Ding. Dong.
The doorbell chimed in the filtered air of the apartment.
It was a gentle, unassuming sound, but in the stillness of the morning and the aftermath of the day before, it was anything but disturbing.
The apartment itself was a huge improvement compared to its predecessor. It was a large, high-rise apartment in the middle of Osaka’s business district. Jey’s base pay under the Japan Wrestling contract was ¥3,400,000, which had completely changed the way they lived, taking them far out of the peeling paint and rusted metal stairs of their former home.
The floors here were hardwood, the kitchen island was all marble, and the floor-to-ceiling windows provided a staggering panoramic view of the towering skyscrapers.
But inside, even though it was luxurious... someone inside was in a pretty suffocating situation.
Jey was in the master bedroom, heavily medicated and sleeping fitfully. He was almost paralyzed by the brutal Mexican Destroyer he had been attacked with the day before. The physicians of JW had been examining his neck for hours without being able to find anything wrong.
By some miraculous luck, they had ruled out a broken vertebrae. Yet, his muscles were locked in agonizing spasms, he was strapped into a thick cervical collar, and his career was momentarily paused just as it had officially restarted.
Bambietta was chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter for a broth. Her dark hair was styled in a disheveled bun, and she was wearing a large grey hoodie. She was lacking sleep, her eyes ringed with bags, and her only source of energy was a dangerous mixture of caffeine and protective rage.
Ding. Dong.
The doorbell rang again.
Billy, their wild brown terrier mix, lifted his head from his plush designer dog bed in the corner of the living room. He let out a low, warning growl.
"Shh. Quiet, buddy," Bambietta whispered sharply, pointing a finger at the dog. She didn’t want the noise to wake Jey or Linda.
She put down the knife in the kitchen and dried her hands on a dish towel. Her forehead furrowed as she frowned in confusion. "We weren’t expecting any visitors."
The JW front office had explicitly assured them they would provide absolute privacy for the next forty-eight hours while Jey was recovering. She took the unwarranted visit to be another delivery of anti-inflammatory medicine or maybe a gift basket from Mr. Shin.
Bambietta sauntered across the large living room, her bare feet making soft footsteps on the hardwood floors. She didn’t bother to check the digital peephole monitor. She unlocked the deadbolt and the door opened, a dismissal forming on her lips.
The man who had circumvented the whole JW security staff the day before was standing in the brightly lit, carpeted hallway of the luxury complex.
He was not sporting the chaotic, incomplete mask today. His face was completely bare, exposing the harsh, weathered reality of his six miserable years toiling on the bottom of the independent circuit. His jaw had a thick, dark stubble, and there was a thin and faded scar down his left brow. He was wearing the same crisp white shirt with sleeves aggressively rolled up past his elbows, but the shirt was now wrinkled and his knuckles were raw, purple, and swollen.
No athletic tape on them this time.
He stood in that familiar, but somehow less crooked posture, a weight shifted heavily off his thrice-surgically repaired right knee...or atleast should have. He looked slightly more healthy.
He looked at Bambietta with dead, unblinking eyes.
"Hello, Ana," Billy said. His voice was a gravelly rasp, casually stripping away her chosen moniker and using the name she hadn’t gone by since...forever.
Bambietta didn’t try to slam the door on him.
Pure, unadulterated fury hijacked her instead. Before her conscious mind could even process the audacity of his presence, her arm cocked back.
Smack.
The slap was thunderous. It echoed sharply down the long, empty corridor of the high-rise. She put every ounce of her strength, every ounce of her exhaustion, and every ounce of the terror she had felt watching Jey’s motionless body get spiked into the canvas while she was in the comfort of their living room sofa.
Billy’s head snapped to the side. A sudden bright red handprint appeared across his pale, stubbled cheek.
He didn’t stumble backwards or put his hands up for protection prior to the slap. Slowly, he turned his head back to look at her, with his face unchanged. The dead, vacant look in his eyes hadn’t shifted a single millimeter. It was the same eerily placid attitude he had maintained while dismantling his brother.
"You sick, twisted piece of shit!" Bambietta hissed, her voice trembling with a rage so profound it shook her entire frame. She stepped forward, invading his personal space, her fists balled tightly her knuckles were about to pop. "You have the fucking nerve to come here? After what you did to him?"
Billy casually reached up, wiping a small drop of blood from the corner of his mouth where one of her rings had caught his lip. He looked at the blood on his thumb, then looked back down at her.
"Listen to me very carefully," Billy said, his tone devoid of any emotion, dripping with calm. "I am not picky about who I hit. I don’t care about any unwritten rules, and I don’t care that you’re a woman. If you ever raise your hand to me again, trust I’ll retaliate."
Bambietta’s tough, untouchable exterior flared up instead. "It wouldn’t be your first time hitting a woman, huh. Try it! I will carve your good eye out before you even lift your arm. How did you even get up here--"
Billy interrupted monotonously. "A little snooping around never hurt anyone. I didn’t come here for you, Ana. Move out of the way."
"Over my dead body," she spat, planting her feet firmly in the doorway.
"So be it."
A shout rang out before an altercation could ensue.
"Bambietta!"
It came from behind them.
Bambietta froze, her fierce posture instantly faltering. She turned her head slightly.
Linda was wheeling herself out of the guest bedroom. The wheelchair clicked faintly against the floor. She was wearing a soft, knitted cardigan over her nightgown. Her dark, sunken eyes were fixed on the open doorway. She looked frail, the stress of the previous night’s televised assault having drained the healthy hue she had recently regained.
"Mrs. Ray, please go back to bed," Bambietta pleaded, her voice softening instantly into the warm tone she reserved strictly for Linda and her favourite of the Ray boys. "I’m handling this. I’m calling the police right now."
"No," Linda said quietly, bringing the wheelchair to a halt just a few feet behind Bambietta. "Excuse us, dear."
"Mom. No."
"I said excuse us, Bambietta," Linda commanded, a sudden, sharp edge of maternal authority cutting through her fragility.
Bambietta looked back at Billy. The older brother offered a tiny, mocking smirk, tilting his head slightly. Bambietta clenched her jaw so hard it probably ached. She wanted nothing more than to lunge at his throat and rip into him for all the suffering he caused the man she loved so much.
But she respected Linda too much to disobey her in her son’s home.
"If you take one step past this doorway, I’m grabbing the kitchen knife," Bambietta warned, pointing a threatening finger at Billy’s chest. She whistled sharply for the dog. "Come on, Billy."
..."Not you, the good one."
The terrier trotted over, and Bambietta retreated into the kitchen, though she remained visible, her eyes burning holes into the intruder’s skull.
Linda carefully rolled herself forward until she was occupying the space Bambietta had just vacated. A heavy silence fell over the hallway.
The mother and her estranged, violent son stared at each other.
It had been over a year since they had occupied the same space. The last time had been in the hospital room in Mexico, the night Lee Ray’s heart had failed. The night Billy had sneered at Jey, blaming his younger brother for putting their father on his deathbed.
"Look at you," Linda finally whispered, her voice cracking with the immense weight of a mother’s grief. She reached a trembling hand out, Billy bent down a little, her fingers hovering just inches from the red mark Bambietta had left on his cheek, but she didn’t touch him. "What have you become?"
"Exactly what this family made me," Billy replied coldly, stepping back just slightly. "Don’t look at me with pity."
"He could have been paralyzed or worse," Linda said, tears instantly welling in her eyes, spilling over her lashes and tracking down her cheeks. "He was burnt out and defenseless, Billy. You tried to end his career. You tried to break his neck on live television. Your own brother."
"He isn’t my brother," Billy snapped, his voice finally rising above a deadpan whisper, betraying the deep, festering grudge that was boiling inside him. "And you know it."
Linda closed her eyes, a fresh wave of tears falling. She gripped the armrests of her wheelchair tightly. "He carries your father’s name. He honors his memory. He loves this family just as much as you once did."
"He honors nothing!" Billy barked, his hands curling into tight fists at his sides. "He stole what was rightfully mine. I am the one who bled for that name. I am the one who spent six years sleeping in roach-infested motels, wrestling for two dollars just to keep the legacy alive! I tore my body to pieces trying to be like him! I gave my body to this industry, and what did I get? An old man who felt obligated to support the adopted son instead of the real one!"
"Your father loved you," Linda pleaded, her voice shaking violently. "He was proud of your heart, Billy. He knew how hard you tried."
"He knew I lacked the natural talent," Billy spat back, his face twisting to reveal pure resentment. "He knew it, and you knew it. And instead of telling me the truth, instead of saving me from destroying myself, you let me chase a ghost. And then you gave the crown to him."
Billy gestured wildly toward the interior of the apartment, taking in the marble counters, the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the undeniable proof of Jey’s unmerited success.
"Look at this place," Billy sneered, his lip curling in disgust. "One match in Japan and he’s living like this. He gets the corporate contract, he gets the cheering crowds, he gets the beautiful girl, and he gets you. He gets the perfect package."
"You walked away from this family," Linda said firmly, finding a small reserve of strength. She sat up straighter in her chair, meeting his furious gaze. "The moment you realized you couldn’t be Lee Ray, you let the bitterness consume you. You turned your back on us long before your father died. Jey didn’t steal your life, Billy. You abandoned it."
He was struck by the words. A flicker of deep, unresolved sadness passed through Billy’s eyes, a painful reminder of the boy he used to be before the wrestling industry chewed him up and spat him out.
But the vulnerability vanished as quickly as it appeared, swallowed whole by the overwhelming tide of his anger.
Billy straightened his posture. He looked down at his mother, his expression hardening. He had come here looking for some twisted sense of validation, hoping that seeing Jey broken would fix the massive void in his chest. However, as he gazed at the lavish apartment and observed his mother fiercely defending the man sleeping in the other room, his animosity only deepened.
This was clearly a waste of time.
"Keep telling yourself that, Mom," Billy said, his voice dropping back to that terrifying, monotonous calm. "Keep pretending you cared about me."
He retreated, stepping back into the hall, preparing to leave. He didn’t look at Bambietta, who was still standing in the kitchen with clenched fists. He kept his eyes locked squarely on Linda.
"Tell the adopted son of a bitch I stopped by," Billy said.
His shoes clicking against the corridor floor.