27. THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA // ORLANDO, FLORIDA #2
By early afternoon, the rental car came to a stop in the subterranean parking garage of the venue.
The world around us was completely off. The usual bustling, high-velocity camaraderie of a UWF backstage area was completely dead.
Production assistants who usually ran up to Si to hand him interview schedules took one look at us and immediately turned down opposite hallways.
Writers who usually pitched ideas to me looked at the floor, scurrying past like guilty children.
The locker room doors were shut tight, the distant sound of whispers echoing off the concrete.
We had just stepped right into the mouth of the lion’s den, and the wolves were waiting for us to bleed.
We hadn’t even made it to our designated B-block storage room to drop our bags before the door to the makeshift production office flew open. Presley stepped into the hallway, his tailored suit pristine, his face a mask of smug, vindictive satisfaction.
“In my office. Both of you. Right now.” Presley turned on his heel.
We followed him into the small room, the steel door slamming shut behind us with a sharp, final clang.
“I’m rewriting the January block.” His voice dripped with a cold, calculated malice. “The suspension stands, but you will be written back onto television for one night only at the upcoming Showdown taping next week. Reed, you are dropping the Heavyweight Championship to Martinez.”
Silas froze, the color instantly draining from his face.
His hand clenched into a violent fist at his side.
“What? Presley, the program with Rico is supposed to culminate at Wrestle Empire in April. That’s a six-month build.
Dropping the title on a random episode of Showdown makes no sense. It ruins the entire narrative.”
“I don’t give a shit about your narrative, Reed,” he sneered, leaning closer.
“The narrative is whatever I say it is. You pulled a stunt in Boston, you made a circus of my main event, and you think you’re going to carry my gold into the biggest pay-per-view of the year?
You’re losing the title next week. And after that, you’re going back home until your contracts expire. ”
In the wrestling world, a top-tier generational star like Silas Reed dropping the championship on a random, secondary taping without a pay-per-view build was completely unheard of.
It was the ultimate professional insult.
It was designed to completely destroy his momentum, to bury his status, and to render everything he had worked to rewrite, everything he had tried to make right in this company since his return, entirely irrelevant. It was an execution.
He looked like he was on the verge of a physical and mental collapse. His breathing was catching, his eyes wide and glassy as he stared at the ground, his right hand subconsciously rising to scratch at his neck.
I stood beside him, my face cold I hadn't heard from Tate or Jim to confirm that our plan was in motion, but in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind, I knew a secret Presley didn’t.
It wasn't a matter of if this was going to blow up in Presley's face, it was just a matter of when.
As I stared at his smug, arrogant face, I made a silent, violent promise: Enjoy your desk while you still have it, you son of a bitch
“We’re done here.” My voice cut through Silas’s panic like a knife.
We stepped out of the office, the door clicking shut behind us. Silas was on the verge of cracking, but there was no time for a breakdown.
“Reed! We need you in the photo studio right now for the promotional mockups!” an agent shouted, grabbing Silas by the shoulder.
“Silas! The international media loop needs you on a video call in five minutes!” a PR coordinator barked, following behind him.
Within seconds, we were separated. The champion schedule was a cage. Silas was dragged away into the madness of his duties, interviews, photo blocks, and mandatory ring drills, leaving me standing alone in the concrete hallway.
I was near the production monitors, ready to rip the first road case I saw in half just to clear the adrenaline from my veins. Suddenly, a calloused hand clamped onto the back of my leather jacket, pulling me backward.
“Come with me. Don’t say a goddamn word.” Jim Dallas’s voice spoke directly into my ear.
I turned. The blistering fury etched into the old creative god’s silver-whiskered face told me to hold my tongue.
He led me through the concrete labyrinth of the backstage area, bypassing the main talent corridors, and pushed me through an emergency exit door out into the cold, afternoon air of the arena parking lot.
We marched down the asphalt until we reached a dark sedan parked in the furthest corner of the secure lot. Jim unlocked it with a sharp click.
The interior of the car was small, claustrophobic, and cold, the windows instantly starting to fog from our heavy breathing. He didn’t turn the engine on. With a swift motion, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and propped it on the dashboard.
The line clicked open with a sharp, digital hiss.
“Jim? You there?” Tate Martin’s voice filled the small car, vibrating with a tense, dangerous urgency.
“We’re here.”
“Good,” Tate said. “Julian, go ahead.”
Another voice filled the receiver, a voice I hadn’t heard in years. It was thin, slightly raspy, but carried a deep gravity that made my stomach drop into a bottomless freefall.
Julian Martinez.
Julian, a former top star of the business who had been one of the men inside the ring the night Silas’s first career was destroyed. He’d been the one to take the brunt of the impact when the high spot went wrong, an injury that had permanently forced him out of the ring.
I sat frozen in the passenger seat as I stared at the phone on the dashboard. I had no idea Jim and Tate had managed to bring Julian into this.
Julian’s voice came through the speaker.
“After the situation with Rico and Silas, I started thinking. I watched the video of the night Silas fell. Something about it always felt wrong to me. The psychology was off. Silas was the most disciplined, precise kid in the company. Even if he had slipped, his body mechanics should have never caused him to come down on us the way that he did. The trajectory was completely unnatural.”
Julian took a slow breath.
“So, I started digging.” The words hit the small car like a series of strikes. “I used my old contacts in production. I ripped through the old equipment manifests, the maintenance logs, and the safety inspection reports from eight years ago. And…I found the truth.”
My breath hitched, my fingers curling around the edge of the plastic door handle. “What truth?”
“The ladders they used for our match that night…they weren’t new.
They weren’t even rated for professional use.
They were old, damaged aluminum structures that had been recycled from a hardcore match three weeks prior in Iowa.
They were supposed to be scrapped, but the backstage production department pulled them out of the storage bays anyway to save on the budget. ”
Julian paused, letting the horror settle into the silence of the rental car.