She was sitting quietly in her wheelchair. She wore a heavy knit blanket over her lap to fight off the chill of the backstage air conditioning. Her face looked incredibly drawn, the shadows under her eyes resurfacing. Jey would usually tell her it gets noticeable whenever she’s around Billy. She usually denies it.
The temporary vibrancy she had regained in past weeks seemed to have been drained out of her by what she had just watched on the backstage monitors.
Jey pushed himself off the cases, keeping a firm grip on Bambietta’s hand, and walked slowly toward his mother.
Every step felt heavier than the last. He didn’t know what to say to her. He had promised to put the ghost to rest. He had promised to end the feud, to bring some sense of closure to the family. Instead, it had ended in a dirty, cowardly blow, leaving everything still fractured and unresolved.
He stopped, letting go of Bambietta’s hand to crouch down. He couldn’t quite bend his knees all the way, so he settled into an awkward half-kneel, resting his forearms on his thighs so he could look her in the eye.
"Mom," he said softly.
Linda didn’t look at him right away. She was staring at his hands, looking at his knuckles and the tape starting to peel away from his wrists. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his face.
She reached out, her fingers gently touching his cheek. Her skin was freezing cold.
"Are you okay?" she whispered, her voice fragile, sounding older than she was.
"Yes, mom. I’m in one piece," he assured her, offering a reassuring smile that he himself didn’t fully trust. "Just a few bumps. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before."
Linda’s hand dropped back to her lap, her fingers twisting nervously into the fabric of the blanket. She looked away, her eyes drifting toward the entrance that led back to the arena, toward the ring where most of the drama in her family was centered around.
"I watched," she said, her voice hollow. "I watched you offer him your hand. I watched you try to help him up, Jey."
"I couldn’t just leave him there," Jey said quietly. "His knee looked gone, Mom. I heard it pop. I honestly thought he couldn’t stand."
"And he struck you for it," she finished, a tear finally breaking loose and tracing a slow path down her cheek. She wiped it away furiously with the back of her hand, a sudden spark of bitter anger flashing in her eyes. "He struck you when you showed him mercy."
Jey didn’t have an answer for that. There was no excuse he could offer, no justification for what Billy had done.
"Your father," Linda started, her voice catching in her throat. She had to pause, taking a shallow breath to steady herself. "Your father gave everything to this industry. He gave his heart and soul to those fans. But he always believed there was honor in the ring. He believed that when the bell rang, you fought like a man, and when it was over, you left it all out there on the mat."
She looked back at Jey, her eyes pleading for some kind of understanding that he couldn’t provide.
"Billy has no honor," she said, the words falling like heavy stones in the quiet. "He has let the bitterness hollow him out. He isn’t fighting for any legacy name, Jey. He’s just out to destroy you."
Bambietta stepped up behind Jey, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. She looked down at Linda, her own expression softening with empathy. "We’re going to get him home, Mrs. Ray. We’re going to get some ice on him, get him some rest, and we’re going to put this whole nightmare behind us."
Linda nodded slowly, staring down at her lap. "I just don’t want to see you boys kill each other. I can’t bury another man in this family. I simply can’t do it."
"You won’t have to," Jey promised, reaching out to squeeze her cold hands. "It’s over. After tonight, the promotion can’t justify putting us in the ring together again. He took the disqualification. He proved he can’t beat me clean. Shin has what he wants, the fan approval, the drama. And sorry to say, he’ll likely be out for a long, long time. It’s done."
"Is it?"
The voice came from the opposite end of the hallway.
Jey turned his head, wincing again, while Bambietta’s grip tightened significantly on his shoulder.
General Manager Ryoman was walking toward them. The executive moved with the same stiff, deliberate posture he had displayed on the entrance ramp the week prior. He was flanked by a pair of Japan Wrestling production assistants, whom he dismissed with a wave of his hand as he approached the family.
Ryoman stopped a respectable distance away, clasping his hands in front of his tailored suit. He looked Jey over, taking in the bruises, the sweat, and the exhausted slump of his posture.
"You put on a hell of a performance out there tonight, Ray," Ryoman said, his baritone voice lacking the theatrical projection he used for the live audience. "The crowd was completely invested from the moment your new music hit to the second the bell rang for the disqualification."
"I didn’t exactly get the finish I wanted," Jey replied dryly, pushing himself up from his awkward crouch with a grunt of effort. Bambietta immediately slid her arm around his waist to support his weight.
"The finish you wanted doesn’t always align with the finish the business needs," Ryoman noted smoothly. "You showed resilience. You showed the fighting spirit this company demands of its top stars. And more importantly, you showed restraint after you noticed an injury. Not much I can say about Billy after he forced the disqualification. You walked away looking like a champion. The fans will remember that."
Ryoman shifted his attention down to the wheelchair.
"The lovely Mrs. Ray," Ryoman said, offering a polite incline of his head. "I want to extend my personal apologies for the distressing nature of the match’s conclusion. It is never our intention to see family matters spill over into such unsportsmanlike conduct within our rings."
Linda stared at the General Manager. She didn’t offer a polite nod in return. She had been around wrestling promoters for a while alongside her late husband. She knew better than to trust the sympathetic tone of a man whose primary job was to sell violence.
Ryoman cleared his throat, adjusting his suit slightly. "I also felt it was appropriate to come here and offer you an update, as I assume you will want to know. The medical staff is transporting Billy to our trusted local medical center."
Jey stiffened, glancing at Bambietta, who narrowed her eyes at the GM.
"How bad is it?" Jey asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them, his deeply ingrained empathy overriding his anger.
Ryoman looked back at Jey, his expression grim. "The first assessment from the standby physician says it’s a complete rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament, along with a severely torn meniscus. Given his history of surgical interventions on that specific joint, the damage is likely catastrophic. The doctors are evaluating whether the knee can be salvaged for normal daily function, let alone athletic competition."
A heavy silence settled over the corridor.
The weight of the diagnosis hung in the air. A ruptured ACL and a torn meniscus on an already bad knee. It was a death sentence for a wrestling career. It meant the end of the road.
Billy Bones had pretty much brought it on himself. Destroyed his own body trying to hurt the brother he despised. He had thrown away his final opportunity on the grand stage, opting for a cheap shot rather than a clean loss.
This forced match had cost him the one thing he cared about more than anything else, his ability to perform.
Linda closed her eyes, letting out a long sigh that seemed to deflate her entire body. She didn’t cry this time. She just looked incredibly weary, a mother mourning the final, inevitable downfall of a son she had already lost years ago.
"We will, of course, cover the immediate medical expenses required to stabilize the joint," Ryoman continued smoothly, stepping effortlessly back into his corporate persona. "Japan Wrestling takes care of its stars when injuries occur in our rings. However, given the nature of the injury and the length of the required rehabilitation, the front office has decided to terminate his contract effective immediately. The compensation will be put towards the treatment."
Jey blinked.
The reality of the business evident to him now more than ever. They had squeezed the feud for every possible dime, utilizing the real-life hatred between the brothers to generate record-breaking engagement. Now that Billy was no longer a viable asset, the promotion was cutting him loose without a second thought.
"So that’s it," Jey said, his voice flat. "You got your main events out of him, and now you throw him away."
Ryoman didn’t bother much with the accusation. He met Jey’s gaze evenly. "We provided him with a platform, Ray. We gave him the main event of StandOut. We gave him a match tonight. He is the one who chose to handle himself the way he did in the ring. We cannot employ a talent who physically cannot even walk down the ramp, let alone perform to the standards of this roster."
The GM looked back at Linda, assuming she would be the one to orchestrate whatever familial obligations remained.
"If you need assistance arranging transport for him back to wherever he was before Japan once he is discharged, my office can facilitate the travel accommodations," Ryoman offered, a hollow gesture of goodwill. "We want to ensure he is handled with care."
Before Linda could even open her mouth to reply, Bambietta stepped forward.
She moved out from under Jey’s arm, placing herself between the General Manager and the wheelchair. She didn’t look intimidated by the massive former wrestler.
She didn’t care about his corporate title or his authority over Jey’s career.
Bambietta crossed her arms tightly across her chest, her eyes locking onto Ryoman with a fierce glare.
"Don’t bother reaching out to arrange anything and don’t expect us to either," she stated, her voice sharp and commanding.
Ryoman raised an eyebrow, clearly unaccustomed to being addressed with such hostility by anyone other than a main-event talent. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Bambietta continued, not taking a single step back. "You can take your accommodations and your apologies and keep them. We are taking Jey home to heal, and we are taking Linda home to rest. What happens to that man is his own problem."
She glared at the executive, her tone leaving no room for debate, negotiation, or corporate maneuvering.
"We don’t have anything to do with him."