I had stopped running. It wasn’t some grand, dramatic moment—it was quiet. Resolute. The kind of decision that settles deep in your bones and changes the way you stand. I had Cody at my side. My brothers. My real family. And I was tired of looking over my shoulder like a coward every time the shadows moved. So when the challenge came—when he made his move and showed his hand through the voices of The Rock and John Cena—I didn’t hesitate. No DQ. Me and Cody. Against two of the biggest, dirtiest legends in the game.
All because of him. He wasn’t just back. He wasn’t just lurking. He had plans. He was connected to something bigger. He had slithered his way into the ear of The Rock, fed Cena whatever venom he needed to turn. And now they were coming for me… for us. And I’d be damned if I let that happen. “I accept,” I had said to The Rock, my voice sharp enough to cut through steel. “No disqualification. Let’s finish this.”
Cody didn’t even flinch. He just nodded once, firmly. “We do it together,” he said.
Now, hours before the match, I was pacing the back hallway of the arena, trying to keep my breathing steady. My heart was hammering, not with fear… but with anticipation. I wasn’t scared to fight. I was scared of what the fight might cost. That’s when I heard footsteps behind me. “Hey!” a familiar voice called.
I turned just in time to see Bianca walking toward me with LA Knight and Randy Orton at her sides. My chest tightened instantly. I hadn’t seen them since I’d started pulling away. Since I started snapping, shutting down, avoiding every single person I cared about. “B…Bianca?” I said, blinking fast. “What are you—how did you—?”
“We heard,” Bianca said simply. “About the match. About everything blowing up.”
“Yeah,” LA Knight added, crossing his arms. “Didn’t sound like something we wanted to sit out of. Figured you could use some backup. If you need it.” He shot me a wink.
Randy just nodded. “You don’t have to say anything. We’re here.”
And just like that, I felt it—the pressure behind my eyes, the way my throat started to burn. I looked down and shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice barely audible. “I’ve been… awful. To all of you. I didn’t mean to. I just—”
Bianca stepped forward and placed a hand on my arm. “Angel. You don’t have to explain.”
But I wanted to. For once. I took a breath and met their eyes. “My father… he’s the one behind all of this. Behind Rock. Cena. Everything. He’s not just a ghost anymore—he’s here. And he was never… good to me. Or my brothers. I thought if I kept my distance, if I pushed you away, he’d stay focused on me. That maybe he wouldn’t hurt any of you to get to me.”
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was understanding. “You don’t need to apologize for protecting the people you love,” Randy said, his voice low and steady. “But you’re not alone. Not now. Not ever.”
Bianca pulled me into a hug, and I didn’t hold back. I wrapped my arms around her and just let the emotion move through me. LA Knight clapped me on the back with a grin. “Don’t get sappy on us now,” he teased. “You got a match to win and a crowd to shock. We can cry after we beat some legends into the floor, yeah?”
I laughed—a real, actual laugh—and wiped at the corner of my eye. “Yeah. Deal.”
That’s when Cody appeared beside me, hand settling gently on my shoulder. I looked up at him, and he gave me that smile—quiet, warm, the kind that says “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Told you,” he said, “together, we’re unstoppable.”
I nodded, feeling the strength return to my spine. The fear wasn’t gone—but it didn’t matter anymore. Because I had them. I wasn’t fighting alone. Not tonight. Not ever again. “Then let’s go remind the world who we are,” I said. And I meant every word.
The moment the music hit—“Awake and Alive” by Skillet blasting through the speakers—I felt my chest tighten and my blood start to race. The crowd erupted, singing along, screaming, the electricity in the air nearly palpable. I stood just behind the curtain, heart hammering beneath the red and gold I wore—Cody’s colors. Our colors. Every stitch of this gear reminded me I wasn’t walking alone tonight.
I looked around, taking in the faces of the people who had come back for me—Bianca, LA Knight, Randy. My chest swelled at the sight. Every single one of them had a reason to walk away from me. And they didn’t. “You ready for this?” Cody asked, fist extended toward me, eyes steady and kind in that way only he could manage when we were on the brink of war.
I nodded, bumping my fist against his. “Let’s go wake ‘em up.”
The curtain parted, and we stepped out into the Universe. The crowd was louder than anything I’d ever felt—chanting, singing, reaching out for us. For Cody. For me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to take it all in. The lights. The chants. The pounding of the bass as we moved down the ramp together, side by side. Our boots hitting steel. Our purpose hitting harder. That’s when I saw them.
Hidden just barely in the shadows of the stage structure—my brothers. Undertaker stood tall and still, his eyes never leaving me. Kane was just behind him, arms crossed, tension in every line of his body like he was daring someone to even look at me wrong. My heart clenched. I didn’t slow my pace, but a small smile curled at the edge of my mouth. They were there. They were watching. Just like they always had. They weren’t in this match, but they were in my corner.
We climbed the apron together, stepping through the ropes, and then—like clockwork—we split off and hit the corners. I threw my arms up at the top rope, soaking in the roar of the crowd. For once, I didn’t feel like I had something to prove. I just felt ready. When I dropped down and turned, I felt Cody step closer again, but before I could ask, I saw what he saw. My body went cold.
He was there. My father.
Sitting casually by the barricade, not quite beside Brandi, Liberty, and Mama Rhodes, but close enough to make my entire spine seize up. I didn’t realize I had tensed up until Cody reached over and wrapped an arm around my shoulder—just like a big brother. Protective. Grounding. “Hey,” he murmured, leaning in, “don’t let him get in your head. He’s trying to rattle you. But I came prepared.”
I looked up at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
He nodded discreetly toward his family. That’s when I saw him. Cody’s half brother, Dustin. He was in street clothes but stood just behind the barricade, arms folded, eyes sharp and locked on my father like a hawk watching prey. There was no theatrics to him—no paint, no Goldust flair. Just Dustin. Just family. Standing guard. I let out a shaky breath, the knot in my gut loosening a bit. “Thanks,” I whispered.
Cody smiled softly. “We’ve all got you. You’re not alone in this.”
But just as I started to breathe again—IF YA SMELL…
The Rock’s theme hit like a tidal wave of aggression and ego. The lights strobed, the crowd screamed, and my muscles tensed right back up. He walked out with Cena at his side. They looked… off. Not in the usual way they presented themselves. There was something unsteady under the surface—subtle, but there. A twitch in Cena’s jaw. A flicker in The Rock’s eyes, like he hadn’t fully recovered from whatever my brothers had done to him.
But they masked it with bravado. They puffed their chests, they smiled like snakes, and they raised their arms like nothing had happened. But I saw it. Cody saw it too. “They’re not as bulletproof as they want everyone to think,” Cody said under his breath. “Let ’em underestimate us.”
“Fine by me,” I replied, eyes narrowing as they walked toward the ring. “Let ‘em think we’re just a couple of stubborn fools. They’ll find out the hard way.”
Cody nodded. “You sure you’re good?”
I looked once more toward my father, then toward my brothers still cloaked in the shadows. Then Dustin. Then towards backstage where I knew my teammates…my friends, were waiting and watching. And finally, Cody. “I’m better than I’ve ever been,” I said. “Let’s end this.”
We turned toward the center of the ring, standing side by side as our enemies approached. Let them come. Let them throw everything they had at us. We weren’t just fighting back tonight. We were taking everything back. Together.
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The bell rang, and the crowd roared to life. My heart was still thundering from the entrance, but the moment that clang echoed through the arena, everything narrowed—tunnel vision. Focus. Cody started us off against Cena. They circled each other slowly, cautiously, like two wolves sizing up which one was going to lunge first. Their hands locked in a test of strength—Cody’s boots digging into the mat, Cena’s arms flexing with that stubborn brute power of his. “Come on, Cody,” I murmured under my breath from the apron, fingers clenched around the tag rope.
They shifted into technical grappling—Cody slipped behind him, rolled him into a quick pin attempt, but Cena powered out. Shoulder tackle. Then another. The third dropped Cody hard. “Let’s go!” Cena shouted, fist raised as the crowd popped, part in cheers, part in boos. He yanked Cody up and drove him down with that spin-out powerbomb, the impact rattling the canvas under my boots. Cena bounced off the ropes, wiping the back of his hand theatrically across his mouth. “You can’t see me,” he called, loud enough to echo.
But Cody could see him. He kipped up, smooth and sudden, just as Cena went for the Five Knuckle Shuffle. And then bam—Disaster Kick. Cena went down like a sack of bricks, the crowd on their feet. “Tag!” I called, reaching my hand out. Cody didn’t hesitate. He sprinted to the corner and smacked my palm. I vaulted over the ropes just as—
“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” The Rock barked from the opposite apron. “Uh-uh, Cena—get outta there. This one’s mine.”
The crowd erupted as he stepped through the ropes, swaggering like he owned the place. The second our eyes locked, it felt like the temperature in the arena dropped ten degrees. There was a shift in the air. A hush right before a lightning strike. We stood there, unmoving. Him in his boots and gear, cocky smirk on his lips. Me, fists raised, red and gold glinting under the lights. “You sure about this, princess?” The Rock taunted. “You’re stepping into the deep end now.”
I smirked back. “Good. I’ve been meaning to drown something.”
The bell was already rung, but it might as well have sounded again, because the second I launched at him, the place exploded. I hit fast—elbows, knees, a spinning forearm. My boots barely touched the ground between strikes. He staggered back a step or two, more surprised than hurt. He growled low and caught me mid-combo, hurling me over with a snap overhead belly-to-belly suplex. I slammed into the mat hard, breath knocked from my lungs. But I didn’t stay down.
“You’re just like your father,” he sneered, stalking closer. “All flair. All pride. No legacy worth anything.”
My blood went ice cold. I pushed up, slow, steady. And then I slapped him across the face. The sound cracked through the ring. He blinked, jaw tight. “I’m nothing like that douchebag,” I spat.
The Rock lunged, but I ducked, drove my shoulder into his gut, and rolled us both to the outside under the ropes. Cody was shouting behind me, “Angel, heads up!”
But I didn’t need the warning. I scrambled to my feet, climbed the top rope, heart pounding in time with the chanting crowd. I didn’t think. I just flew. The corkscrew plancha sent me crashing into both Cena and Rock at once, bodies hitting the floor in a mess of limbs and pain. The entire front row gasped as the barricade rattled behind them.
I groaned, pushing myself up, chest heaving. The adrenaline was white-hot now. The moment I saw Rock moving, I was on him. “You think you can just rewrite everything we’ve done?” I snarled, stomping him down against the barricade. “Erase everything we’ve fought for?”
He tried to shove me off, but I slammed a knee into his gut. Meanwhile, Cody had Cena by the head and hurled him into the steel steps, the clang loud and brutal. The arena was chaos—half the crowd screaming for us, the other half for them, but everyone was on their feet. I felt the vibration of it under my skin, in my bones.
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and then Add to home screen.