Post by CM Poor: DeepFigureValue on Mar 3, 2018 21:27:56 GMT -5
What Will You Do When They Come For You?
Let's lay somethin' right out on the table:
I ain't runnin'.
Now, I've done pretty well up until now about keepin' a fine line between what it is I do here and what it is I do offscreen. I wasn't ever lookin' to become the second comin' of the Dean Family Chronicles any more'n anyone was lookin' for that to ever be a thing. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone out there wishin' they could just get themselves a little bit more of a taste of what it is David Brennan does when he ain't crackin' skulls in that ring, and in that respect, I'm more'n happy to oblige.
Granted, I've been known to completely stomp out the lines in life from time to time.
That all bein' said, I ain't ever exercised the audacity to involve the facets of another man's life in this business what he ain't first gone and involved himself. Nikki Dean became fair game the day Josh paraded her out for the world to see like some f*ckin' participation trophy for an otherwise unremarkable stretch of life. Frank Lynn's shattered family ties land right back in bounds every time he tries to rest on 'em to excuse away his god given deficiencies. Even my boy Drakz'd be hard f*ckin' pressed to make a case against anyone lookin' to use his past indiscretions against him in the game of gab, seein' as he all but exercised 'em to their full capacity for the betterment of the better part of his f*ckin' career here.
But show of hands - how many of you casuals out there can say you know the first f*ckin' thing about me and mine.
Case in f*ckin' point.
Fool me once.
Come on back up coast anytime you feel, Kyzer. Maybe bring yourself this time. Kinda f*ckin' man hides behind a kid anyway?
Oh, right.
But nah, swing on by. You ain't gonna find much. Try not to take it too personal - it's not like I don't wanna see you, but you and me? Think we're gonna need to lay out some ground rules, we ever wanna get back and touch base. See, unlike you, I've found my peace. I've found myself somethin' more'n just the sufferin' of others worth livin' for, and when all this is all said and done, whether by your standards or mine, I've got me somethin' worth goin' home for at the end of it all.
I'll be god damned if I'm gonna let someone like you pick the f*ckin' welcome mat.
But I ain't runnin'.
You found me out. Bully for you. Knowin' the sad state of affairs it is bein' you, you'll probably do it again. But if you - and I mean you, not some f*ckin' cadre of boy slaves you went and picked up from god knows where - ever find yourself wantin' to step up, I've got a list of twenty-plus and countin' that'll tell you exactly where to look, assh*le.
Any time you're ready.
Let the rest of these mother f*ckers figure out the details.
David Brennan:
One Foot On the Gas,
One Foot In the Grave
"You don't think this crosses some sort of line?"
The question was strictly rhetorical. Even David, for all his academic accolades accumulated over the course of a lifetime of independent study on the streets of Boston, was adept enough to read that much as plain as plain could be off of the tone of Nat's voice and the irritated look on her face. Any other day, he'd be just as susceptible to volley this sort of attitude right back at her, as the two often did as a sort of foil to one another. Each had a tendency, at times, to let their emotions get the best of them - surprising exactly nobody who'd ever spent more than five minutes in the presence of either. The calm in the storm most often came only on the back of the other, who's duties would suddenly and unwaveringly turn to the sole intent of keeping the other grounded and as close to ease as humanly possible. It was a strange sort of balance that they'd built a curiously strong foundation upon - at its most extreme, Nat had famously brought David back from the very brink of existence. Today, David would simply have to chip a bit more away at the endless chore of returning the favor.
After all - she wasn't wrong.
As unfair as life can get, their current situation had suddenly thrust Nat into a realm of unwarranted punishment and exile through exactly no fault of her own. At distances near and far, David had taken meticulous care to keep her name and her face as far removed from his business exploits as one could feasibly do. At the height of his plunge into the void, she had, admittedly, brought herself beneath the spotlight for a brief moment in an effort to reach him at his most unreachable, but save for that fleeting and relatively unremarkable moment, Natalie Collins was not a name or a face known to those involved, whether personally or casually, with the WFWF.
Michael Kyzer had changed all that.
"Just about every last one there is, yeah."
In the aftermath of everything that had happened in the ring, David was sure that Kyzer had wrought a whole new hell, the implications of which he'd never fully come to escape. His sick bag of tricks never seemed to stray all that far from some sort of twisted circus that often seemed to revolve around its ringleader, the diminutive Donnie Monty Kent, Kyzer's personal dealer and perpetual hanger-on. It was a mind game that Kyzer knew he'd fall for hook, line, and sinker: an army of DMK clones descending upon Brennan, armed beneath their robes with god only knows what - even he'd once been party to arming the little twerp with an aerosol sprayer full of bear-grade mace. It seemed as good a time as any to send a message, all the while seizing an opportunity to exorcise a bit of the pent up hatred he'd developed for Kyzer's personal ankle-biter over the years.
After all - who among us could have ever banked on even the depraved Michael Kyzer employing the services of multiple Thai minors?
Reason, as luck would have it, seemed to prevail in the aftermath of it all. Modern times would most commonly see anyone sticking a boot to the face of a child on live, international broadcast, be shunned into shameful obscurity, never to see the positive light of day or the public eye again.
Even David Brennan must seem saintly when stacked up against Michael Kyzer.
There are some things, however, that even the grace of common sense cannot seem to hold at bay. Hardly a peep was spoken about the potential for David Brennan to be a closeted assailant of small children having finally shown his true colors. He'd fully prepared himself for that particular brand of backlash, and had set in place a basis of life beneath which he'd been confident that he'd be able to weather the storm that might arise from his knee jerk reaction in the face of a perceived threat.
That threat itself was never supposed to follow him home.
"And yet...here we are."
He made a show of setting down their luggage in a feeble attempt to mask any look of guilt that might have washed over his face as Nat exasperatedly resigned herself to this new fate. He'd sworn that the last time they'd departed the city would be the last time they'd have to leave. Under no certain circumstances would they ever find reason to come back here, but the pang of remorse jabbing at David's innards as he watched Nat stare out the high rise window, their abandoned hometown sprawling out before her, was all too real for him to think this some sort of sleepless nightmare.
He'd failed her.
Even as he joined her by her side, feebly exerting some show of comfort as his arm slung around her shoulder to draw her near, he felt hopelessly pathetic. He owed so much more to this woman, who in so many ways could claim sole credit for his very presence on earth, and his one solemn vow - to take her away from this place, never to return again - had fallen to a thousand pieces on the shores of the northern Atlantic.
It was, in many ways, a great deal of comfort that, at least as far as he could now read, she wasn't too hell bent on holding it against him as she slumped slightly into the crook of his arm, the two of them casting forlorn, thousand yard stares put upon the city before them.
"I thought you sold this place."
Inside, he silently begged for forgiveness. He was, after all, only a Brennan.
The narrative, Nat had just suggested, had always gone that, in removing himself from the greater Boston area, David had liquidated the vast, vast empire that Jack Brennan had amassed and bequeathed to his eldest son. Calling that a half-truth would, in of itself, be a bit of an exaggeration, but all the same, it appeared that there would be no time like the present for David to at least try and come clean with a bit more clarity in that respect. Her tone was far from accusatory, as Nat was well versed by now in David's many, many imperfections, but nevertheless, it was clear that should fully understood, in spite of her line of questioning, that the two of them were quite literally standing in the very embodiment of another one of David's lies.
There was a certain degree of paranoia that came with the blood that coursed through his veins. In another life - perhaps even in the custody of another parent - the notion of arranging a smattering of safe houses throughout the country would have seemed absurd, even comical. Being, however, that he was reared, in large part, by his father, it only seemed natural, so much so that when the time finally came to divest the empire that had been passed into his name upon Jack's death, an involuntary impulse buried deep within David's craw all but prevented him from being able to fully absolve himself of a token few mainstays in the event of catastrophe, however unlikely. He had, after all, long kept an arm's length away from Jack's business interests, and made no explicit overtures toward absorbing them when he passed, and so the odds of his tangential past coming home to roost were, for the first time in the long history of the Brennan name, astronomically small.
Who'd have guessed that the threat of Michael Kyzer could have outweighed the Italians and the Dominicans?
"Not this one..."
It was an exasperated statement - almost wistful. It didn't do anything to further the conversation, nor did it make any strides toward getting him out of it. He'd played this one close to the chest for too long, at a time when he should have more up front and honest with Nat than he'd been in all the years he'd known her.
The rest was bound to come. He just had to open the door for her.
"Just how many of these places did Jack have?"
"Heh. Too many. Ten to fourteen? Somethin' like that. I only really cherry picked when the time came."
"What's that mean, you cherry picked?"
Make no mistake - David was in the wrong. He knew it in his heart, and he knew it wherever that pang of guilt we've all felt hits when we're confronted with the fact that we're in that same place.
None of that, however, had changed the fact that David was as stubborn as the mangiest mule.
"Means I cherry picked, Nat. I know it ain't a good look or nothin' - should've been up front with you from the very start, and I'm sorry for that, but all this sh*t happenin'? I ain't about to start apologizin' for keepin' a few on file."
Nat crossed her arms, and her face told David about the internal struggle she was fighting as she toiled with David's assertion against her own personal contempt for anything even remotely related to his father. It had taken her months to agree to fly on the jet. He wasn't quite sure she'd ever quite reconciled the fact that at least a a fraction of their fortune had come off the back of his exploits. Now, she found herself taking refuge in one of Jack's storied safe houses, each with a likely wealth of history in its own right of any number of colorful characters and exploits Jack had laid low from over the years.
Even still - even she'd have been hard pressed to deny the comfort that height, privacy, and a pair of armed guards at every street level entrance had afforded as they'd arrived.
Bar Harbor had been their dream for as long as they could muster the strength, and now, it seemed, thanks to a child in a black cloak, she might never be able to muster the courage to go back.
"How many is a few?"
Hardly the businessman, for that, David had a sound and resolute answer.
"Four. This one. Manhattan. One down Palm Beach. One out in L.A."
She nodded as he listed their options, as as she replayed the list in her mind, she couldn't overcome the urge to spit a small laugh, burying her face in one of her hands in an almost futile attempt to keep the tension of the situation alive.
"What?"
"Palm Beach? Los Angeles?"
"Yeah?"
"And you bring me to f*cking Boston?"
Even David had to smile. In his haste to get them somewhere - anywhere - in the aftermath of Kyzer’s minion showing up on his front doorstep, the ignorant belligerence he must have displayed in ushering her off to the place he knew full well that she loathed the most was likely enough to make her spend the ride out wondering if he’d succumbed once more to his old ways. He tried to ponder what it was he’d been thinking, knowing full well that he’d had four safe houses at his disposal, two of which were even located in climates all the more welcoming this time of year, and the answer was quick and clear, if not altogether unnerving.
He wasn’t.
A train of thought existed in his mind - very real, very likely - that said that Michael Kyzer had sent his minion off to David’s front step with the intent of doing very real, very likely harm to David and anyone who he might be keeping close. That, alone, was enough to send David into instinctual flight mode, in the absence of a viable fight option. With that, he held no qualms. In the absence of the WFWF or a ring or any number of feuds that existed in his line of work, his sole purpose in life was geared toward making the best life possible for Nat. He’d go to his grave defending to the death any action taken on his part in the interest of protecting that ideal.
What was unnerving was the haste with which he’d acted. David was not an educated man. In the great, crossroaded decision of whether he’d pursue life on the streets or life as presented by Bunker Hill Community College, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could take a single look at the guy and not be able to tell which route he took. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything - David just figured his smarts always filled a certain quota that the world needed to balance out, and his were branded a bit more in reality and common sense than they were book and academia. Nevertheless - by book or by brick - it didn’t take a genius to figure out the real end game here. If anything, heaven forbid, had happened to David or to Nat, it’d be little more than collateral damage in the eyes of the aggressor here, who’s ends, in his eyes, had likely been achieved the second David pulled them out of the driveway in the middle of the night.
Kyzer had gotten inside David’s head.
Harder than any punch. Potentially more devastating than any possible injury. Altogether more intimidating than any cool, blank stare.
Kyzer had made him jump.
The thought alone was infuriating.
"Least he won’t come lookin’ here."
"Right...I mean, who’d ever put ‘Brennan’ and ‘Boston’ together, right?"
The slight wasn’t lost on David, but he knew better to fight it. After all, there’d been so little he’d been sure about these past forty eight hours or so, but as the thought gestated in his mind, the more and more he felt sure that, at least in this respect, he wasn’t wrong.
Boston was Brennan’s hometown, through and through, but even Kyzer would know, if he’d been keen enough to have tracked him so far north, that any sentimental attachment probably lay dead and buried atop Mount Cavalry.
They were safe here, at least externally.
"If you need, we can head out in the mornin’. L.A.’s alright. Got a bit of a bone to pick with management, anyway."
"Maybe. I don’t like it - any of it. Still..."
"Still?"
Her eyes wandered, as his followed, out over the city skyline, sprawled out before them - practically beneath them. The tiniest little intricacies they’d both grown to know so well were drowned in the grasp of darkness, illuminated and familiar only on account of a million different lights littering the night sky, drowning out the stars above and leaving the spectacle of sight for themselves and themselves alone. They stood in silence for several moments, the two of them taking in the view fully and, perhaps for the first time in ages, appreciatively in the bask of the segregated silence afforded only by the grace of height and seclusion.
Jack had been a right evil bastard, but man, David thought - he sure knew how to pick them.
"Maybe it’s not all that bad."
Do the Right Thing, or Do Nothing
Would you believe me if told you you weren't my biggest problem right now, Joe?
Call me crazy, I dunno, but when a narcissist f*ckin' drug died with a weird ass God complex is sendin' off all sorts of ethnic f*ckin' children off to your front doorstep to make some sorta f*ckin' point, your mind kinda drifts away from the sorta points you already went and made, y'know?
I'm sure that ain't fair of me - I can't say for certain, havin' never personally found myself in your particular predicament - but I can't imagine it's anything too pleasant to be starin' down the barrel of another toe to toe with the guy what took the biggest prize you've ever found yourself party to from around your waist and havin' the son of a b*tch too distracted by, well, real f*ckin' problems so much that he can't even give you the time of day. Sh*t, in a perfect world, that's all you'd really need, isn't it? Get my eyes a little off center and you've got yourself just enough room to squeak a win outta my peripherals and take back what you so devastatingly lost all those months ago. I'm sure Frankie tried.
It's just too bad that none of this is real.
I'm sure the two of you've got yourself a banner f*ckin' night planned, least as much as you can, what with your little sidekick there hardly takin' the time to think this sh*t through. Little more focus on your six Ps, and you might've found yourself playin' a much bigger thorn in my side. Instead, you're divin' in head first, wrapped head to toe in a f*ckin' rubber like some nerdy virgin afraid he might actually get his d*ck wet.
Why you think they call it a rubber match.
You're playin' safe. That might be smart play around that little podcaster you keep around, but it ain't gonna get you very far, trainin' your only f*ckin' protege to not think the implications of what it is he wants to achieve fully through. I ain't got doubt in my mind that if Frankie had an ounce to play with upstairs, he might otherwise have put my ass in quite the spot. I dunno whether to thank you for spearheadin' a half assed cause, or him for bein' born of same f*ckin' cloth as me - smartest people without common sense.
I almost wanna feel a bit of pity, y'all goin' through all this work for a whole lotta nothin'.
This sh*t? May as well be a house show.
You? I get. We already beat your British asses seven ways to Yorktown, but Frankie? Sh*t. He should know better.
He really is from Lynn, isn't he?
Word to wise? Revolution ain't much good if the peckerheads fightin' it ain't interested in raisin' the stakes. Ain't gonna go far waitin' around for someone do it for you.
'Rubber match'. Ha!
Just this once? I'ma cut you some slack.
Keep you from bein' what it is you are, even if it's just for your own show.
Yesterday's news.
Let's lay somethin' right out on the table:
I ain't runnin'.
Now, I've done pretty well up until now about keepin' a fine line between what it is I do here and what it is I do offscreen. I wasn't ever lookin' to become the second comin' of the Dean Family Chronicles any more'n anyone was lookin' for that to ever be a thing. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone out there wishin' they could just get themselves a little bit more of a taste of what it is David Brennan does when he ain't crackin' skulls in that ring, and in that respect, I'm more'n happy to oblige.
Granted, I've been known to completely stomp out the lines in life from time to time.
That all bein' said, I ain't ever exercised the audacity to involve the facets of another man's life in this business what he ain't first gone and involved himself. Nikki Dean became fair game the day Josh paraded her out for the world to see like some f*ckin' participation trophy for an otherwise unremarkable stretch of life. Frank Lynn's shattered family ties land right back in bounds every time he tries to rest on 'em to excuse away his god given deficiencies. Even my boy Drakz'd be hard f*ckin' pressed to make a case against anyone lookin' to use his past indiscretions against him in the game of gab, seein' as he all but exercised 'em to their full capacity for the betterment of the better part of his f*ckin' career here.
But show of hands - how many of you casuals out there can say you know the first f*ckin' thing about me and mine.
Case in f*ckin' point.
Fool me once.
Come on back up coast anytime you feel, Kyzer. Maybe bring yourself this time. Kinda f*ckin' man hides behind a kid anyway?
Oh, right.
But nah, swing on by. You ain't gonna find much. Try not to take it too personal - it's not like I don't wanna see you, but you and me? Think we're gonna need to lay out some ground rules, we ever wanna get back and touch base. See, unlike you, I've found my peace. I've found myself somethin' more'n just the sufferin' of others worth livin' for, and when all this is all said and done, whether by your standards or mine, I've got me somethin' worth goin' home for at the end of it all.
I'll be god damned if I'm gonna let someone like you pick the f*ckin' welcome mat.
But I ain't runnin'.
You found me out. Bully for you. Knowin' the sad state of affairs it is bein' you, you'll probably do it again. But if you - and I mean you, not some f*ckin' cadre of boy slaves you went and picked up from god knows where - ever find yourself wantin' to step up, I've got a list of twenty-plus and countin' that'll tell you exactly where to look, assh*le.
Any time you're ready.
Let the rest of these mother f*ckers figure out the details.
David Brennan:
One Foot On the Gas,
One Foot In the Grave
"You don't think this crosses some sort of line?"
The question was strictly rhetorical. Even David, for all his academic accolades accumulated over the course of a lifetime of independent study on the streets of Boston, was adept enough to read that much as plain as plain could be off of the tone of Nat's voice and the irritated look on her face. Any other day, he'd be just as susceptible to volley this sort of attitude right back at her, as the two often did as a sort of foil to one another. Each had a tendency, at times, to let their emotions get the best of them - surprising exactly nobody who'd ever spent more than five minutes in the presence of either. The calm in the storm most often came only on the back of the other, who's duties would suddenly and unwaveringly turn to the sole intent of keeping the other grounded and as close to ease as humanly possible. It was a strange sort of balance that they'd built a curiously strong foundation upon - at its most extreme, Nat had famously brought David back from the very brink of existence. Today, David would simply have to chip a bit more away at the endless chore of returning the favor.
After all - she wasn't wrong.
As unfair as life can get, their current situation had suddenly thrust Nat into a realm of unwarranted punishment and exile through exactly no fault of her own. At distances near and far, David had taken meticulous care to keep her name and her face as far removed from his business exploits as one could feasibly do. At the height of his plunge into the void, she had, admittedly, brought herself beneath the spotlight for a brief moment in an effort to reach him at his most unreachable, but save for that fleeting and relatively unremarkable moment, Natalie Collins was not a name or a face known to those involved, whether personally or casually, with the WFWF.
Michael Kyzer had changed all that.
"Just about every last one there is, yeah."
In the aftermath of everything that had happened in the ring, David was sure that Kyzer had wrought a whole new hell, the implications of which he'd never fully come to escape. His sick bag of tricks never seemed to stray all that far from some sort of twisted circus that often seemed to revolve around its ringleader, the diminutive Donnie Monty Kent, Kyzer's personal dealer and perpetual hanger-on. It was a mind game that Kyzer knew he'd fall for hook, line, and sinker: an army of DMK clones descending upon Brennan, armed beneath their robes with god only knows what - even he'd once been party to arming the little twerp with an aerosol sprayer full of bear-grade mace. It seemed as good a time as any to send a message, all the while seizing an opportunity to exorcise a bit of the pent up hatred he'd developed for Kyzer's personal ankle-biter over the years.
After all - who among us could have ever banked on even the depraved Michael Kyzer employing the services of multiple Thai minors?
Reason, as luck would have it, seemed to prevail in the aftermath of it all. Modern times would most commonly see anyone sticking a boot to the face of a child on live, international broadcast, be shunned into shameful obscurity, never to see the positive light of day or the public eye again.
Even David Brennan must seem saintly when stacked up against Michael Kyzer.
There are some things, however, that even the grace of common sense cannot seem to hold at bay. Hardly a peep was spoken about the potential for David Brennan to be a closeted assailant of small children having finally shown his true colors. He'd fully prepared himself for that particular brand of backlash, and had set in place a basis of life beneath which he'd been confident that he'd be able to weather the storm that might arise from his knee jerk reaction in the face of a perceived threat.
That threat itself was never supposed to follow him home.
"And yet...here we are."
He made a show of setting down their luggage in a feeble attempt to mask any look of guilt that might have washed over his face as Nat exasperatedly resigned herself to this new fate. He'd sworn that the last time they'd departed the city would be the last time they'd have to leave. Under no certain circumstances would they ever find reason to come back here, but the pang of remorse jabbing at David's innards as he watched Nat stare out the high rise window, their abandoned hometown sprawling out before her, was all too real for him to think this some sort of sleepless nightmare.
He'd failed her.
Even as he joined her by her side, feebly exerting some show of comfort as his arm slung around her shoulder to draw her near, he felt hopelessly pathetic. He owed so much more to this woman, who in so many ways could claim sole credit for his very presence on earth, and his one solemn vow - to take her away from this place, never to return again - had fallen to a thousand pieces on the shores of the northern Atlantic.
It was, in many ways, a great deal of comfort that, at least as far as he could now read, she wasn't too hell bent on holding it against him as she slumped slightly into the crook of his arm, the two of them casting forlorn, thousand yard stares put upon the city before them.
"I thought you sold this place."
Inside, he silently begged for forgiveness. He was, after all, only a Brennan.
The narrative, Nat had just suggested, had always gone that, in removing himself from the greater Boston area, David had liquidated the vast, vast empire that Jack Brennan had amassed and bequeathed to his eldest son. Calling that a half-truth would, in of itself, be a bit of an exaggeration, but all the same, it appeared that there would be no time like the present for David to at least try and come clean with a bit more clarity in that respect. Her tone was far from accusatory, as Nat was well versed by now in David's many, many imperfections, but nevertheless, it was clear that should fully understood, in spite of her line of questioning, that the two of them were quite literally standing in the very embodiment of another one of David's lies.
There was a certain degree of paranoia that came with the blood that coursed through his veins. In another life - perhaps even in the custody of another parent - the notion of arranging a smattering of safe houses throughout the country would have seemed absurd, even comical. Being, however, that he was reared, in large part, by his father, it only seemed natural, so much so that when the time finally came to divest the empire that had been passed into his name upon Jack's death, an involuntary impulse buried deep within David's craw all but prevented him from being able to fully absolve himself of a token few mainstays in the event of catastrophe, however unlikely. He had, after all, long kept an arm's length away from Jack's business interests, and made no explicit overtures toward absorbing them when he passed, and so the odds of his tangential past coming home to roost were, for the first time in the long history of the Brennan name, astronomically small.
Who'd have guessed that the threat of Michael Kyzer could have outweighed the Italians and the Dominicans?
"Not this one..."
It was an exasperated statement - almost wistful. It didn't do anything to further the conversation, nor did it make any strides toward getting him out of it. He'd played this one close to the chest for too long, at a time when he should have more up front and honest with Nat than he'd been in all the years he'd known her.
The rest was bound to come. He just had to open the door for her.
"Just how many of these places did Jack have?"
"Heh. Too many. Ten to fourteen? Somethin' like that. I only really cherry picked when the time came."
"What's that mean, you cherry picked?"
Make no mistake - David was in the wrong. He knew it in his heart, and he knew it wherever that pang of guilt we've all felt hits when we're confronted with the fact that we're in that same place.
None of that, however, had changed the fact that David was as stubborn as the mangiest mule.
"Means I cherry picked, Nat. I know it ain't a good look or nothin' - should've been up front with you from the very start, and I'm sorry for that, but all this sh*t happenin'? I ain't about to start apologizin' for keepin' a few on file."
Nat crossed her arms, and her face told David about the internal struggle she was fighting as she toiled with David's assertion against her own personal contempt for anything even remotely related to his father. It had taken her months to agree to fly on the jet. He wasn't quite sure she'd ever quite reconciled the fact that at least a a fraction of their fortune had come off the back of his exploits. Now, she found herself taking refuge in one of Jack's storied safe houses, each with a likely wealth of history in its own right of any number of colorful characters and exploits Jack had laid low from over the years.
Even still - even she'd have been hard pressed to deny the comfort that height, privacy, and a pair of armed guards at every street level entrance had afforded as they'd arrived.
Bar Harbor had been their dream for as long as they could muster the strength, and now, it seemed, thanks to a child in a black cloak, she might never be able to muster the courage to go back.
"How many is a few?"
Hardly the businessman, for that, David had a sound and resolute answer.
"Four. This one. Manhattan. One down Palm Beach. One out in L.A."
She nodded as he listed their options, as as she replayed the list in her mind, she couldn't overcome the urge to spit a small laugh, burying her face in one of her hands in an almost futile attempt to keep the tension of the situation alive.
"What?"
"Palm Beach? Los Angeles?"
"Yeah?"
"And you bring me to f*cking Boston?"
Even David had to smile. In his haste to get them somewhere - anywhere - in the aftermath of Kyzer’s minion showing up on his front doorstep, the ignorant belligerence he must have displayed in ushering her off to the place he knew full well that she loathed the most was likely enough to make her spend the ride out wondering if he’d succumbed once more to his old ways. He tried to ponder what it was he’d been thinking, knowing full well that he’d had four safe houses at his disposal, two of which were even located in climates all the more welcoming this time of year, and the answer was quick and clear, if not altogether unnerving.
He wasn’t.
A train of thought existed in his mind - very real, very likely - that said that Michael Kyzer had sent his minion off to David’s front step with the intent of doing very real, very likely harm to David and anyone who he might be keeping close. That, alone, was enough to send David into instinctual flight mode, in the absence of a viable fight option. With that, he held no qualms. In the absence of the WFWF or a ring or any number of feuds that existed in his line of work, his sole purpose in life was geared toward making the best life possible for Nat. He’d go to his grave defending to the death any action taken on his part in the interest of protecting that ideal.
What was unnerving was the haste with which he’d acted. David was not an educated man. In the great, crossroaded decision of whether he’d pursue life on the streets or life as presented by Bunker Hill Community College, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could take a single look at the guy and not be able to tell which route he took. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything - David just figured his smarts always filled a certain quota that the world needed to balance out, and his were branded a bit more in reality and common sense than they were book and academia. Nevertheless - by book or by brick - it didn’t take a genius to figure out the real end game here. If anything, heaven forbid, had happened to David or to Nat, it’d be little more than collateral damage in the eyes of the aggressor here, who’s ends, in his eyes, had likely been achieved the second David pulled them out of the driveway in the middle of the night.
Kyzer had gotten inside David’s head.
Harder than any punch. Potentially more devastating than any possible injury. Altogether more intimidating than any cool, blank stare.
Kyzer had made him jump.
The thought alone was infuriating.
"Least he won’t come lookin’ here."
"Right...I mean, who’d ever put ‘Brennan’ and ‘Boston’ together, right?"
The slight wasn’t lost on David, but he knew better to fight it. After all, there’d been so little he’d been sure about these past forty eight hours or so, but as the thought gestated in his mind, the more and more he felt sure that, at least in this respect, he wasn’t wrong.
Boston was Brennan’s hometown, through and through, but even Kyzer would know, if he’d been keen enough to have tracked him so far north, that any sentimental attachment probably lay dead and buried atop Mount Cavalry.
They were safe here, at least externally.
"If you need, we can head out in the mornin’. L.A.’s alright. Got a bit of a bone to pick with management, anyway."
"Maybe. I don’t like it - any of it. Still..."
"Still?"
Her eyes wandered, as his followed, out over the city skyline, sprawled out before them - practically beneath them. The tiniest little intricacies they’d both grown to know so well were drowned in the grasp of darkness, illuminated and familiar only on account of a million different lights littering the night sky, drowning out the stars above and leaving the spectacle of sight for themselves and themselves alone. They stood in silence for several moments, the two of them taking in the view fully and, perhaps for the first time in ages, appreciatively in the bask of the segregated silence afforded only by the grace of height and seclusion.
Jack had been a right evil bastard, but man, David thought - he sure knew how to pick them.
"Maybe it’s not all that bad."
Do the Right Thing, or Do Nothing
Would you believe me if told you you weren't my biggest problem right now, Joe?
Call me crazy, I dunno, but when a narcissist f*ckin' drug died with a weird ass God complex is sendin' off all sorts of ethnic f*ckin' children off to your front doorstep to make some sorta f*ckin' point, your mind kinda drifts away from the sorta points you already went and made, y'know?
I'm sure that ain't fair of me - I can't say for certain, havin' never personally found myself in your particular predicament - but I can't imagine it's anything too pleasant to be starin' down the barrel of another toe to toe with the guy what took the biggest prize you've ever found yourself party to from around your waist and havin' the son of a b*tch too distracted by, well, real f*ckin' problems so much that he can't even give you the time of day. Sh*t, in a perfect world, that's all you'd really need, isn't it? Get my eyes a little off center and you've got yourself just enough room to squeak a win outta my peripherals and take back what you so devastatingly lost all those months ago. I'm sure Frankie tried.
It's just too bad that none of this is real.
I'm sure the two of you've got yourself a banner f*ckin' night planned, least as much as you can, what with your little sidekick there hardly takin' the time to think this sh*t through. Little more focus on your six Ps, and you might've found yourself playin' a much bigger thorn in my side. Instead, you're divin' in head first, wrapped head to toe in a f*ckin' rubber like some nerdy virgin afraid he might actually get his d*ck wet.
Why you think they call it a rubber match.
You're playin' safe. That might be smart play around that little podcaster you keep around, but it ain't gonna get you very far, trainin' your only f*ckin' protege to not think the implications of what it is he wants to achieve fully through. I ain't got doubt in my mind that if Frankie had an ounce to play with upstairs, he might otherwise have put my ass in quite the spot. I dunno whether to thank you for spearheadin' a half assed cause, or him for bein' born of same f*ckin' cloth as me - smartest people without common sense.
I almost wanna feel a bit of pity, y'all goin' through all this work for a whole lotta nothin'.
This sh*t? May as well be a house show.
You? I get. We already beat your British asses seven ways to Yorktown, but Frankie? Sh*t. He should know better.
He really is from Lynn, isn't he?
Word to wise? Revolution ain't much good if the peckerheads fightin' it ain't interested in raisin' the stakes. Ain't gonna go far waitin' around for someone do it for you.
'Rubber match'. Ha!
Just this once? I'ma cut you some slack.
Keep you from bein' what it is you are, even if it's just for your own show.
Yesterday's news.