2009
Waterford Boat Yard
Waterford, Ireland
“C’mon, get your skinny arse up, boy!”
The harsh growl jolted 16-year-old Lachlan O’Connell from his daze as he rose to his hands and knees, shaking his head from side to side to try and clear the ringing from his ears. His jaw felt like it had been shifted about four inches to the side of his face, and he could feel the warm trickle of blood pouring out of his nose and down his chin. He staggered up to his feet, face set in a look of ferocity as he raised his taped-up fists.
The crowd surrounding the makeshift ring hooted and hollered, banging the plywood and stomping their feet. Lachlan’s opponent, a huge burly man with the charming nickname of “Mike the Mauler”, laughed uproariously along with the crowd as he watched the scrawny teen attempt to stay on his feet. “This one’s got some fight in ‘im!” he bellowed, causing another roar of laughter to echo through the warehouse.
Lachlan took a swing at Mike’s midsection, only to have his fist caught in one meaty hand. He was tossed to the side as if he weighed nothing, letting out a grunt as his back hit the cold concrete floor.
“I almost feel bad tossin’ the lad around like this,” Mike said. “Surprised that first punch didn’t knock his head clear off his skinny little neck!”
The crowd laughed again, pointing and jeering at Lachlan. He simply rose to his feet and once again took a fighting stance. This time, when Mike attempted to swing at Lachlan, the boy ducked under his fist and landed a solid kick to the back of the bigger man’s leg. This caught Mike off-guard, and he staggered a bit, though he didn’t fall. He whirled around on the teen, an amused smirk on his face.
“Well, looks like the little scrapper’s got a few tricks up his sleeves,” he growled, cracking his knuckles and advancing on Lachlan. The boy ducked another attempted punch, but when he tried to go for another kick, Mike caught his foot mid-swing.
“You ain’t pulling that one on me again, ya little shit,” he said, pulling his fist back for another punch.
As he crumpled to the floor from the force of the blow, just before he blacked out, Lachlan could hear Mike’s voice calling out, though it sounded muffled and distant…
“Looks like the little scrapper’s fought his last…”
Half an hour later….
He sat on the packed dirt floor with his back pressed to the cold concrete wall, holding a towel under his nose that was already heavily stained with blood. He could feel the swelling beginning on the left side of his face, and if he were to get up and look in the mirror he knew he would probably see the telltale signs of bruising start to blossom across his cheek. His knuckles were red and raw, his head was pounding and he struggled to take deep breaths due to the pain searing across his ribs.
Getting harder and harder to explain these to Ma, Lachlan thought to himself, closing his swollen eyes and letting out a ragged breath as another searing pain shot through his back. How many times can I tell her that I walked face-first into the overhead crane before she begins to suspect something?
The squeak of hinges drew him out of his thoughts, and he cracked one eye open to see the thick wooden door swing inward and a haggard-looking man shuffle in, casting his gaze around until he saw Lachlan sitting in the opposite corner of the room. He sighed heavily as he walked over to stand in front of the teen, crouching down in front of him to look him in the eye.
“Three months you’ve been doin’ this,” the man said, his voice gruff. “Three months you’ve been getting your arse handed to ya. Why?”
Lachlan stayed quiet, shifting the towel on his face to press a clean patch of it under his still-bleeding nose.
The man sighed again, hanging his head. “I knew your old man near on twenty years. Everyone loved him ‘round here. Hard worker, good friend. We all took his death hard.” He looked back up, fixing Lachlan with a sorrowful gaze. “What do you think he’d make of you doing this, huh?”
Though he tried to keep his face neutral, there was no hiding the blaze of fury in Lachlan’s blue eyes. “Don’t matter. He’s dead.”
An uneasy silence hung in the air between them, before the older man straightened up to his full height, resting his hands on his hips. “What exactly are you trying to prove, Lachlan? Ever since your da passed, you’ve been throwing yourself headlong into all kinds of wild shenanigans. Bad enough your poor ma’s having to deal with Mal raising all kinds of holy hell everywhere he goes. Least you’re out and working to help support the family. But this…” he gestured to the door, as the faint sound of the roaring crowd rose up along with the sounds of brawling. “What exactly is this supposed to prove?”
In a flash, Lachlan had thrown the towel to the side and shot up to his feet, glaring at the man with narrowed eyes and his hands clenched into fists at his side. There was still dried blood smeared across his face, and almost the entire left side of his face was now covered with a bruise so dark it was nearly black. He looked like he was ready to launch into a tirade against the man, but at the last moment he ground his teeth together and shook his head, walking over to a line of metal lockers lined up against one wall and pulling out a black gym bag, flinging it over his shoulder. He brushed past the older man as he made his way out the door. “You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered under his breath.
Before he could leave, the older man grabbed his upper arm tightly, forcing the teen to stop in his tracks and turn to look at him. “Then help me understand,” he said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “I’ve known you since you were a wee lad, Lachlan. You’ve never been like this. I know your da’s accident hit you all hard -”
With a fierce growl, Lachlan ripped his arm out of the man’s grip. “You don’t know anything!” he yelled, and stalked towards the door and ripped it open, causing it to slam on the wall. The man watched him go with an almost pained expression on his face, before he ran a hand over his face and let out a defeated sigh, shaking his head and walking into his office at the other side of the room, the door closing with a soft click behind him.
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Present Day
Saxon Hotel - rooftop bar
Las Vegas, Nevada
Despite the fact that he had been staring out at this exact landscape for close to four months now, the glittering lights of Las Vegas never seemed to lose their appeal to Lachlan Kane. It almost reminded him of home, the way the lights seemed to mimic sunlight glinting off the sparkling waters of King’s Channel near his childhood home on the sunny afternoons he would spend playing with his brother and sister. He sat back in the chair positioned at the edge of the rooftop bar, watching the tabletop fireplace as it flickered and cast a warm glow across his face. He had a contemplative, almost serene look across his boyish features, his hands folded across his chest.
“I can’t exactly pinpoint when it started, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this incessant need to prove myself. To prove I belong. To prove I matter. To prove that I am worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the greats in this industry. And at first, I wanted to prove it to the crowds. To everyone out there watching my matches. Especially to the naysayers and the doubters. I worked my arse off night after night to improve my abilities. I trained harder and harder every day. I pushed myself to my absolute limits...and then pushed myself beyond them. I did it all to prove to every single one of you out there that one day...I was going to be on top of this business.”
His gaze wandered across the horizon, his eyes going distant as he voiced his thoughts. “But somewhere along the way, things changed. I went from wanting to prove it to the world...to needing to prove it to myself. Because ever since last December, my mind’s been my worst enemy. I came so close to finally shattering that glass ceiling...only to find out that it was made of bulletproof glass. And ever since then, I’ve become a bit obsessed, to be honest with you. Every chance I’ve had since then, I’ve come up short. And yeah...I’ve not always handled it well. I can admit that. But the one constant is that I never gave up. No matter how many times I was knocked down, I always got back up to face whatever came next. Sometimes it took a bit longer to climb back to my feet, but I never stayed down. Sure, maybe it would have been easier to just stay down, admit that I was out of my league and let the next guy in line step up.”
The distant look immediately fell away as he snapped his gaze back to the camera lens in front of him, replaced with the most intense look of determination as his blue eyes reflected the firelight, looking almost otherworldly. “But anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am not interested in the easy way out. There is no way in hell that I will ever slink away from a challenge with my tail between my legs, not while I still have a breath left in my body.”
He leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together to bring them up under his chin. “And this week, I certainly do have one hell of a challenge in front of me. I have no doubts that Kedron is looking to extract his revenge on me for what happened three weeks back. Not only that, but I have the opportunity to secure the Roulette title and walk into Summer XXXtreme as the defending champion. There’s certainly a lot of cogs in the machinery of this match.” The corner of his lips twitched up into a little smirk. “But of course, leave it to me to be the one to throw a wrench straight into the works. Now, I want to reassure you, Kedron, that I plan on defeating you and claiming that belt 100 percent under my own will. You won’t have to constantly be looking over your shoulder for Sierra. Because I want there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that I deserve that championship. I want to know that I gave my all. I want to leave everything I have in that ring, all my blood, sweat and tears...and know that it was all under my own power. I’m going to hold that belt high in the air after the match, and I’m going to know that it was all me. No outside interference, no distractions. Just two of the best that SCW has to offer going head to head...and the better man walking away with my hand raised high and ten pounds of gold and leather wrapped around my waist. Call me cocky, call me conceited all you want. But this has been a damn long time coming, and I will not stop until my vision becomes the reality.”
With that emphatic statement hanging in the air, Lachlan relaxed his stance and leaned back into the chair, turning his gaze to stare back into the flickering firelight on the table across from him as the camera slowly went out of focus before fading out to black.
