A Few Hours Later
A Rooftop Greenhouse
Paris, France
The storm had finally broken.
Rain painted the city in sheets of silver, drumming against glass, cascading down centuries-old gutters. Lightning cracked across the Parisian sky like veins of divine fury. And inside the rooftop greenhouse of the old hotel—forgotten, hidden behind ivy and dust—Alexandra sat barefoot among wild herbs and overgrown roses.
The leather coat was gone, draped over the back of an old wrought-iron chair. Her knees were pulled to her chest. The glass walls around her shuddered with each gust of wind. Candlelight flickered from a cracked mason jar, casting her shadow against the moss-covered stones beneath her. Her face was calm, but her knuckles were white around the wine glass in her hands.
She didn’t look up when LJ stepped through the creaking door. He paused for a moment, letting the silence wrap around them like fog. He saw her then—not the champion, not the avenger, not the war machine. Just Alexandra. Alone, barefoot, and burning with something no crown could ease.
“You shouldn’t be out in this,” he said, quietly, stepping inside and shutting the storm out behind him.
Her voice was flat but not cold. “Neither should you.”
“I never said I was smart.” He walked closer. “Just stubborn.”
A breath escaped her, half amusement, half exhaustion. “Same.”
LJ stood in front of her, then slowly lowered himself to the ground. The candlelight painted gold into his eyes, and Alexandra finally met his gaze.
“This place…” she murmured, eyes scanning the ceiling of rain-streaked glass, “feels like a confession box. But all the gods I’d pray to are already dead.”
LJ didn’t flinch. “Then maybe you’re the one we pray to now.”
She shook her head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn me into a symbol. I’m already a weapon. I don’t want to be worshiped, LJ. I want to be remembered. Feared. And when this war is over…” Her voice caught. “I want to disappear.”
He leaned forward, reaching out to brush a lock of damp hair from her face. “And where will you go, my phantom queen?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Someplace where no one speaks my name like it’s a curse. Someplace where I don’t have to be strong just to survive.”
He took the wine glass from her hand and set it aside gently, letting his hand linger over hers. “Then we’ll go there. One day. But not yet.”
She nodded slowly, her cheek resting on her knees. “Not yet.”
Lightning lit the greenhouse, illuminating every vine and thorn. The shadows danced like ghosts. LJ watched her carefully, knowing the war inside her was louder than any thunder outside.
“Do you think there’s a version of us,” she asked quietly, “in another life, where we don’t carry blood on our hands?”
He considered the question. “Maybe. But I like this version better. Because it's real.”
Alexandra gave him a look—tired, amused, unbelieving.
“No, really,” LJ continued, taking her hand. “Because in this life, I get to love the strongest person I’ve ever known. Not just for her victories. But for the fact that she keeps going, even when she wants to vanish.”
Her throat tightened. The words settled in her ribs like warmth and weight all at once. “What if I don’t make it back?”
“You will. I have the map remember?”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll make the whole world look for you and we will find you. But you and I both know, I won't let you lose your way.”
Silence stretched between them. Honest. Raw. The kind of silence that spoke more than any vow ever could.
Then, without a word, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. Her breath ghosted over his lips, slow and trembling.
“You and Ashlynn, you’re the only thing that feels real anymore,” she said. “The only thing I don’t have to fight for.”
“You do fight for us,” he whispered. “Every time you come back.”
A crack of thunder split the night sky, and she flinched slightly—but LJ didn’t move. His grip remained firm. Steady. Unshaken. Alexandra closed her eyes and let herself lean into him, finally, as the storm roared around them.
Outside, Paris drowned in rain.
Inside, Alexandra Calaway—warrior, queen, survivor—finally let someone hold her without armor. And LJ did exactly that. He didn’t speak. He just stayed, holding her in his arms tightly.
A Sermon for the Queens
Notre-Dame Cathedral
Paris, France
The entire cathedral was cloaked in shadow. Thunder growled beyond the stained-glass windows of Notre-Dame, casting fractured light across the ancient stone floor. Candles flickered along the altar, their flames bowing toward a presence darker than the storm itself. Alexandra Calaway stood in the nave — a black-clad confessor in this cathedral of reckoning, her gaze as cold as the marble beneath her feet.
"You were a star once, Crystal," she said, her voice slicing through the stillness like a blade drawn at mass. She did not pace. She did not raise her voice. There were no theatrics. Just truth — sharp, relentless, and cruel.
"The lights. The fans. The glitter. The name changes. The weddings. The comebacks. The speeches. The retirements. The un-retirements. You did it all, didn’t you? Reinvented yourself so many times the original is just a ghost."
Alexandra’s heels clicked on the ancient flagstone like judgment drums as she walked the aisle toward the altar.
"But the truth? The truth is you’ve become the ghost of your own myth. A flickering VHS tape in an age of streaming wars. You cling to memories as if they can protect you, as if nostalgia can throw punches. It can’t."
She stopped before a crumbling marble effigy of a forgotten saint, gazing into the fragments of a broken mirror scattered at its base. Her own reflection looked back at her in pieces — fractured and dangerous, just like the legacy she was about to bury.
"You built your empire on illusions — weddings sold like season finales, tears scripted for cameras, gold handed out because your name once meant 'ratings.' You didn’t defend your crown, Crystal. You posed with it. You didn’t rule. You reminisced."
Lightning flared. For a heartbeat, her shadow stretched behind her like a pair of wings. Then it vanished.
"Every comeback? A grasp. Every promo? A prayer. Every time you stepped back into that ring you whispered: ‘Remember me.’ But this? This isn’t your resurrection. It’s your requiem. And I’m the one lowering you into the earth."
She ascended the steps to the altar, her approach more sacred than sacrilegious.
"And then there’s Seleana." The name was spoken like a benediction — or perhaps a lament.
"You didn’t ask to be in her shadow. But you stood there anyway. Is that loyalty? Or fear? Maybe both. You followed her — into titles, into teams, into chaos. But here’s the truth: Crystal never reached back for you. She pulled, and you followed, and she let you fade so she could shine."
A new candle was lit by her hand, its flame catching the blood-red hues of the nearby stained glass.
"You are the weight she wears. The ballast she keeps so she can pretend she’s steady. And when it comes down to the final moments, the final rung, when your hands are both on the crown — she’ll push. She won’t even blink."
She turned to the empty pews, preaching to shadows.
"But you’re not weak, Seleana. You’re just quiet. Steady. You’ve survived storms she couldn’t comprehend. You’re the iceberg beneath her sinking ship. And maybe, just maybe, if you stop apologizing, if you stop pretending you don’t belong — you’ll finally rise."
Her voice softened like a prayer. "Don’t be her sacrifice. Be her successor."
There was silence for a beat. Then she whispered the next name like a curse.
"Kat Jones."
It did not echo. It struck.
"You’re not here by accident. You’re not a legacy act. You’re not a hanger-on. You’re a survivor — a relentless, brutal, brilliant survivor. You crawled through hell and came out with your fists still swinging."
She knelt before a stone cross, her hand brushing its base. "But even iron rusts. Even icons fall. You’re fire-forged, but this match is ice and shadow and silence. And I am all three."
She stood again. "You want the crown? You’ll have to bleed for it. And I will make you. Because I don’t care how many wars you’ve survived. I care how many you’ve lost."
Her feet carried her to the apse like a shadow in sermon.
"Cassie."
A laugh escaped her — not cruel, but pitying.
"You beat me once. And you’ve worn that win like armor. But that night? That wasn’t your coronation. That was a gift. A moment where the stars aligned and I blinked." She stopped before an unlit candle. "But this isn’t about who you beat. It’s about who you are. And you, Cassie, are still green. Still writing your story in pencil. Still hoping someone hands you a pen."
A match flared. The candle ignited.
"I’m not going to beat you. I’m going to rewrite you. Break you down until all that’s left is truth — and pain." The corridor of prayer candles lit her path like a runway of reckoning. "You haven’t lost enough yet to understand what it takes to win. But you will."
She came to a stop.
"And Julianna." She faced a shattered mirror bolted to the wall. "You beat me with mirrors. With manipulation. With masks and misdirection. But the woman you faced then? She’s gone. You’re staring at the storm now. The flood."
Her hand swept over the cracked surface, her gaze unwavering.
"You think you're ten steps ahead. But you’re blind to the avalanche rolling over your game board. I’m not a queen playing chess. I’m the fire that melts it." From the floor she lifted a jagged shard of glass. "You want to win clean. I want to win cruel. And cruelty doesn’t need approval. It just needs blood."
She dragged the shard across her palm. Blood welled, glistened. "This crown isn’t validation. It’s a weapon. And in my hands? It becomes judgment."
With deliberate steps, she returned to the altar. Blood dripped onto the pulpit as she placed the shard down like an offering.
"Every woman in this match walks in with something to prove. I walk in with something to end. Your dreams. Your illusions. Your thrones. This isn’t a coronation. It’s a reckoning."
Her arms spread wide.
"Let this cathedral remember. Let the storm take your names. Let the broken glass beneath our boots become the new stained glass of history."
Her whisper was a vow.
"I am Alexandra Calaway. I am the storm, the sentence, the end. And when the crown falls — it will land in blood."
Fade to black.
Reaching deep inside
Hotel Balcony
Paris France
The rain had eased, leaving the Paris skyline slick with silver light. Montmartre glowed in the distance, sacred and serene, while the low murmur of the city thrummed beneath them like a heartbeat slowed. On the rooftop of an old apartment wrapped in ivy and rust, Alexandra sat barefoot on the edge, a blanket around her shoulders, cigarette untouched between her fingers. Her eyes weren’t on the city. They were on nothing.
Behind her, a soft creak. LJ stepped out from the open French doors, sleeves rolled, tea in one hand. He didn’t speak right away. Just set the mug down beside her and lowered himself onto the ledge, close enough to feel her cold shoulder.
“You’ve got that look again,” he said gently. She didn’t answer. “The one like you’re staring through the world. Like you're already haunting it.”
Still nothing.
He reached down and plucked the drink from her hand, took a sip and swallowed, before he exhaled toward the stars. “You’re not drinking your wine. That’s how I know it’s bad.”
She turned her head slightly. “What if they’re right?”
LJ raised an eyebrow, his voice soft but edged. “Who?”
“Crystal. Julianna. All of them.” Her eyes fell back to the streetlights far below. “What if I’m just another monologue in a world that stopped listening?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “You want the truth, Angel?”
She nodded.
“Good. Because I’m not the type to rub your back and whisper bullshit just to make you feel warm.” He leaned closer, the drink now forgotten on the balcony table. “You’re not some fading echo, luv. You’re the thunder that hasn’t hit yet. They hear the rumble and think it’s passed — but you haven’t even landed.”
She smiled faintly, but it was bitter. “Feels like I’ve been fighting ghosts lately. Their pasts. My own.”
LJ’s voice dropped to something just above a whisper. “You think ghosts can bleed? ‘Cause I saw what you did in Notre-Dame. That wasn’t haunting, Angel. That was holy war.”
She looked down at her hands, still faintly marked from the glass. “It’s all becoming noise. Rage. Fire. I don’t even know if I’m doing this for me anymore.”
“That’s because you’re not just fighting for a crown,” he said. “You’re fighting to be remembered. And that’s bloody terrifying. But let me tell you something — legacies aren’t built on peace. They’re carved out of nights like this. Out of doubt. Out of broken knuckles and sleepless stares.”
He reached over, took her hand in his, thumb brushing lightly over her scars.
“You don’t need them to believe in you. You just need to remind them why they feared you.”
She met his gaze, vulnerable now. Raw. “And if I fall?”
His answer was immediate, unwavering. “Then you fall with the heavens shaking and every woman in that ring knowing they weren’t enough to keep you down.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. The city breathed beneath them.
“You always know what to say,” she murmured.
He smirked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “That’s ‘cause I know who you are. Not Alexandra Calaway. Not the Queenslayer. Not the storm in stilettos. Just you. My Angel.” A pause. Then softly: “So go remind them. Make them choke on the silence after your name. Burn the map, redraw the crown, and bloody well make them remember why they should’ve stayed in the shadows.”
She sat up straighter, the fire slowly returning behind her eyes.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Time to make them remember.”
The two of them share a passionate kiss as the night carries on.
I bury Queens
Paris Catacombs
Paris France
Beneath the skin of Paris, where the light dared not linger, a different cathedral sprawled — not of stone and stained glass, but of bone and silence. The catacombs breathed with ancient death, the skull-lined walls witnessing centuries of secrets and sins. Here, where empires had turned to dust and monarchs were but marrow and memory, Alexandra Calaway walked alone.
Each step echoed through the hollow chamber as if even the dead paused to listen.
Her silhouette flickered under the dim glow of torchlight, a phantom robed in purpose. In her hand, she carried the same bloodied shard of mirror from Notre-Dame, now dulled by ash and absolution. She had come not to mourn, but to bury.
“You thought it ended at the altar?” she whispered, her voice sharp as a dagger unsheathed. “You thought my reckoning could be confined to hollow halls and candlelight confessions? No. That was the bell tolling. This... this is the burial.”
A drip of water fell from the ceiling. It echoed like a falling blade. She passed rows of stacked skulls, each one grinning in eternal judgment. Her voice curled around them like smoke, rising into the void.
“Crystal,” she said, the name hanging like a curse. “This is your true mausoleum. Not the ring. Not the locker room stories you whisper to stay relevant. This. Here. Where your legacy truly belongs — among the long-forgotten.”
She ran her fingers over the dusty brow of a centuries-old skull, tracing the hollows where eyes once lived. “You were a queen once. I’ll give you that. You sold millions on glitter and gloss. On tears and redemption arcs. But look what’s left. Bone. Dust. Empty sockets.”
A cruel smile played at her lips.
“Your comeback tour ends with a requiem played on broken bones. You never understood how to let go. You kept coming back for a crown already stolen, clawing at a throne that was burned to ash.”
The torchlight danced across her face — a storm in human skin.
“Legacy isn’t what they remember. It’s what they fear. And no one fears you anymore, Crystal. They pity you.” She pressed her palm to the wall, as if communing with the past. “And pity is the first step toward irrelevance.”
She moved deeper into the labyrinth.
“Seleana,” she murmured, her tone shifting — not softer, but heavier. “I hope you can hear this. I hope somewhere in your heart, that steady, breaking heart, you know I’m right. You’ve been holding up a collapsing monument. A one-woman rescue mission for someone who’d leave you in the rubble.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“This isn’t about betrayal. This is about liberation. You deserve more than being her final excuse. You deserve more than trailing behind her spotlight like a loyal echo. You’ve suffered in silence while she monologued in mirrors.”
Alexandra paused before a collapsed arch, her voice echoing in the still air.
“But you won’t rise until you let her fall. This isn’t survival. This is rebirth. And like all births, it will come with blood.”
She drew a breath that tasted of mildew and memory.
“You’re not weak, Seleana. You’re just drowning in someone else’s myth. Time to burn the book.”
A gust of air swept through the tunnel. Dust danced with the ghosts. Even they, it seemed, stopped to listen. She stopped before a particularly ornate alcove. A tomb. Carved with a single word: Victoria.
“Fitting, isn’t it? Even in death, they name these places for the victorious. But victory doesn’t come to those who beg for it. It comes to those who drag it screaming from the jaws of the abyss.”
She turned slowly.
“Like you, Kat.”
The name struck like a sword hitting stone.
“You’re strong. You’re scarred. But scars are not strength. They are souvenirs. Reminders of survival — not conquest. And I collect no souvenirs. I take legacies and reduce them to bones.”
She stepped forward, her voice tightening.
“You’ll fight with fury. I’ll fight with finality. There’s a difference. You want to walk out with the crown. I want to make sure no one else can crawl out at all.”
She knelt, running her hand over the carved letters in the tomb.
“You were born in fire, but I am forged in the silence that follows destruction. And in that silence, I will make you remember what it means to be outmatched.”
Then came the name spoken with reluctant amusement.
“Cassie.” She chuckled — not cruelly, but like a parent watching a child rush toward traffic. “Poor, bright-eyed Cassie. All heart. All momentum. But momentum dies when it hits a wall. And I am that wall.”
She stared into the darkness.
“I see your fire. But fire without oxygen dies. And I will suffocate you with silence. You’ve never walked through halls like these. Never smelled death up close. But after I’m done, you will. You’ll know the quiet scream of irrelevance.”
The shard of glass caught the torchlight. It shimmered like a promise.
“Your story’s still being written. But not all stories end in glory. Some end in burial.”
She stood, drawing a line through the wall with the glass. And then the storm behind her eyes returned.
“Julianna.” The name cracked like a whip. “Still calculating. Still pretending you can outmaneuver chaos. You treat matches like chessboards. But here? Where the air is thick with time and decay? Strategy means nothing.”
Her voice grew colder. “I don’t play games. I burn the board.”
She stared at the wall of bones, her voice rising into something ritualistic.
“You think you’ve cracked me before. That wasn’t a crack. That was patience. That was me waiting for you to make your final move. And now? Now the storm bears down on you.” She leaned in, close enough to whisper. “I am not the opponent you faced. I am the evolution of every scar you tried to leave on me. I am the sharpened edge of every lesson you thought I didn’t learn.”
A heartbeat passed. Then she continues. “You think you win clean. I don’t care. I don’t need clean. I need conclusive. And when it’s over, when you're on your knees choking on the aftermath, remember: You were outplayed not by a strategist — but by inevitability.”
The silence roared louder than any scream.
"This isn’t a warning. This isn’t a promo. This is scripture. And the gospel according to Alexandra reads: blood before mercy, crown before camaraderie, war before peace."
She raised the shard of glass once more.
“I didn’t come to compete. I came to close the book.”
And then her voice dropped, low and lethal.
"When you climb, when your fingertips brush that crown, feel this chill. The cold breath of these catacombs will wrap around you like a noose. Because I’ll be beneath you, dragging you back down. One by one. With a whisper. With a scream."
She turned, facing the torch.
"This city remembers revolutions. Guillotines. Purges. Don’t think for a second it won’t remember this."
She looked upward — beyond the ceiling, beyond the bones, to the sky beyond stone and time.
“I am not the villain in your fairy tale. I am the reckoning at the end of your dynasty. And when this is over, when the dust settles and the belt lies bloodstained in the center of that ring, Paris will not whisper your names.”
A pause. A breath.
“It will scream mine.” The flame dimmed, then flared once more — a heartbeat of light in a kingdom of decay. "I am Alexandra Calaway. And in the house of bones…” She raised the shard toward the ceiling as if anointing the sky. “I bury queens.”
Blackout.
“Ladders, Love & Legacy: My Fight, My Heart”
Alexandra’s Queenslayers Blog
Paris France
The city of Paris is beautiful and brutal all at once. It wears its history like a scarred jewel — gleaming, complicated, alive. Tonight, as I prepare to step into the ladder match that will decide the future of this crown, I feel that same mix inside myself: a fierce warrior ready to fight for everything, and a woman quietly holding on to love. Because this isn’t just a ladder match. It’s a war staged on steel, but it’s also a story of heartbeats — mine, and his.
Love in the Chaos
I often think about the paradox of love and war. How they live side by side in me. How the same hands that can rip and claw in the ring also need to reach out and be held. LJ — my Angel, my Luv — is the tether that keeps me grounded when the storm threatens to tear me apart. He’s the quiet in the roar, the warmth beneath the cold spotlight. When the ladder looms overhead like a monument to pain, he’s the one whispering strength into my bones. It’s a reminder that beyond the bruises and blood, there is softness. There is hope.
But this fight? It’s no fairy tale.
It’s a brutal, unforgiving ladder match — and every woman in it is a force to be reckoned with. Crystal, Seleana, Kat, Cassie, Julianna — these aren’t just names. They’re the flames I have to walk through, the ghosts I have to lay to rest, the future I have to conquer.
Crystal — the ghost of glory past.
She’s a storm in her own right, wrapped in nostalgia and fading lights. I don’t think she knows how to let go of what once was, clinging to comebacks like they’re life rafts. But she’s fragile, wrapped in illusions. In the ring, nostalgia won’t save her. It never has. It’s my job to make sure this is her final requiem, and I won’t hesitate.
Seleana — the steady heart beating in the shadows.
She’s quieter, yes. But don’t mistake that for weakness. Seleana is the iceberg beneath the sinking ship of this rivalry. She’s held up by loyalty and perhaps a touch of fear, but beneath that, there’s an unyielding strength. She’s survived storms I can’t even imagine. Our history is tangled, complicated. And in this match, I see the fight not just against her, but for her — for her to step out of the shadows, to stop apologizing for belonging here.
Kat — forged in fire and resilience.
Kat isn’t a hanger-on. She’s survived hell, come out swinging, and that makes her dangerous. But scars don’t make strength. They make souvenirs. I’m here to break souvenirs down, to take what’s left and turn it into something brutal and final. She fights with fury, but I fight with finality. There’s a difference — and I intend to show her.
Cassie — bright, burning, but green.
She’s got fire, but fire needs oxygen, and I will suffocate her with silence. Cassie hasn’t yet tasted the quiet scream of irrelevance, but I will make her understand it intimately. She’s still writing her story in pencil, and I’m the force that will make her ink the pain and truth with blood.
Julianna — the strategist who thinks she’s ten steps ahead.
She played me before with mirrors and misdirection, but the woman she faced then is gone. This is a storm she can’t outmaneuver. In this match, brilliance breaks — and I am the hammer. She wants clean victories. I want cruel ones. Blood before mercy. Crown before camaraderie. War before peace.
This is the crucible where legends are forged. Every woman here has a reason, a history, a fire that drives her. But I am here to remind them all: this ladder is not just steel and ropes. It’s a test of heart and will. Of who is willing to bleed for the crown.
And through it all, I carry him with me.
LJ — my anchor and my flame. When the pain gets too sharp, when the weight of the past tries to crush me, I feel his presence like a soft hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t ask me to be perfect. He just asks me to be real — fierce, flawed, human. Our love isn’t a retreat from the fight. It’s the reason I fight.
Because in the quiet moments — when the crowd fades, the blood dries, and the adrenaline ebbs — there’s him. The man who looks at me and sees more than a competitor. The man who calls me Angel, who sees the woman beneath the warrior’s mask.
I’ll climb that ladder for the crown. But more than that, I’ll climb it for us. For the promise that even in the darkest battles, there is light. For the hope that after the dust settles, there will be nights where it’s just him and me, far from the chaos.
Romance and war — two sides of the same coin. One demands vulnerability, the other strength. One requires trust, the other grit. But both ask for everything you’ve got.
And I’m ready to give it all.
So to the women who step into this ring with me — I see you. I respect your fire. But this is my story too. And when I reach the top, when I take that crown, it won’t just be a victory over them. It will be a victory of love and war. Of heart and strength. Of everything that makes me who I am.
To my Angel, my Luv — thank you for being my calm in the storm, my strength when I falter, and my reason to keep climbing.
This fight is ours, as much as it is mine.
Here’s to climbing higher — with love as my ladder.
— Alexandra Calaway
