Chapter 49: My decision.

The entire situation was completely fucked up. I knew it, Finn knew it, Amber knew it and of course, poor little Luca knew it. We weren’t going to send him back. That was never going to be an option. But where exactly was my nephew supposed to go? Amber his own mother had no idea how to process the information. And before any of you get too harsh on my sister you have to realise something.

She thought she would never see her son again. Her ex-husband took that child away from her the second that Luca was born. Amber had resigned herself to the thought that she would never be able to hold her son to see her son to talk to her son. And now to suddenly have that opportunity in front of her she was terrified of being able to spend time with him only to have him taken away again.

It was a twisted logic, but it was one that I understood. But I needed to go for a walk. I needed to get out of the apartment.

Luca had fallen asleep, taking one of the guest rooms he couldn’t believe his eyes as he saw a giant bed ready for him to lay in. He passed out and I heard little snores coming from the room. As I went to leave, Finn went to talk to Me. I just held my hand up and shook my head and in that moment he knew that it was better just to simply leave me alone. I had shit that I needed to talk about shit that I needed to process, but it was not going to be with him.

I walked out going downstairs and leaving through the front entrance. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. Leaving out onto the public street like that after what Finn had done. I knew they were watching. The part of Me just didn’t give a shit. I moved down the sidewalk. The slightly post-summer sun hitting me. It was now fall. Officially. But it was still warm in the air left over from the summer that we had just gone through.

I moved down the sidewalk, my hands sliding into the pockets of my jeans. I took a deep breath and shook my head but then I heard footsteps behind me and I turned, my eyebrow raising as I saw my younger sister Tasmin ”Hey….what are you doing here?”

”Is it true?” My heart sank. I didn’t know if I should just tell her or not. I was shocked that she somehow knew. Before I could answer Tasmin continued. ”Did Finn find Ambers son? Did he really rescue him?”

I took a deep breath swallowing hard before opening my eyes and leading her off the sidewalk to a slightly quiet area in front of a cafe ”Yeah he did…but how did you-“

”Kallie”

Of course. She had seen what happened, she was there. Of course, she would tell Tas. ”Look, we don’t know exactly what is going to happen. Finn was able to get Luca out of there and we’re not going to take him back to that compound but at the same time, we now have them coming after us. Amber has no idea what she’s doing. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just know that I’m not going to let anyone hurt that boy.”

There was a determination in my voice. It’s spat like venom out into the world and my sister looked at me with a strange sense of admiration. And I understood why. Most people think I’m always just out for myself but when it comes to my family I’m very protective, especially with the children. Tasmin knows that I would do horrible things to anyone who hurt her daughter. ”Can I meet him?”

I nodded straight away. It would do Luca some good to meet his other aunt. ”Yeah, of course. It’ll do him some good.”

”I could take him in and look after him.”

”No” I straightaway shook my head. We were not going to go with that idea. I took a deep breath and folded my arms over my chest looking my sister dead in the eye to remind her of the situation that we found ourselves in. ”Jace and the rest of the Romani will be looking for him. I’m not gonna put you Adam or Dawn in danger…”

”Then what do we do?”

I shook my head. I honestly had no idea what to say. But I knew what I was going to do. I turned and we walked back to the apartment. I let my sister go in before me. I had this sinking feeling in my stomach, we were being watched. I looked across the street, my eyes darting site side. And I saw them. A group of men who just looked out of place. They were Romani.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath looking behind me at my home. I could walk in there right now go back up and tell Finn that we were being watched. I could tell my sisters what was going on and we could form some form of plan but there was something else there. I needed to take control of this. I needed to go and see my former boyfriend. The man who for the longest time kept me as a pet. Who tried to get Me to become his perfect little gypsy wife.

I growled under my breath. This man had held too much power over me for too long. I looked up looking at the windows of my home higher above the skyline. I swallowed hard knowing that Finn was in there waiting for me. ”I’m sorry…”

I was ready to go across the street to tell them to take me to Jase. But as I went to step forward and cross the road to hand reached out and grabbed me by the arm. It was Amber. ”The fuck are you doing?”

I turned and looked at Amber right in the eyes and at that moment she knew what I was going to do. She grabbed hold of my arm even harder and pulled me backward into the lobby of my apartment building. ”You know what I want to do. You know what I have to do, Amber.”

”No, you don’t” She shook her head, she was disappointed in me and I could tell. Part of her admired the fact I was ready to go and face him, to step into the lion's den with little to no regard for my own safety. ”You know damn well but will happen if you go and see him. And besides, are you even thinking about what will happen with Finn? How he will feel? And Luca? He has become attached to you.”

”And he should be attached to you. You’re his mother.”

I knew those words would hurt. But I didn’t care. I’d always been straight with my sister and I wasn’t going to stop now. She needed a wake-up call just as desperately as I did. ”yeah I am… and I need you. I need you to help me. I don’t know how I should feel about this. My son, I haven’t got anything with him and I need you to help me so please please don’t do anything stupid Kayla.”

Amber‘s pleading hit me in the heart and I had no choice but to comply. I looked back out towards the street and then at my sister before giving her a small nod. We both made our way to the elevator ready to go upstairs so Amber could see her son. So I could help her navigate the waters of being able to bond with him and get over this horrible feeling she had of abandoning her child.

A giant challenge

”I want to be completely transparent and clear on this. I didn’t want to face Bella Madison.”

Kayla Richards, the current reigning and defending SCW Bombshells world champion stands with her championship wrapped over her shoulder. Her hand gripping the main championship plate at the front her thumb grazing over the nameplate which bears her name.

”It wasn’t because I didn’t think Bella deserved the challenge. It was because that match had nothing to do with me. That match came about because Victoria Lyons wanted to punish Bella and destroy her before their match at violent conduct. I was being used as a tool. A tool to destroy Bella and make sure she goes into the match with Victoria with his little momentum as possible. And to be completely honest is a waste of my time. I am a champion, actually scratch that. I am the champion.”

“I have been at the top of this division since I stepped foot in this company. I walked in and started beating people right away only to be kept back in catering because the top names of this division didn’t want me out there making them look bad. I had to go to social media and run my mouth to make sure that I got booked. And when I did, we were off to the races ladies and gentlemen. Everyone they put in front of me. I beat And when I didn’t beat them, when I was the one who was staring up at the lights looking at someone else have their hand raised. Then I came back better than ever and put them in the dirt.”

“But the match with Bella was not anything that was going to benefit me or her.”

“And that was the point. Victoria Lyons knew what she was doing. She was using me to make sure that Bella was going to struggle and all that did was force me to have a match with someone that given the right circumstances and opportunity could be a legitimate challenger Famai championship. But, on that same night that I made Bella Madison tap out, I was able to look over and see four women ready to beat the living hell out of each other to get a shot at my championship.”

“Four women ready to put it all on the line to face Me.”

Kayla chuckles, thinking back to the match itself watching it backstage after she had beaten Bella watching the four women scrap and claw and do everything they could to try and get an opportunity. It made her heart swell with pride. Pride that this division still had women who were ready to risk everything to get a championship opportunity against the best

”I watched it happen in real-time. Song, Bobby, Tempest, and Harper Mason. The four of them went out there and did everything they possibly could to get their hand raised. And the prize, that little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a match against me. Now, a match against me is always going to be something worth fighting for but a match against Me for the world bombshells championship is something that every single woman in that locker room should be ready to lay their bodies down for. No matter the cost, no matter the pain, you should be ready to do everything you possibly can to get in the ring with Me for this world championship.”

“This title is the crown jewel of the bombshells division. Shit, it might even be the crown jewel of the entire company and in some circles a jewel that most people outside the company would love to come in and fight for. I have done everything that I can to make sure it is a prize worth getting. I want to take this championship back to the heights that it’s so with women like Amber Ryan Roxi Johnson and Alicia Lukas. I want this championship to be something that people will put their bodies on the line for night in a night out and that fatal four is a step in the right direction.”

“A step towards redemption”

“What do I mean by redemption? I hear some of you asking.”

“I look around at a lot of the names and faces in the women’s division. None of them have really been able to break out like I have. I have a handful of losses and a pile of wins. I have five championship reigns to my name. Three as the Internet champion, one as half of the mixed tag team champions, and one as the bombshells champion. I am at the top of this division and I have been for a very long time. But everyone else, everyone else seems to struggle. They will go on small spurts winning matches before filtering at a challenge that they should be able to overcome. And that is what I mean by redemption. This entire revision needs redemption. I need some of you to start rising up to the challenge to start being more like me and less like, well, you.”

She pauses moving the championship from her shoulder and lightly laying it down on the desk beside her. Kayla folds her arms over her chest. She is an impressive specimen, very very fit with rippling muscles and strong thighs. Her body is still very much feminine, but she shows what it is like to put the work in the gym.

”And a woman who very much needs redemption is tempest. You see, you look at a woman like Tempest and you think to yourself that she should be at the top of the division. Tempest, your size, your power, your skill set. You should’ve drafted this world championship and held it for as long as you want to. But instead, you have faulted and led yourself around the division on a whirlwind tour of despair and loss. Every two steps forward you take when it comes to getting that respect and redemption you falter and fall back three. I’ve watched it happen time and time again. And at the end of the day the closer you get to this championship the further away you get to holding it.”

“I’m sure that sounds like a contradiction but you, yourself are a contradiction. Look at yourself, your size and strength alone make it almost impossible for most people to beat you. But you’ve lost so many matches that you should have won. You have held championships but haven’t really done anything with them to make those titles worth it damn. You were a mixed tag team champion with Austin James Mercer, he is a former world champion and he lowered himself to teaming with you. And you two were one of the reasons why those championships ended up disappearing in the first place.”

“It took me and Finn winning those championships and then becoming world champions to make those titles mean something. And now we have a few people chlorine over themselves. Try and get shots at us. But I’m still waiting for real challenges to come at us. But in the meantime, I kept on defending my bombshells world championship because I needed people to realize how dominant I am.”

“Dominant in a way that you should have been”

“But in the years that you’ve been here, we’ve only seen slight glimpses of what you are capable of. Small moments where people stood back in all and fear of what you could accomplish. But you’ve never been able to break through that glass ceiling. You had your mixed tag team championship run and then since that moment all you’ve managed to do is be the Internet champion. A championship that I made. That title was being forgotten about and passed around like it was nothing. Until I stepped up and took it and made it worth something. You were able to beat Courtney Pearce and take that championship and you had a great run with it until you ran into the woman who I deed for the bombshells championship.”

Kayla shakes her head and throws her arms in the air.

”Julianna was a good Bombshells world champion. Just good. I disowned her. I took this championship and I beat her again. And she marked tried into your division slapped you upside the head and took that Internet championship off of you just as you were starting to get into the conversation of being the most dominant champion of all time. You had it right there in front of you at your fingertips to write yourself into the history books and become something that no one else could claim to be. You could start showing the world that the tempest that we all knew you could be right there in front of us and in the end you failed”

“But this is exactly what I’m talking about with you. You took those steps back after losing, only to take two steps forward by winning that fatal four-way. Truth be told I’m glad it was you. Song has only just come back and Harper Mason is nothing but a joke of a Nepo baby who thinks that she’s top shit. So in my heart and in my mind, it was between you and Bobbie.”

“Bobbie faulted at the last second. The two of you have been two of the biggest names who never actually won world championships. And now you have a shot at it. But the problem Tempest is that you’re facing someone who is better than anyone else who you faced before whether you’ve beaten them or whether you’ve lost. You got to claim a huge scalp in Alicia.Lukas… congratulations”

“Thing is, I’m not Alicia Lukas.”

“She is a fading star, someone who still has the skills to be good in this division but not be the champion. She is on the same level as women like Mercedes Vargas. Or Samantha Marlow. Women who can still claim to be great professional wrestlers but aren’t good enough to become the champion. Not good enough to reach the pinnacle again. And when I talk about reaching the pinnacle, Tempest you need to realize something that everyone else slowly has started to. I haven’t just reached the pinnacle I am the fucking pinnacle.”

“A win over me means even more than becoming the champion. Because the record that I have the scalps that I’ve claimed the wins that I’ve had and the career that I have forged in this company is second to none.”

“It is the kind of win that can make your career Tempest. And oh boy do you need a career-defining win…And trust me, you might have some kind of confidence leading into this since I'll be locked in a steel cage. But I'm not locked in a cage with you....YOU are locked in there with ME”

“Beating Alicia right now means nothing. Beating the Barnharts for the mixed tag titles means nothing. Beating Courtney Pierce? That gave you a small boost. But since then, since losing that title, since fading from the mixed tag team division. Tempest, you are someone who should be a dominant force. But every single time you get close you just fail to pull the trigger. And this time is supposed to be different right? Maybe it will be, the only problem is I question what the future holds…”

“If you are somehow able to show that dominance that we all know you’re capable of, I question what happens after. You beat me you take the championship and then what? Do you go on a dominant run and actually show us who you were meant to be? or do you stumble and fail? Like you have with everything else you’ve done in your life from your personal relationships and friendships to being a professional wrestler. This championship needs a stable champion and you are not it so I’m going to be damned if I let you get anywhere close to my championship and my division. And at violent conduct, steel cage or not, I’m going to break you and put you in your place”