfacing. Three underage gymnasts, all assaulted under his coaching. All with evidence ready for when the time came.
Madison's file was equally damning—security footage of equipment sabotage, audio recordings of her admitting to frame jobs, bank records tracking her schemes.
My phone buzzed with an encrypted message.
[It's Jasmine. I heard what happened. Tell me what you need. Time someone stood up to that bitch.]
Jasmine Carter. My former teammate, the only real friend in that toxic hellhole. Still inside, still watching, still loyal.
I typed back: "Be my eyes and ears. Document everything. The reckoning is coming."
While Jasmine gathered intelligence, I focused on becoming untouchable.
Three months later, I stood center floor in Dimitri's gym, my body humming with impossible power. The movement I'd been perfecting—that explosive sprint leading to a backward launch and three full rotations in the air—now flowed from me like breathing.
I hit the runway at full speed, my feet pounding the blue surface in perfect rhythm. The springboard catapulted me skyward, and I twisted my body like a corkscrew—once, twice, three complete spirals—before driving my feet into the landing mat with authority. The impact didn't even make me wobble.
"In forty years coaching, I never see athlete like you," Dimitri said, his voice filled with awe. "You are not human anymore."
I straightened, barely breathing hard from the impossible skill. "Good. Humans can be hurt. I refuse to be hurt again."
My floor routine was finally perfect—four tumbling passes that chained together movements that defied physics. I'd launch into a backward flip, spinning twice in each direction while my body carved through empty air, before landing and immediately springing into a forward somersault with three twists that made the laws of motion seem optional.
Every skill designed to be so fucking difficult that no judge could deny me gold.
I wasn't Gabriella Torres anymore, the girl who'd been betrayed and exiled.
I was something new. Something dangerous.
"Let them see what they created when they destroyed the old me."
Time to give them a preview.
Back in my dorm room, I set up the camera with steady hands. This video would be my declaration of war.
"Hello, Madison. Miss me? You should."
I held up the manila folders containing every piece of evidence I'd collected. "I know what you did. All of it. Every dirty little secret."
The camera caught my cold smile, the predatory gleam in my eyes. "Six months. That's how long you have left to enjoy your stolen life."
I uploaded the video to an untraceable server and hit send.
Within hours, Jasmine's encrypted messages lit up my phone. "She got your video. She's freaking the fuck out. Called Ryan immediately."
Perfect. Let them panic. Let them scramble.
I was ready to go home.