Harry Reid International Airport -
Las Vegas, Nevada
The departure lounge at Harry Reid International was alive and active in that way that airports always seemed to be. Rolling suitcase wheels rattled over the tiled floors. A baby cried somewhere near the windows before being soothed by a mother. Parents ignored their children as they ran rampant around the seats and passengers, disturbing everyone else but their ignorant parents. Two businessmen in business suits spoke to one another in clipped, impatient exchanges. Overhead, announcements were made every few minutes for flight departures and arrivals.
Ciarán Doyle sat slouched back in one of the lounge chairs, long legs stretched out in front of him, a paper cup of coffee held in one hand while the fingers of the other drummed along the arm rest. He had managed to secure an Escort Pass so he could bypass security and accompany his best mate to the gate and bid him a proper farewell. At Ruairi’s insistence of course. Ciarán had been prepared to say goodbye at check in but he knew deep down his longest and best friend deserved better. And Ruairi?
Ruairí O’Callaghan sat across from him with his carry-on at his feet and the easy posture of a man who looked calm if you didn’t know him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders. He glanced toward the departure board, then over at his friend. “Thanks for seein’ me off.”
Ciarán snorted and took a sip of his coffee. “You didn’t give me much choice, did ye? Yer man was literally jumpin’ on me fecking bed to wake my arse up so I could go with you!”
That got the ghost of a smile from Ruairí.
Ciarán shook his head and looked around at the crowd moving through the lounge. “Still don’t know why in God’s name we had to get here three hours early. Yer not flyin’ to the moon, lad.”
Ruairí leaned back, exhaled through his nose, and said, “Because I wanted to talk.”
Ciarán closed his eyes at once, not dramatically, just tired of avoiding the topic he knew Ruairi wanted to discuss. “Ruairí…” He muttered past gritted teeth.
“No.” Ruairí’s voice stayed level, his eyes never leaving Ciarán’s own even if he wouldn’t meet them directly. “Don’t ‘Ruairí’ me like that and hope I’ll drop it. I won’t. I’m just as stubborn as ye happen to be!”
Ciarán opened his eyes and stared past him for a moment, toward a television mounted above the bar that nobody seemed to be watching. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “We’re in an airport.”
“Aye.” Ruairí said. “And I’m on a plane in a bit, so now’s when ye’re gettin’ it.”
He bent down, unzipped his carry-on, and pulled out a slim folder thick enough to mean something. He held it out. Ciarán looked at it, then at him, but made no move to take it at first. “What’s that?”
Ruairí kept his hand there until Ciarán finally reached for it. “Information.”
“That clears everythin’ right up.” Ciarán retorted sourly.
“It’s the file on the women from the hen party.”
Ciarán’s fingers tightened around the folder.
He didn’t open it. In truth, he wanted to drop it, or even better? Toss it in the nearest dust bin. His eyes just rested on the plain cover like it might burn him if he looked too hard. Around them the airport carried on in its usual rhythm, ignorant to the weight that had settled between the two men.
He set his coffee aside with trembling fingers and he opened it.
Pages. Notes. Names. Dates. Location. Typed records. Handwritten annotations. The sort of neat, careful bookkeeping only a paranoid bastard or a very thorough one would ever keep. Ciarán flipped one page, then another, his face giving away almost nothing except the slow hardening around the eyes.
“The former boss at Celtic Thunder kept records.” Ruairí said quietly. “Who hired who. Where they were sent. What for. Dates, payments, all of it.”
Ciarán let out one hollow breath that might have been a laugh if there were any humor left in him for it. “And what exactly am I meant to do with this?”
Ruairí didn’t answer right away. He let the question hang there because both of them knew it wasn’t really a question. It was resistance.
“What happened to ye doesn’t vanish because ye’d rather bury it.” Ruairi finally answered. He whispered so (hopefully) only Ciarán would hear. “And the statute of limitations on sexual assault in Ireland doesn’t run out near as quick as other crimes. Ye could have them charged.”
Ciarán’s gaze stayed on the folder, but something in his face shifted then, not toward anger, but toward that old familiar hurt he hated anyone seeing.
“Could I really?” Ciarán snapped the folder shut. “Because from where I’m sittin’, what I see is a stack of paper and a year gone by and me standin’ there tellin’ people what happened while they look at me like I’ve grown a second head. That’s what I see.”
Ruairí leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “And what I see is my best friend destroyin’ himself pretendin’ he’s grand.”
Ciarán’s head came up at that, emerald green eyes glaring at his friend’s chestnut brown ones. “I just want to forget it!” He said, and the words came out raw, stripped of the sharp edge. “Just leave it buried and let it stay there!”
Ruairí’s expression tightened, not with anger but with the strain of caring too much to let it go. “And how’s that workin’ out for ye?”
Ciarán said nothing so Ruairí pressed on. “That’s why ye’re in the state ye’re in! That’s why ye’ve been driftin’ from one bad week to the next, tellin’ everybody ye’re fine when yer plainly not! It can’t keep goin’ on like this. It’s eatin’ ye alive!”
The words landed hard because they were true. Ciarán looked away, jaw tightening. He watched as a little girl ran after her father with a stuffed rabbit tucked under one arm. Somewhere behind them, a gate agent called for priority boarding. A burst of laughter came from the bar, too bright and careless for the moment.
Ruairí lowered his voice. “And it’s not just hurtin’ you anymore. It’s hurtin’ yer family. It’s hurtin’ me.”
That brought Ciarán back around. For a moment he simply stared at his friend, as if he hadn’t expected the line to be drawn there, not between them. His throat worked once. The fight drained out of his face in a visible, painful degree.
“Don’t…” He said, but there was no heat in it.
“I will.” Ruairí said. “Because somebody has to. I’ve watched ye try to carry this like it’s some private shame ye earned, and I’m tellin’ ye now, it’s breakin’ more than just you.”
Ciarán looked down at the folder in his hands. When he spoke again, his voice had gone rough around the edges. “I’ve no evidence.”
Ruairí gave a small, disbelieving shake of the head. “Ye told me those women took pictures. Videos too. Evidence like that doesn’t just disappear into thin air. Not now. Not with the way people hoard everything. Somebody has it. Maybe more than one somebody.”
Ciarán’s mouth twisted. “That’s meant to comfort me, is it?”
“No.” Ruairí said. “It’s meant to tell ye have options other than shutting down.”
He sat back then, letting the pressure ease just enough to breathe. “I can’t make ye do anythin’. I know that. But I’m askin’ ye, as yer best mate, to think about it. Properly think about it. Not for five minutes and then shove it in a drawer and tell yerself that counts.”
Ciarán was quiet for a long time. His eyes dropped to the folder again, and this time there was less fear in the look than exhaustion. The kind that came from carrying something far too long and knowing, somewhere deep down, that maybe the burial hadn’t worked as hoped.
At last he nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
Ruairí studied him as if measuring whether that was real or only enough to get through the conversation. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him because he gave a small nod of his own.
Ciarán looked up and the gratitude in his face was awkward and worn and sincere all at once.
“Thank ye.” He said.
Ruairí’s expression softened. “You don’t thank me for doin’ what I should’ve done sooner.”
“Aye, well. I am anyway.”
An announcement crackled overhead for Ruairí’s flight, boarding to begin shortly. Around them, travelers stirred, gathering bags and jackets and charging cords, lives resuming their restless forward motion. But neither man rose just yet.
They sat there in the middle of all that movement, the folder between them now, the conversation finally had, and for the first time in a long while Ciarán did not look like a man trying to outrun his own shadow. He only looked like one who had been forced to turn and face it.
“I’ll tell ye true, this one feels overdue.”
“For all the names I’ve stood across from since comin’ into SCW, for all the miles I’ve put on these boots already, it does surprise me that somehow I’ve not had the honour of steppin’ into the ring with Bulldog Bill Barnhart before now. That feels like one of those matches that ought to have happened already. One of those pairings ye just assume would’ve crossed paths by now. But here we are.”
“And I won’t pretend otherwise. There’s a part of me that’s lookin’ forward to this for more than just the fight itself, because when ye talk about Bulldog Bill Barnhart, ye’re not talkin’ about some flash in the pan or some lad who got hot for five minutes and started thinkin’ himself a legend. Ye’re talkin’ about one of the most experienced men on the entire roster. A man who has seen near enough everythin’ there is to see in this sport. Champion wherever he goes. Hall of Famer more than once.”
“A man who’s been in this game long enough to outlast trends, outlast eras, and outlast plenty of loud mouths who thought they were the next big thing. That kind of career does not happen by accident. That kind of name is not built on luck. It’s built on hard miles, hard matches, and a hard-headed refusal to go away.”
“So aye, there is respect there. There has to be. But respect and hesitation are not the same thing, and I’ve never been the sort to start shrinkin’ back just because the man across from me comes with trophies on the shelf and plaques on the wall. If anythin’, that only makes me want it more. Because if ye’re goin’ to prove yerself in this company, then ye do it against men who’ve already carved their names deep into it. And Bill Barnhart has done exactly that.”
“This match is important enough on its own, but what makes it all the more interestin’ is what it means beyond this one night, because this isn’t just Ciarán Doyle versus Bulldog Bill Barnhart. Not really. This is a sneak preview of what’s waitin’ down the road at Into the Void XV. This is a glimpse of what’s comin’ when the King for a Day match rolls around and me, Bulldog, and Ryan Keys all go to war for the right to reign over SCW for one day.”
“That prize is not some small trinket ye hang on the wall and forget about. That’s power. That’s control. That’s a chance to sit in the seat for one night and remind everybody what ye’d do with the crown if it were placed on yer head. So when I look at this match with Bulldog, I’m not just lookin’ at the man in front of me. I’m lookin’ at one of the men standin’ in my way at Into the Void. One of the men I’ll have to beat if I want that day to belong to me.”
“And the thing is, neither one of us was handed that spot. We earned it. All three of us did. Well … Bulldog and I did. No offense to Ryan, he’s a good sort but that little bitch Logan practically handed the third spot to him.”
“In Osaka, both me and Bulldog punched our tickets. We fought our way into that match. We proved we belonged in that conversation. So this is not about some random draw or some convenient booking. This is two men who earned their place, steppin’ into the ring before the bigger collision, gettin’ a chance to test the waters and maybe learn somethin’ before the stakes rise even higher.”
“That’s what makes this dangerous. Because the man who wins this one gets momentum, aye, but he also sends a message. And messages matter in this business. If I beat Bulldog Bill Barnhart, then I’m not just sayin’ I can hang with one of the most decorated men on this roster. I’m sayin’ I can beat him. I’m sayin’ that when the lights are brightest and the names get bigger, Ciarán Doyle does not get smaller. I rise to it. That’s the kind of statement a man remembers.”
“Now as for the third man in this whole affair, Ryan Keys, he’ll have a seat closer than most this time around because the Party Boy is the special guest referee. So here’s hopin’ Ryan can call things right down the middle, because I’d hate for any excuses to start floatin’ about after the fact. I’d hate for fingers to be pointed at stripes and count speeds and who saw what when the bell rings and the dust settles.”
“I’d rather it be exactly what it ought to be. Two men who earned their place, one referee who’d best remember his job, and a fight that gives the whole world a taste of what’s comin’ at Into the Void XV.”
