The Hard Truth

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Off Camera

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Darkness has fallen upon the booming metropolis of Boston, Massachusetts.  This city where the American Revolution had its roots is awfully quiet now in the pitch black of night.  The only light comes from a few street lamps and the bright moon, although astute observers know that the moon itself is not bright, it is just the light of the sun reflecting off of the moon.  Few people would bother to come out at night, but one of those few happens to be Mary Ford.

If the name Mary Ford does not ring any bells, well don’t worry, because Mary hasn’t bothered t o show her face in quite a long time.  Mary Ford has remained under the radar.  Mary is the sister of Kelly Jones.  Kelly was Angelica and Kayla’s mother.  This makes Mary their aunt.

They used to have quite a good relationship, but ever since Angelica and Kayla learned of their aunt’s promiscuity, cheating on her husband with her own brother in law, no less, they chose to disown her from the family.  Mary’s own children even disowned her for the same reason.  She literally had no one to turn to, no one to stand by her side.  Thus she went underground, never expecting to be sought out by anyone ever again.

She’s sitting on a black steel bench just across the street from Our Lady of the Annunciation Catholic Church, a beautiful church that towers high in the sky.  As a child, Mary used to go to this church with her sister and parents.  That was before she moved to England and met Glenn Braddock.  White marble steps lead up to a pair of impressive large brown oak doors.  The sides of this building are beautiful red brick that towers high into the sky, topped off by a white cross at its peak.

“Maria Kurensky…”

The voice seemingly comes out of nowhere and it startles Mary so much that she jumps right up off of the bench.  She turns her head to the left and to the right, trying to find the source of this voice, a voice that sounds familiar to her, but is somewhat distant; too distant for her to pin it down.

“Who are you?!  Where are you?!”

“Maria Kurensky…”

Mary’s face goes white as a sheet.

“How do you know that name?”

“I know much more than that.  I know that you are the daughter of a KGB agent.”

Mary shakes her head as she continues scanning the area for the source of this voice.

“No!  Ex-KGB!”

“Only because he’s dead.”

“No, he was horrified with the treatment of the Russian citizens at the hands of the KGB and Soviet leaders.  He left the Soviet Union and brought me, my sister, and our mother to America!”

“I know this.”

Mary blinks her eyes furiously.

“Wait, what?  Then why are you accusing me and…who are you?!”

“Because you should have told me.”

Mary hears rustling from nearby bushes.  Realizing that’s where the voice is coming from, she turns, bracing herself for the worst.  A figure eventually emerges from the bushes, a female figure dressed in black denim jeans, black boots, and a long sleeve black sweater.  As she steps out into the light Mary’s jaw hits the ground as she finally recognizes the person…

“Angelica?!”

Yes, Angelica Jones.  One half of The Sisterhood.  Angelica Jones, along with her sister Kayla, have a shot at the SCW World Tag Team Championship in their back pocket now that they defeated the reigning champions Autumn Valentine and Gable Winchester in a non-title match.  And that alone is enough to make the sibling pair one happy duo.  Becoming world tag team champions again has been their goal for over a year and now it seems as if they are on the precipice of accomplishing that very goal.

Unfortunately, there are certain other issues, both professional and personal, that have come up in the lives of the Sisterhood, that threaten to undermine or distract them from achieving their goal.  The professional threat comes from Jake Starr, who is clearly upset that he was pinned and thus eliminated by Angelica Jones from the elimination chamber match for the United States Championship.  Now Starr has threatened to ruin all of their title opportunities.  He’s already ruined Marie Jones and her opportunity at the Television Championship.  Could he try to ruin The Sisterhood’s tag team championship opportunity?

He’ll definitely try.  And it doesn’t help matters that Angelica is supposed to compete against Craig Thomas of Adrenaline Rush on the next Breakdown.  Angelica has no problems facing Craig.  Adrenaline Rush and The Sisterhood have definitely had their run-ins in the past.  She knows how to handle Thomas and thinks she can beat him.  But she also knows that she will have to keep an extra set of eyes out for Jake Starr, who will no doubt be lurking in the shadows, trying to ruin her match.

For Craig Thomas, defeating Angelica Jones could easily help write Adrenaline Rush into a tag team title shot as well, a title shot The Sisterhood wants all to themselves.

The personal threat comes from the news both Angelica and Kayla received recently.  Specifically some challenging news about the truth of their past and background, a past that was kept hidden from them for a very long time.  Angelica and Kayla are not quite sure how to wrap their heads around this news, but Angelica is going to try to grapple with it by approaching her aunt Mary directly.

Mary, for her part, is just stunned to see her niece standing here, ready to confront her…

“Angelica…is that really you?”

Angelica nods her head.

“Yes, Aunt Mary. It’s me.”

Mary shakes her head.

“No, I don’t…”

She turns and starts to walk away from her niece.

“…I don’t deserve to see you!”

Angelica frowns as she rushes to catch up with Mary.  As it turns out, Mary does not get very far until before Angelica grabs her by an arm and pulls her back towards her.

“Let me go!”

“No!”

Angelica spins her around so that the two women are standing face to face.  Mary’s eyes are welled up with tears.

“You have a lot to explain, Aunt Mary, and after everything you’ve put us through, everything you’ve put this family through with your lies, I think you owe it to us to give an explanation.”

Mary reaches up with her free hand wipes some tears from her eyes.  Finally, after great thought, she nods her head.

“Yes, perhaps you’re right.”

Angelica releases her grip on Mary’s arm.  The two women then walk back to the steel bench.  They sit back down on the bench.  Angelica stares directly into her eyes but it is Mary who speaks up first with a question.

“Angelica, if I may ask…how did you find out?”

“How did I find out your true last name?”

Mary nods her head.

“Yeah…”

“I have my sources.”

Mary chuckles.

“I guess daddy was not as good at keeping a secret as he thought he was, eh?”

Mary shakes her head.

“Oh we, it doesn’t matter now.  You know the truth.  No use hiding anything from you.  So what do you want to know?”

“Why hide any of it from me and Kayla to begin with?  We’re grown women.  We could’ve handled it.”

Now it’s Mary’s turn to look intense and fired up as she glares at Angelica.

“Could you really?”

“Of course we could, we…”

“Bullshit!”

She points a finger at Angelica.

“You and your sister have always had this immaculate view of your mother.  You viewed her as if she were perfect.  Hell, you looked at her almost in the same light as the Church looks at The Blessed Virgin Mary!”

“That’s wrong and blasphemy!”

“It’s the truth and you know it!  But I don’t blame you entirely.  Your father helped create that image.  He fed you that drivel, he and your mother both fed you that drivel and you ate it up!  My fault…”

She shakes her head.

“…my fault was allowing them to do it.”

Angelica rears back and slaps her aunt across the face.

“Don’t talk about my mom like that!”

“Do you want the truth?”

“Yes!”

“Then shut up and listen!  Our father…”

She sighs.

“…our father changed our identities for security reasons.  After fleeing the Soviet Union he was concerned the KGB would hunt us down.  So he changed our names. I was originally Maria Kurensky.  I was renamed Mary Ford.  Not very original, I know.  Klementina got the biggest make over.”

“Klementina?”

“Klementina Kurensky was your mother.  She became Kelly Ford.  Father taught us how to take care of ourselves on our own, because part of his strategy to keep us safe was that, once we came of age to take of ourselves, he kicked us out of the house.”

Angelica can tell the pain in her aunt’s voice.  For a moment she begins to feel guilty for wanting to target her aunt like this…assuming her aunt is telling the truth, of course…

“He told us to stay out of one another’s business.  But I loved my sister and I couldn’t help it…”

“Couldn’t help what?”

“…I couldn’t help but get involved when I saw her making what I knew would be a grave mistake.  Dating your father, an FBI agent, was dangerous enough and I told her as much.”

Angelica chuckles lightly.

“You never did like dad.  I always assumed you hated him because he was a misogynist.”

“That’s just what I told you.  Father and mother grew up in Soviet Russia.  We were used to a strong, patriarchal system.”

“You were concerned about his government ties leading the KGB back to mom and to you?”

Mary nods her head.

“Correct.  But your mother was insistent that she would do nothing to harm us.  I even tried to convince father to talk sense into her but he wanted her to make her own decisions.  Sometimes I wish father would have taken a more active role in our lives.”

Angelica winces.  More and more this is sounding like a reflection of Angelica herself.   Angelica knows that she is guilty of letting her children, namely Marie Annabelle Jones, of doing whatever she wants.  Angelica has often struggled with the idea of potentially getting more involved in her daughter’s life.  But at the same time, she doesn’t want to risk pushing her away.

“Father and mother passed away eventually and Klementina…Kelly, I’m sorry…we just had one another.  Then I learned she had been secretly cheating on her husband with a man from Russia.”

Angelica’s eyes widen.

“I imagine you freaked.”

“That’s an understatement.  First she married an FBI agent, then she cheats on him with someone from Russia?  I could have reached out to her and believe me, I thought about it, but in the end…”

She shakes her head.

“…in the end I decided to leave her for her own devices and to look out for myself.  I left the United States for Great Britain and attempted to make myself a life there.  The rest, as they say, is history.”

Angelica shakes her head in disbelief as she tries to take this all in.

“Aunt Mary, I had no idea.”

She wipes some tears of her own out of her eyes.

“You sat back and took so much grief, grief from me and Kayla, from your own children Glory and Julia, and you’ve allowed us to blame you for everything when, in reality, you were the only one in the right.  I’m so sorry.”

“Angelica, my dear, I am far from being in the right, just as your mother is far from being in the wrong.  Your mother and I both had our faults.  We both cheated on our husbands.  If anything, your father and mother were closer to being saints than myself and my ex-husband.  We never settled it.  When he learned that I had cheated on him with his brother, he kicked me out of the house, rightfully so, and I returned to the United States, effectively abandoning my daughter to be raised entirely by him.  But your mother and father worked it out so that you and your sister could have BOTH a mother and father in a stable family.”

Mary sighs.

“We both risked our family’s safety and security.  Both of us forget the dangerous situation we had escaped from and could easily return to haunt us if we weren’t careful.  We both got careless and we both suffered for it.  I suffered for it by losing the faith my children had in me…”

She sighs.

“…and my sister…she lost her life…”

“So you kept us in the dark about this…all of this…because you were honoring a promise you kept to my grandfather?”

“Yes, and because I was angry at your mother.  She wanted me to leave her alone so I left her alone.  I left for England never looked back.”

Mary stands up.

“And you and Kayla have rejected me just as your mother did.  So I shall take my leave.”

Mary starts to leave when Angelica stands up as well.

“Aunt Mary, wait!”

Mary stops and turns to face her oldest niece Angelica Jones.

“We all make mistakes.  God knows I’ve made my fair share of them and quite honestly, I’d be a damn hypocrite if I didn’t forgive you for the mistakes you made when I’ve had to ask forgiveness myself.”

Angelica smiles as she reaches out and grabs her aunt’s hands and squeezes them tightly.

“You’re the closest thing Kayla and I have to our past.  You are the closest thing we have to our mother.  I want you back in my life, Aunt Mary.”

Mary’s eyes grow wide.

“Are you sure?  What about your sister?”

“She’ll deal with it.  This is my choice, Aunt Mary.”

Angelica reaches out and embraces her in a tight hug.

“And I want you back in my life!”

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On Camera

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Clicking of heels is heard in the background.  A feminine figure emerges from over the horizon.  Closer and closer she comes until we can finally make out the long red hair that cascades down to just below her shoulders.  It’s Angelica Jones.  She is wearing sunglasses over her eyes, a tight form fitting black dress with a hemline that stops just below the knee, and matching high heeled pumps.  The red-head stops just in front of the camera.  A frown is on her face.

“Under Attack was certainly a surprise for me, not in the sense that I lost but in the sense that I got the title opportunity to begin with.  I was never expecting to be placed in that elimination chamber match to compete for the United States Championship.  I never for a second thought I deserved it.  But did you think I was going to just roll over and play dead?”

She shakes her head.

“No, I took full advantage of the opportunity I was given and I came this close…”

She holds up two fingers.

“…this close to winning the whole damn thing!  But am I upset about Vixen Cain beating me?  No, I’m thankful for my opportunity, I gave it my all, and I planned on moving on.  Kayla and I moved on past the elimination chamber and focused our attention back on the tag team division.”

Jones holds up one finger.

“It’s been over one calendar year since we held the SCW World Tag Team Championship.  We’re sick and tired of waiting.  We are not going to wait any longer.  So when we were booked against Autumn Valentine and Gable Winchester in a non-title tag match, we took full advantage.  We gave the champions everything we had and we beat them in the center of the ring.  So tell me, which teams sits at the top of the list of contenders to those tag straps?”

She pats herself on the chest.

“Me and my sister Kayla; The Sisterhood.  We are the top contenders, as far as we are concerned, and when the time comes, when Gable and Autumn or Mr. D grant us a World Tag Team Championship opportunity, we will once again take full advantage of that opportunity, we will once again defeat Gable and Autumn, and this time we will leave with the championships.  So as you can see, Under Attack is in the past.  I’ve moved on.”

She frowns.

“Unfortunately there are some within SCW who cannot move on.  One such individual is Jake Starr.  Jake Starr can’t deal with the fact that he was beaten in the elimination chamber.  And perhaps even more than that, he’s upset that he got eliminated by me.  And how does he react to getting beaten?”

The frown turns into a smirk.

“My sister said it best…a child, an immature child, throwing a temper tantrum.  That’s how you’ve reacted.  You’ve even gone as far as to attack The Sisterhood and involve yourself in my daughter’s match.  Well, I’m going to let my sister deal with you at Supreme Saturday, because I have more important matters to deal with and if you get involved, you’ll feel my wrath.”

She reaches up and takes off her sunglasses.

“Craig Thomas; heh, it’s funny how we keep running into each other, whether it ‘s one on one or tag team matches.  The Sisterhood and Adrenaline Rush have certainly had their fair share of altercations.  We’ve gone rounds and we know one another.”

That smirk grows slightly larger.

“But that also means you know just how dangerous I can be when I’m focused and right now I am more focused than I have ever been.  Just look at Under Attack and how close I came, even in defeat, to becoming United States Champion.  Look at how Kayla and I took down the seemingly unbeatable world tag team champions Gable and Autumn.  We have been denied for over a year and we’re tired of being denied.”

She shakes her head.

“I’m not going to stand for it.  I respect the hell out of you and Tyler for what you guys do in that ring.  You never quit.  No matter how rough it may get, you never quit.  But you’ve pulled the short of the end straw, buster.  You drew me as an opponent at the wrong damn time.”

She shrugs her shoulders.

“And that’s just your damn luck, because I’m a brand new person.  I’m not the same Angelica Jones from when we last fought.   I’m not the person who used to look past her opponents.  Gable and Autumn are irrelevant to me right now.  Jake Starr is irrelevant to me right now.”

She points a finger at the camera.

“You are the only person I care about right now, Craig.  I am focused.  I am ready.  And trust me, I will win.”