“So I’ve decided to wrestle at least one more time. I thought that it would be something special for WrestleMania.”

Chris looked around at the other members of creative. They were all looking at him in surprise as he had never showed interest in returning to the ring after Stephanie died. Nobody really said anything about it, just assumed that since Stephanie was gone Chris wouldn’t want to wrestle anymore since he and Stephanie had been close. This was definitely a surprise to them, but who were they to deny their boss the chance to wrestle.

“Who would you wrestle against?” Shane asked.

Chris smirked to himself. This was going along swimmingly. Shane was looking at him a little distrustfully and Chris couldn’t blame the man. Shane was a shrewd gentleman in business, but he wasn’t very smart when it came to anything else. Chris was going to prove that Shane had messed with the wrong man this time.

“Actually, I’m really glad that you asked that question, Shane,” Chris said, turning to the man who was sitting across from him. “I want to wrestle you.”

“What?” Shane asked, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Chris. “Why in the hell would you want to wrestle me?”

“Well, actually, I’ve come up with a great storyline that involves the two of us and I really like the idea so that’s why I’m bringing it up now.”

“No, I don’t want to wrestle,” Shane told him.

“I thought you might say that, but think about it, man, if we start having this epic struggle for power--“

“Why would we struggle for power?” Shane asked. “I’m a McMahon, you work for me.”

Chris grit his teeth at the tone of Shane’s voice. If Shane only knew that he was actually his brother-in-law and had just as many rights, if not more than Shane did right now. Chris and Stephanie had always played it straight with Vince, they had no reason to lie to him, but Shane, Shane had been stealing right from under his father’s nose and not only that, he had been fucking one of the employees in exchange for favors. Yes, Chris was much higher in Vince’s estimation, but Shane didn’t need to know that right now. It would be that much sweeter when Shane found out the business was going to Chris and Shane was only going to be going off to jail.

“Actually, I work for your father,” Chris said calmly. All the members on the creative team were turning their heads back and forth watching the two men argue. They could feel a real fight starting to brew between the two of them.

“Well, I stand to inherit this company and I already own shares, so I think that you do work for me.”

“Your father is the president,” Chris said, “and he has hired me as the head of creative.”

“I’m getting him right now!” Shane said, pushing himself away from the table like a spoiled, little boy. He glared at Chris the entire time that he was walking out of the room. Chris returned his gaze the whole way, not letting his eyes move, not acting intimidated in the slightest.

The door slammed behind Shane. Chris turned to the members of the creative team and smiled genially like none of that had bothered him, and it hadn’t. “I anticipate that Vince will agree with me, so let’s talk about it while Shane is gone.”

Nobody spoke for a few seconds until one person spoke up, “Um, do you…are you ready to wrestle?”

“I keep myself in ring shape if that’s what you’re asking,” Chris said. “I think that I can take on Shane McMahon.”

“Do you want to get started on the storyline immediately?” someone else asked.

“Yeah, I wanted to,” Chris said, “the sooner we get this started, the sooner that we get all that animosity out there, I don’t think Shane’s going to have a problem with that.”

Everyone laughed and Chris knew that he was winning them over. Shane wasn’t exactly a popular guy around here, which made it easier for Chris to manipulate everyone. Everyone liked to work for him. Stephanie had made him adopt this persona even though it was as far from him as he could possibly get. He wasn’t a nice guy, not anymore, and he was sitting there plotting the downfall of two people and he didn’t have a care in the world.

“What is this all about?” Vince asked as he walked into the meeting room. “Shane came and got me from my office.”

“We were discussing a storyline idea that I had,” Chris told him. “Have a seat, Vince, I would love to get your input on this.”

“If you want,” Vince shrugged taking an empty seat. “So what is this idea?”

“He wants me to wrestle him,” Shane said with disgust. “Can you believe that, Dad? He actually wants me to wrestle him at WrestleMania, I told him that it was a stupid idea so I wanted to get your reinforcement on that.”

“Let me hear this idea, Chris,” Vince said, turning away from his son and looking at his son-in-law.

“Well, Vince, it’s like this. I think that maybe we can set up some sort of struggle for power between me and Shane. It’s pretty well-known that I’m a higher-up in the company now, what with me being the head of creative since…well, since Stephanie was with us.”

Chris took the appropriate moment to sit there quietly, cupping a fist against his mouth. Everyone in the room except Shane and Vince were sympathetic towards Chris. Vince wasn’t sympathetic because he knew Stephanie was alive and Shane wasn’t sympathetic because he was glad his sister was dead. Since Stephanie’s staged death, the opinion of her had gone up ten-fold and everyone seemed to regard her with a shining light, like she was an angel in life when she was nothing of the sort.

“Sorry,” Chris continued, “Thinking about her sometimes, you know…well, I have a high position in the company and I was thinking, maybe things start to go wrong on Raw. Maybe a brand of chaos raises between some of our guys and the both of us have different ways of dealing with it, I could be the face in it and Shane, you could be the heel because you’re so good at it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you’re good at playing the bad guy.” Chris said that with an edge to his voice and he wanted that edge to be there. Sometimes he could just look at Shane and want to kick his ass so badly that he wouldn’t be recognizable to anyone. That old anger after hearing what he did to Stephanie would settle in the pit of his stomach like lead. “Anyways, that would culminate in a match for WrestleMania and you could advertise it hugely, what with me coming out of retirement and everything.”

“Dad, that’s stupid, don’t you agree?”

Vince pretended to think it over and with each second that ticked by, Shane’s eyes grew a little bit wider. “You know, I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

“What!” Shane exclaimed like a petulant child. “Dad, you cannot be serious. I don’t have to wrestle if I don’t want to!”

Now he really was just acting like a full-blown child. “Shane, I’m the boss around here, do you agree?”

“Yes,” Shane said, but his voice was still defiant and Chris could tell that Shane was thinking about when he would be the boss.

“Then what I say goes, and I like the idea, I like it a lot, Chris, book it, get it started as soon as you want. You’ll obviously be in charge of everything, don’t pout, Shane,” Vince said, looking at his son. “I trust your judgment with this, Chris, good work.”

Shane was fuming now as Vince got up and left, patting Chris on the shoulder. Shane folded his arms and pouted like the little baby that he was as Chris outlined what he wanted out of this storyline. They eventually moved on to different topics, but Shane refused to participate in the conversation, instead choosing to just sit there and accept his fate. And what a fate it would be when Chris was through with him.

Chris dismissed the meeting and then left to go to his office. He walked inside and Stephanie was brooding on the couch, picking at her nails like that’s all she had been doing, but Chris knew that she had been waiting for his return. He had expected her to be here, even if he had left her earlier that morning in their new residence that Chris had ponied up for. He sat at his desk and stared at her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, though he knew the answer. It seemed the appropriate conversation starter.

“Your secretary said you were in a creative meeting,” Stephanie said after she had closed and locked the door so she could speak in her normal voice inside the soundproof office.

“I was,” he told her, trying to give off a cold air, which is how she had been addressing him since he had told Vince that he wanted to get Shane in a match.

“So did you go through with your little plan?” she asked with a nonchalant air, but she was dying to know and Chris knew it too.

He decided to tease her a little bit, “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t want to know,” she countered. “I was just asking you.”

“Well, it seemed like you really wanted to know,” Chris said. “I mean, why did you come down here otherwise?”

“I just came to see you,” Stephanie told him.

“Stephanie, you never come just to see me, there’s always some kind of motive. It’s been that way since the day I became friends with you and why would it change now, sweetheart?”

“So I’m not allowed to come see my husband?” she asked him, sucking at her teeth a little.

“You either want to fuck or scheme, so which is it, Steph? You want me to fuck you because I’ve got a few minutes,” Chris said, unzipping his pants. They hadn’t had sex in the few days since he had dropped the bombshell of wanting the match. He was almost at the end of his rope regarding that. When they were in the same place at the same time they had never gone more than two days without sex and they were bordering on six now.

“Put that away,” Stephanie said in disgust. “I just came down…to see my father.”

“I’m not your dad,” Chris told her, acting serious.

Stephanie was getting angry. “I just stopped by because…you were here, okay? God, I wanted to see my dad and discuss how we’re going to transfer the company eventually. That’s all.”

“So why didn’t you go straight to your dad’s office, you really do want to fuck, don’t you? Come on, take your clothes off.”

“I hate you,” Stephanie told him. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on Earth.”

“Of course you would.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Well, if you are officially reneging the physical part of our marriage, I think that leaves me well within my rights to pursue other interests,” Chris told her. “I bet that I could get what’s-her-face down in accounting to sleep with me in two minutes. Maybe I should go for more of a challenge though. I’ve been waiting to get something a little different than the same, boring pussy that I get every night.”

“Fine, go right ahead,” Stephanie told him. “See if I care, I’ll just find someone who can…fill me up a little bit better than you can.”

“Nothing’s stopping you, sweetheart,” Chris said, going to the door and opening it and bowing deeply to let her through. She huffed in place for a few seconds, not going anywhere. Chris smirked and stood back up. He closed the door and locked it again. “Seems like you’re not leaving. How am I supposed to let a girl give me a blowjob in here when you won’t leave?”

“Why do you have to do this!”

“Get a blowjob?” he asked smartly.

“Fight Shane, why do you have to do it?” she told him. “It’s pointless, Chris, it’s absolutely pointless.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes it is!” Stephanie yelled. “It’s pointless and stupid and you’re being stupid and I don’t know why you have to go through with this. We could have this entire thing wrapped up soon if it weren’t for your need to lambaste my brother. He could be in jail!”

“I know, but I want this.”

“I don’t want this, I want him where he belongs, I want the damn company!”

“Some things are bigger than the fucking company!”

“No, nothing is bigger than the fucking company!”

“Yes, there is!” he said, pushing against her so she hit the wall, causing a picture of Chris with the title belts to clatter to the ground. He held her wrists back next to her head. Stephanie was never afraid of Chris and now was no exception.

“No…there is not,” she told him slowly.

“Yes, there is, this, this is bigger than the fucking company, we’re bigger than the fucking company.”

“What are you yammering on about?”

“Why do you never see how much you mean to me?”

“Don’t go soft on me, Jericho.”

“I’m not going soft on you, Stephanie, but goddammit, I love you, accept that at face value for God’s sakes.”

“I know you love me, I know you do, I’ve never called that into question.”

“I know you haven’t, but just because I tell you every now and then doesn’t mean that I’m going soft. Just because I tell you that I care doesn’t mean I’m going to start crying like some little bitch.”

“Whatever, let me go,” she told him.

“No, because you’re going to listen to what I have to say.”

“Then fucking say it.”

“I love you and I was not there to protect you, do you know how much that kills me?”

“I didn’t even…I wasn’t friends with you.”

“Well fuck that,” Chris told her. “Because I’m here now and the image, the thought of that does something to me, inside my gut, that I don’t even know how to begin to explain, but it wells up inside of me, and if I let Shane go to jail without quelling whatever it is that builds up inside of me whenever I think of that incident, well, I will be restless for the rest of my life.”

“I told you it was over and done with, I’ve made my peace with it.”

“I haven’t.”

“You weren’t there!”

“I didn’t have to be! Damn it, don’t you get it!”

“Obviously I don’t.”

“What if I told you about some bitch who had stalked me or something, or some girl who dumped me and left me, or some bitch who tried to stab me, what would you do?”

“Well, I’d call you a pussy for one,” Stephanie told him.

Chris groaned and pulled away from her, running his hands through his hair. “You just don’t get it.”

Stephanie watched him and it was obvious that this was honestly tearing him up inside. She walked up to him and ran her hand into his pants and then traveled up and under his shirt, rubbing his stomach. She never said so and neither did he, but they both knew that this gesture usually calmed Chris down. He took a few deep, calming breaths and closed his eyes, reveling in her touch.

“I get it,” Stephanie told him. “I get it, you weren’t with me, but you love me and any small slight against me--“

“It wasn’t small.”

“Any slight against me is something you can’t handle,” Stephanie told him.

“Yeah.”

“So go ahead with the match.”

“Really?”

“Just do me one favor.”

“What?”

“When you’re in the ring with him, tell him that it’s from me…with love.”