MS - Rav's newest story

[crazy robster]

Oh thank you sis!! My chapter at last!! I was so thrilled to see it posted this morning!! Me and Joely, don't we look sweet together?? Admit it!! LOL <3 I have a question though... What is the grinning squeaking noise I do when I'm happy?? Do I really do that? 0_o I forget...haha!! My poor sis, you worry too much about your baby sister, don't you? Take it easy take it easy!! Seen the vid I sent you? Awww how could an angel like Joely possibly do me any harm?? I'm grinning like an idiot just picturing him and me sitting together all cuddled up and stuff <3 <3 He will soon make you like him sis, he's so adorable that you simply can't resist, trust me! He will take us all to the funfair and buy us candy floss lol

 

And haha I giggled when I read Matt's "occupation" in the story! "Low time thief and pusher in Queens" LMAO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Poooor Matty! So, now we should expect a meeting between Fribs and Mike? *trembling feet* Has Fribs got a life insurance?? Make sure he has!! I don't want him to go there waaaaahhhhh!! Oh and I miss Rob... Where is he? You sent him to Greece after all like I suggested? Tell him to visit mama, she will give him some super tasty galaktoboureko that will make him forget his problems!!

 

By the way, it all makes PERFECT sense and if you ask once more I will bite you!

[Ravynlee]

Thanks sis

Yes I know you had been waiting a while for that but I had to ease into it so sorry bout the delay. For those of you saying its too heavy now we have some 'happiness' or at least the promise of it. Better?

In regards to Joel well you know me sis, you know how eternally suspicious I am. Stands to reason after going what my character went through she'd be suspicious of everyone, especially men, and well... he's a cop and... you get the idea.

As for Rob...? Let's face it, the man could be anywhere. He needs to lay low for a while and get himself sorted out. He'll be back eventually. First we have a few things to sort out in his absence... maybe. See on that score.

Frib vs Mike :lol: yeah... um...?

And Matt, well... Matt is just... Matt.

More soon.

 

P.S. I don't recall if you actually make that noise, maybe I remembered it or if I didn't I must have made it up. Either way it serves its purpose; you're happy, it shows. And on the prospect of being bitten I say; please don't. I'll (try and) be good.

Thanks again my sweet. Glad you enjoyed.

[Friðbjörn]

ooh a duel! "Mike Shinoda, we meet at last" *draws out star wars laser sword*

:lol:

 

 

but yeah, can't wait. and JoJo and her love interest...that's gonna be interesting.

and is Rav also having a showdown with Mike?

 

I bet if you and me teamed up we could do him some damage harhar

[Ravynlee]

Thanks guys. :lol:@ Vi. Haha. Showdown.

 

Now I hope the dates add up here. I tried to get some help on the finer details but things might not completely add up. I also tried to correlate facts but rereading 270+ pages was too daunting to face. I just HOPE things make sense (not insecurity sis - don't bight me but once you read these updates you'll understand). In a lot of regards this last chapter was pivotal - I really needed it to add up to support the rest of the story. Anyway, enough of the ranting. You're here to read. Make up your own minds.

BTW this is not the end. Melodramatic but not final. Read it and see what I mean

Enjoy.

 

---

 

“This is ridiculous. Let it ring.”

“You know that’s not an option.”

“Uh yeah. It’s like one o’clock in the morning. Of course you have an option. Don’t answer it, how’s that for an option?”

Wrestling her way out from beneath the blankets Mel brushed her bed-swept hair from her face as she reached out towards the bedside table. Over her shoulder her boyfriend Shwag let out a disapproving groan as she snapped on the bedside light. He winced and slumped back against the pillows. Huffing on his breaths he watched her snatch the beeper between her fingers and inspect the screen out of the corner of his eyes.

“Let me guess, him again? This is bullshit,” he grumbled. With a groan he slung his forearm across his eyes. Shooting a dangerous look back over her naked shoulder the young woman scowled at him as she shimmied closer to the edge of the mattress.

“So what, he calls you go, is that how it’s going to be from now on?”

“You know it’s not like that. He’s my boss remember? This is what I get paid to do.”

“What, you get paid to be his servant do you, his bitch, always on his beckon call? I thought this boss of yours had a wife? Obviously if he’s calling you at all hours she’s not doing her job properly.”

Giving him an icy glare as she untangled herself from the crumpled sheets Mel huffed out a sound as she began rummaging for her clothes scattered on the bedroom floor.

“Why don’t I get a say in this?”

“Because it’s none of your business that’s why.”

“None of my business? Nice. Real nice. That’s some assnine shit Mel, you’re supposed to be my girlfriend-”

“Your girlfriend, not your wife,” she grunted, shaking out her pants and shirt with loud angry snaps. Meeting his eyes peering back beneath his forearm now draped across his forehead Mel struggled to keep her voice civil when she was already shaking with a rapidly mounting rage.

“I don’t answer to you,” she said.

Balling up all the clothes she could find she stormed off into the nearby bathroom to continue dressing. Rinsing her face and wrenching a brush through her tangled locks she huffed at her reflection, disquieted by the stony look practically glaring back at her. While she hadn’t been asleep she still looked tired, the long days and late nights, running on adrenalin and irregular sometimes endless shifts leaving their marks gouged into her young smooth face. Though it was early in the morning, and though she had been torn from her bed, the adrenalin now coursing through Mel’s veins had nothing at all to do with the possible reasons for this post-midnight rendezvous. When predictably Shwag stumbled out of bed barely dressed and met her at the doorway Mel felt her pulse beginning to quicken so fast she could scarcely look him in the eyes anymore.

“So you’d rather answer to him than me?”

“He’s my boss,” Mel articulated through clenched teeth as if to say, ‘I have to.’

Unperturbed Shwag folded his arms across his chest and continued to stare at her. His shoulders moved as though he was chuckling. Bowing his face to the tiles and then up again Shwag looked away with a painfully leering grin on his face.

“You’re acting like a street ho,” he said, speaking towards the towel-rack. “He calls you follow. You do everything he tells you to do because he pays you. If that’s not a prostitute then I don’t know what is. Correct me if I’m wrong like.”

Scowling at the basin Mel’s hand trembled as she poised to lay the hairbrush down. The sound of blood pounding in her ears was deafening. Her heart was a piston. Flicking her eyes up she glared back at him via his reflection to her left in the glass.

Give me one reason now why I shouldn’t snap this thing in half and drive the jagged stake into your throat, she mentally dared him. Seeming to take her silence for defeat Shwag rolled his eyes and with a huff shoved himself around and retreated back to the bedroom. Left staring after him Mel could only stand there holding herself up over the basin and let the sound of running water cool her rising anger.

She had to get out of here. She had a job to do, damn him.

Watching him in the mirror’s reflection she felt a twinge of guilt as he patrolled the bedside before stepping into clothes of his own. She instantly felt bad for thinking such thoughts but wished he wouldn’t provoke her so badly. She wanted his support and she wanted him content but the truth was there was little to be gained when she was sworn to secrecy as she was, unable to share her every day-to-day activities with the one person she thought had her back like he had vowed to. Sweeping her hand across her face Mel pushed out a sigh hoping to vent the rest of her dissipating emotions out along with it. Seeing her boyfriend pulling on shoes in her peripheral vision a moment later Mel pulled open the door to get an unobstructed view of the bedroom with her eyes once more ablaze with righteous indignation.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded to know hotly.

Ignoring her as he wrenched a final knot in his laces the young man let his foot drop to the carpet with a melodramatic thud.

“I’m going out.”

“Out where? It’s… almost one thirty in the morning.”

“I could ask you the same thing couldn’t I, but of course you’re not going to tell me. You never tell me. I’m just supposed to sit here while you’re off doing… whatever the hell it is you do for this guy. Meanwhile I’m going stir-crazy thinking to myself you could be anywhere doing anything with anyone Mel and I’d never know. I’m always the last to know. You want me to tell you where I’m going and you can’t even tell me what it is this job of yours is all about, can you? Can you? Huh. Security my ass. Look at you. You couldn’t secure seats for a Nicks game if you were told to.”

On his feet now and fully dressed Shwag was looking at her and those few feet of floor space seemed, at least to Mel for one long and arduous moment, as if they were standing on two opposing corners of the globe. Watching him staring at her staring at him Mel felt the words she wanted to say bubbling up like hot oil in the back of her throat, but all that came out in their place was venom.

[Ravynlee]

“You’re an A-grade asshole, you know that.”

“And you’re a bitch,” Shwag uttered as he began striding from the room. “Tell someone who cares. Better yet tell your boss, he sees you more these days than I do, so yeah… whatever…”

Mel’s eyes bore into his back until the slamming door severed all contact and jolted her with a scowl. Shaking her head she reached up and wrenched off the light. The darkness enveloped her like welcoming arms.

Bastard, she snorted once more crossing the bedroom. What the hell was she even doing with him anyway? She didn’t need him, she was strong, far stronger than he was, and they both knew it - but still, they had always made a good team together. Damn his stupid insecurities, she almost wanted to laugh. Her and Mike? Please, like that was even a possibility, he was her employer, he was an enigma unto himself even at the best of times and certainly nothing like the kind of guys she usually fell for. But as she rummaged through the locked drawer of her bedside table, Mel couldn’t help but feel her chest tighten ever so slightly with doubts and nervousness. The truth was she did like Mike but probably not in the way he or anyone else was thinking. It was strictly platonic, it had to be platonic, because the thought of getting entangled any deeper with a man the likes of MS was far too daunting to contemplate, especially at such an early hour of the morning.

She saw what he did to his so-called friends let alone his enemies.

Taking out her Glock .22 and checking and locking the magazine Mel cocked it and set it to safety before tucking the pistol discreetly in the back waistband of her black pants. She smoothed out her matching long sleeved black shirt and brushed her hair down between her palms feeling them already damp with anticipation despite the otherwise cool climate inside. Standing poised a moment Mel drew in a slow deep breath that was meant to calm her and get her mind to focus on the task that lay ahead. But the old tricks that used to work were losing their lustre as all too easily she saw a familiar face in her mind’s eye and was unable to overcome it. Opening her eyes a moment later she cursed aloud.

“God damn it!”

Sliding her glasses atop the bridge of her nose Mel cast a final look at the message on her beeper as if seeking divine answers across its dark and pixilated face.

Why couldn’t he just keep his mouth shut? Was he really trying to push her to see how far she would go before she snapped?

In spite of the fact that his delivery was off Mel couldn’t help but think that her boyfriend had struck a rawer nerve in her than most had in a very long time - and it made her more than uncomfortable - it made her scared.

You have every right to be scared, you’re a killer, a murderer, you’re the very face of deception, and you know the second Shwag finds out it will end in one of two ways and we both know you will be all alone when that day comes don’t you Melissa, the voice of reason warned from the darkest recesses of her mind. I know, I know but…

Chiding herself for being so stupid Mel quickly pocketed the tiny device before snatching up the rest of her barest essentials. In a few moments she had left the apartment, struggling with her trained professional instincts to leave her disconcerting thoughts there - like her past and her guilt and regret - in the dark where they belonged far behind her.

If only it was that simple.

 

 

---

[Ravynlee]

---

 

 

The line of people all waiting to get inside the club extended half way down the block as Frib sunk back in his seat disappointedly. Who would have thought a dingy looking titty-bar could get all of Manhattan up in a tailspin the likes of this? He thought with a disparaging pout.

Shaking his head Frib sat pondering his predicament a moment, eyeing off the two bouncers that stood guarding either side of the club’s door. The music as always thumped out loudly into the night. Frib wondered if it ever stopped, much to the detriment of the street’s apartment-dwelling neighbours. Feeling for his gun and his badge Frib eventually made his way across the street, heading straight towards the front entrance. A heavy mist had begun to descend not yet thick enough to transform into rain. The sky was heavy and low with the promise of more snow to come. Feeling the cold air lash his face he shoved his hands inside his jacket pockets ignoring the vilified stares of the people all-waiting to get in along side him.

The big black man, who looked battle-scarred and jaded scoring one too many broken noses, eyed him over without breaking stance. His beefy arms were folded like tree trunks across his barrel of a chest. When Frib demanded to see the club’s owner in the most authoritive voice he could muster the man didn’t so much as batter an eyelid at him.

“Private party. No invite, no entry,” he gloated.

Fishing out his badge more habitually than needed Frib repeated his demands hoping the golden shield would open this door like it did everywhere else like a magical key to the city. But the bouncer continued to stare at him and only managed the slightest of smirks in response as if the detective’s frustrations were of the utmost enjoyment to him.

“I don’t care who you are, I said no invite, no entry. You want in, you go get a warrant.”

Frib stared back at him, at this giant black man in all black with his face shimmering beneath the flashing coloured lights like polished alabaster. He wanted to arrest him right then and there for obstruction but knew in all likelihood it would only succeed in creating a scene and it still wouldn’t get him a foot closer to stepping inside. Damn it!

Huffing out in irritation Frib surveyed the scene, mentally absorbing as much as he could in the least amount of time possible. The noise out here on the sidewalk was already assaulting him along with the cries and glares of rage all the fancily-clad hopefuls were still giving him. Momentarily Frib was almost relieved he had been denied entry, not knowing what his next course of action was likely to be even if he got inside let alone where to start looking in that crowded jungle, or even what he would say if by some miracle Mike was even in there enjoying the fruits of his so-called labour.

With a backwards step Frib decided to go back to his car and wait a while, hoping a brief surveillance would give him some headway for the investigation. Pay dirt would have been to catch Mike coming in or out unawares but at this point Frib would have settled on a familiar face amongst the criminal set that he could hone in on and maybe force some answers from at a later date. But for a while it seemed Midtown was happy to keep her secrets to herself away from the detective’s weary eyes.

A good hour or more passed while the noise and traffic and the irritating thrum of contenders steadily continued before Frib caught sight of one person that stood out, even briefly in the crowd. She had appeared out of nowhere wearing figure hugging black from neck to foot and wore glasses that flashed as they caught in the club’s flashing lights. She was slight of build but confident, walking straight up to the man in black who, without so much as a sideways glance, held the doors open for her before she casually made her way inside. Immediately Frib sat poised on the edge of his seat. Though he hadn’t seen enough of her face across such a distance to know who she was, the way she moved, almost like a cat, had the young detective’s interests suddenly peaked.

“Who was that?” he breathed against the driver’s side window.

The sudden knock on the glass had him back peddle with a startled cry snagged in his throat.

“Spare some change, mister?” the old toothless man asked him.

Frib frowned and struggled to recompose himself. He shook his head. Though much of the city was for the most part, officially, hobo-free, the odd pocket still lingered from district to district, a transient mass without name, identity, or a base of operations. He should have called it in or at least given warning but in truth the young detective couldn’t help but feel pity for homeless souls such as this. With his dirty clothes, toothless drawl and unkempt hair and beard that spilled down over his collar like a lion’s mane; Frib didn’t think this man was any kind of threat to anyone. He was probably just cold and hungry and dodging patrol cars probably saw him without a proper place to lay his head down tonight either. In spite of himself Frib slapped at his pocket huffing irritably. If a dollar cleared the way for him to see outside his window again it was a wise investment. Reaching for the handle the window whirred down a mere fraction.

“Thanks mister, you’re a real sport mister, I was just so-”

“Move it along,” Frib warned. He poked two coins through the slot into the man’s gnarling hands. A coin struck the ground and the man dropped to sweep it up as if it had been a rare diamond. Snorting disapprovingly Frib began to wind the window up when the man’s hand slapped against the glass again, only this time there was a piece of crumpled paper in the middle of it.

[Ravynlee]

“Mister. Hey m-mister. I’m supposed to give you this. Hey mister, please-”

Frowning at the scrap of what looked to be the header of a newspaper, Frib leant forward curiously feeling his heart pound like a jackhammer inside of his chest. There was something written on it but Frib couldn’t make out what it was. At the impulsive notion this was some lead-up for an intended car-jacking (who could tell in this place, criminals were getting more and more creative and desperate by the hour) the detective felt for his pistol and slowly drew it out on to his lap for the man to see.

“Oh hey, I don’t want no trouble mister,” the old homeless man was repeating, “He just told me to give this to you, that’s all. He paid me five dollars and made me swear I had to see that you-”

“Who? Who was it? What man?” Frib fired back. He searched the street from the confines of his car before he turned back to the man feeling that sickly churning sensation kick up in his stomach once again. The street still bustling beneath the pounding rhythm of Fort Minor was too crowded to reveal anything that looked like it hadn’t been there moments before. Suddenly less scared for his safety and more scared of not knowing, Frib wound down the window again and snatched the paper from the man’s quavering hand. He watched the man hurry away adding warnings as he was duty-bound to, before Frib wound the window up again and smoothed out the crumpled header between his fingers.

43.073~75.262~4452,27, NWQB, It read.

The young detective’s frown darkened pensively.

What the hell did that mean? It could have meant anything, address, phone number, social security… Pouting out at the surrounding street again Frib frantically searched for a clue. The series of events all leading up to this not-withstanding he felt like he were teetering on the edge of some grand discovery, if only he could make out what all those numbers and letters meant. Damn it, who wrote it?

Blinking down at the date and header he saw with a sinking heart that it wasn’t even current. This could have been all some sort of sordid joke; he began to tell himself soberly. Then, like a light, he glimpsed at the header again as if those four iconic and recognisable words were somehow of the utmost importance.

The New York Times.

That was where Rob’s ex-wife used to work as one of their writers once upon a time, the one who was ‘allegedly’ attacked by none other than the notorious club owner MS himself. Surely this wasn’t coincidence it had to mean something. Especially when he realised the handwriting, a confusing mix of upper and lower case, was keenly familiar to him. How many times had he sat staring across the table at it with a look of confusion and professional disgust?

He barely internalised his gasp.

“Rob,” he uttered.

It had to have been. He had been right here and Frib hadn’t even seen him. He must have been following him. Jesus, how close had he been and what the hell was that loose cannon playing at now?

Frowning at the prospect that he was playing into a trap but driven by a sense of morbid curiosity, Frib cast a lingering glance back out at the crowded street and the club that for now was out of his reach. Mike Shinoda, wherever he was, was safe for another night at least.

Starting the engine Frib drove back to the precinct. He had a long night ahead of him and if he wanted any kind of peace at all in the nights ahead he had no time left to lose.

 

---

[Ravynlee]

---

 

New Calvary sat blanketed beneath a thick cover of snow as the young man made his way on foot towards the cemetery’s heart. Behind him the jagged city skyline looked like a cardboard cut out as Frib scoured the headstones, the mass of which spread out all around him in an endless and confusing monochromatic maze. Accompanied by the sound of traffic flowing past on the Queens Midtown express tunnel located a few miles west Frib pushed on gasping on the cruel cold air and the stench of industry that bordered the cemetery grounds. In the distance, beyond a grove of bare trees, the two columns of the sanitation incinerator near the site of the older historical Old Calvary Cemetery jut out towards the sky like two yellow fingers. They resembled what Frib thought the gas chambers of Auschwitz might have looked like, Frib thought, as his solitary footsteps crunched through the snow. The thought was made eerily more poignant as he passed endless rows upon rows of sobbing angel statues and stones inscribed with the Star of David and the collective weight of a history of people, not just the Jews but all the dead that lay interred here, press down upon his shoulders as he trudged onward. It was a burdensome weight to bear. Struggling against the cold and the long slow walk, Frib felt his heart and mind racing along ahead of him, running on the after-effects of too much coffee and not enough sleep and wondering with a nervous tug in his stomach if he was walking into a situation that he was ready and able to deal with, or even if he would be walking out of here at all.

It hadn’t taken long for him to decipher the note that the old homeless man had given him as being longitude and latitude coordinates, but Frib had been stumped as to why Rob of all people would be giving him directions to a cemetery out of the way in northern Queens. Briefly he had considered that his rogue ex-partner might have been leading him on a merry chase away from prying eyes so he could finish the job he had started months earlier back at that routine drug bust, but the further Frib walked on the less he began to believe it. Surrounded by the almost otherworldly peace and stillness of the cemetery grounds Frib couldn’t begin to conceive why anyone would willingly take another’s life out here in this field of mourning. Remembering the last confrontation he had with the worn-out, run down, once shining beacon of law enforcement Frib wasn’t beginning to fear for his own safety half as much as he was for another. The last thing he had it in mind to do when he signed up for this job was walk out into a lonely field and serve as solitary witness to a tarnished cop take a final bow beneath the imposing shadow of the Manhattan city skyline. He began to question his decision to go this one alone and not call for back up but found his thoughts stall at the foot of a small rather nondescript headstone wearing a familiar name a few feet in front of him.

Nicholas Robert Bourdon

01/03/04 - 07/15/05

“Did you come alone?”

The sound of a low voice just behind him made Frib freeze up rigidly. He slid his eyes aside. Crouched low behind a headstone Rob stood up and approached. Seeing the gun in his hand Frib slowly raised his hands in compliance. Quickly surveying the surrounds Rob reached in behind the younger man’s jacket and tugged the weapon free from its holster.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Frib wondered aloud.

He watched Rob quickly inspect the pistol before tucking it away behind his back securely. After a quick pat down Rob stood up properly, dwindling the other man beneath his menacing six and a half feet. Frib marvelled at how Rob had managed to hide out here at all, seemingly blending in successfully regardless his environs in a way that both awed and in part terrified the younger rookie detective. Satisfied they were alone Rob lowered his gun and pocketed it behind his back alongside the other. Sniffing on the cold he scoffed as if to gesture his old partner should have known better than to have asked.

“Why did you bring me out here? Where have you been? Can I at least put my arms down now?”

With a nod Rob retreated backwards a few steps and returned to the place he had been sitting upon waiting for the other man’s arrival. Relaxing stance but still residually on edge now he was figuratively naked and unarmed if the worst should happen, Frib wandered closer to the grave in front of them and found himself looking at the small handful of stones that graced it’s granite lid.

“You wanted answers,” Rob told him, lowering to sit with a groan on the small cement step. Leaning over his outstretched legs he was playing with something small that he had retrieved from his hip pocket, twisting it thoughtfully between his fingers with casual abandon. A few metres away Frib cast a wary glance back at him over his shoulder and felt his defences drop to the realisation of where he now stood.

“Your son?”

Rob nodded without looking up. He looked haggard and unshaven, his long face grey from more than just the midwinter shadows. His lips twitched like he wanted to say something, even smile, but the conviction like the life that should have been in his voice had long since left him.

“This is where it all started,” he said eventually. “With me and Mike and Rave and… everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rob blinked up at him. The thing he was twisting between his fingers stopped.

“You didn’t listen to me. Before, when I told you at the start not to ask questions, what the hell did you think you were doing last night? You’re lucky you’re still standing here.”

“I’m not scared of Mike Shinoda. He knows he can’t touch me. Not unless he wants the police force to come down on him for murder.”

Rob scoffed and shook his head again and the smile he wore was akin to that of a disapproving parent.

“You don’t get it do you? Even after all this time you still think it’s about him?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” Rob snapped. His eyes for the first time since meeting took on their old fire like they had back in the locker room of the precinct less than a week ago. “Mike’s not the one you’ve got to worry about. You’re not on his radar, right now he doesn’t even know you exist much less care what you do. But you keep going the way you are he will know and then it’ll be too late. Once he’s got you in his sights there’s only one way out. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

Frib frowned, considering this a moment. “So if I’m not supposed to be worried about him, who am I supposed to be worried about?”

“God! Everyone around him! Everyone around you! Don’t you get it yet? Jesus Christ!”

Frib’s frown darkened considerably. He looked back at his ex-partner shaking his head and muttering derisively to himself with the same caution he had upon coming here, like Rob had finally snapped and Frib was watching his final descent into irreversible madness.

“You’re not… making any sense.”

“Of course I don’t. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen Kris, you haven’t been through what I… doesn’t matter.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t go in.”

“Go in where? The station? No one’s forcing you. I’m not here to- You were the one that dragged me out here. I thought you wanted to tell me something only now I’m starting to wonder what that is. You’re sounding like a crazy person Rob. What the hell happened to you? Was it personal, was it-?”

“Personal,” Rob muttered as if that word had a painfully dualistic meaning to it. He grinned and nodded letting both die away in their own short time. “Yeah you could say that,” he said. When he looked up and met Frib’s eyes Frib found himself swallowing his mounting doubts and convictions. He wasn’t looking at a burnt old cop anymore but a grieving father. Feeling the stillness and the cold envelop them both Frib let out a sigh and let the moment come upon him.

[Ravynlee]

“The night my son died,” Rob said, vested once more in keeping that thing between his fingers moving, “I was on patrol. This call came in, a shooting. Phoenix and I were in the area we checked it out. Came across this kid lying on the sidewalk. He was still alive but in bad shape. Had maybe three bullet holes in him. We knew it was drug related. Had to be. It was the neighbourhood for it, we’d been there a few times before, usual things, you know. There were people all in their houses, could see them watching from windows, but no one would come out. They were scared I guess. I remembered holding this kid, he wasn’t that much younger than me thinking… he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, you know? He didn’t look like he came from that area. In fact I even remember thinking his shoes were out of place you know? The force of the impact or something had thrown him a few feet maybe, he could have even been thrown from a car. He was pretty banged up… lost one of them… was bad you know?”

Frib nodded appropriately to show he was paying attention.

“Anyway this call came in while we were working on him. He’d lost a lot of blood. I didn’t think he was going to make it but… you know. We tried. I tried. Phi was on the two-way while we waited for paramedics. They said there were reports of gunshots in my area… in my street or something, I don’t remember exactly what was said. I wasn’t really listening, it was crazy on the scene, you know? Anyway, like the Paramedics arrived and took over and took this kid away. There were reporters there. Camera’s going off. It was surreal and everything. I remember feeling this blood on me and the way Phi was just looking at me, like he was like waiting for something - Then it all just kind of hit. They told me about what had happened with Nicky, he’d… apparently gotten into my closet and found one of the guns we used to keep there for protection… shot himself in the face, just above his eye… died right there in her arms she told me.”

“Jesus man, I’m sorry.”

“I met her at the hospital. They’d tried working on him there but he was DOA. He was… lying there with all these tubes and stuff when I walked in. I don’t remember much after that. At some point, must have been early that following morning, this man came up to me in the… waiting room. That room where people go with all the crosses on the walls and stuff… like I didn’t know him at all but he came straight up to me and thanked me.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah,” Rob nodded. “Someone had told him I’d been there on the scene with his brother and he wanted to thank me for what I’d done, making sure his brother didn’t die alone like he would have.”

“So… what happened next?”

“Said he knew about Nicky. Said, if there was anything he could do for me to just ask. The usual. I didn’t see him again for a few weeks until after Nicky was buried and things went back to normal,” he said, emphasising the word ‘normal’ in a way that suggested it to be anything but. “But I wasn’t happy there anymore. I wanted to quit the force. I wanted to quit everything. Rave and I were pretty much over. But then one night I got this phone call. It was Mike again. He said he had a way to pay me back for what I’d done for him and his brother that night and he told me about Chester.”

“The bust.”

Rob nodded again. The thing was now locked inside his fist tightly.

“So, how did Mike even know about it?”

Rob explained they had been friends. Chester had been a frequent visitor to Mike’s then fledgling club. He would bring a posse of regular faces; Fox being one of them until the night Mike’s younger brother had been gunned down.

“The official report was a gang-land shooting, a turf war, over drugs. The coroner found trace amounts of PCP on him, Mary Jane, but nothing major. Like we thought, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something bad went down and he got caught in the crossfire. Mike refused to believe it. He became so… intolerant to that whole thing, to that whole scene he started looking for people to blame, to take responsibility, like. Joe Hahn was the one who let it slip apparently Chester was using Mike’s place as a side base of operations. Mike turned on him. He called me up, told me what he knew, all the details he could get from Joe, and we went in. Sounds simple but it wasn’t. To be honest I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think it would turn out to be as huge as it was. That’s why we went alone that night like, just the two of us, just Phi and me. Made the bust of our careers… all because Mike called it in. Called me in. He wanted Chester to pay for what happened to his brother but all we got him for was what you saw in the reports. Millions of dollars of stuff just… there.” Rob shook his head as if disbelieving his own recollection of that infamous night. He s******ed again but it was low quiet and came across more reflective than actually humorous.

Pondering the patch of muddy snow between his feet Rob’s broad shoulders fell with a sigh. Feeling Frib’s eyes boring into him in those following moments of silence Rob looked up expectantly, awaiting the questions he seemed to have anticipated in coming. Frib however appeared to be struggling to process this great influx of information.

“But I don’t get it,” he said again, his face drained of colour on all but his extremities that were pinched pink, buckled with a flurry of emotions, none of which made it to his lips as he fought to string such thoughts into coherent sentences.

“But - that - doesn’t explain why Mike would go after you. Back at the precinct you told me you were in deep. You said that if you-”

Rob looked at the ground again, looking pained for the thoughts such a statement brought upon him. It took him a long time to answer and when he did his low voice, usually deep and emotionless in a monotonous drone seemed to waver just a fraction on the side of a whisper.

“Because I let him down. We let him down. The law. The ones we’re sworn to uphold. He gave us Chester on a platter and we couldn’t pin Jason’s death on him. The only thing Chester went down for were the drugs. As far as the bureau goes the case is still open. Probably always will be.”

“But what makes you think Chester did it?”

“Because Chester told his good buddy Joe Hahn and Joe told Mike, at least that’s what Mike claims.”

“Couldn’t prove it?”

“Joe Hahn couldn’t give a straight answer to save his life. We’ll never know.”

“So Mike wants revenge on Chester.”

“Yes.”

“For supposedly shooting his brother that we couldn’t prove anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s mad at you because he thinks you let Chester get away with it? Am I following that so far?”

Rob smirked and nodded his head. They could have been sharing a joke save for the irony of their situation.

“But I still don’t understand-”

“The point is rookie Mike’s pissed off and he wants someone to pay. He wants Chester to pay. He’s not going to be happy until he gets what he wants. Honestly I actually… felt sorry for the guy. He trusted the system and the system let him down. Let him down big time. He didn’t get like so much as a thankyou for bringing the biggest undercover drug operation this city has seen in generations down and why would he? No one even knew it was him that blew the whistle. The papers got wind of it and everyone started calling me the hero and… Mike got nothing. He just got madder and madder. I should have said something but I didn’t. No one wanted to believe it anyway. They wanted to believe that good old fashioned police work had saved the day again, made it out to be huge…”

“Let me guess, Mike wanted some of the limelight?”

“No, he wanted a favour.”

Looking up into Frib’s eyes the older man held them a moment, almost clung to them, imploring understanding even if the words he was speaking were not altogether clear.

“That’s how it starts with him. That’s how he operates. He does you a favour and suddenly you owe him. You owe him anything… Everything.” Lowering his eyes Rob stared at the headstone, at the grave of his son, and with interlocked fingers he huffed a miserable sigh towards the ground. His breaths were shaky but he refused to cry.

“Free to come calling whenever he chooses. He plays on it. He finds out all he can about you and then uses it against you. He doesn’t do it alone. He has people there with him, alongside him; he drafted them the same way he did me. Secrets. That’s the key. Everyone’s got at least one. It’s just a matter of time before he finds out what he needs to know and before you know it you’re… doing things you never thought would be possible…”

“Like what?” Frib barely wanted to know.

“Murder,” Rob muttered.

The coldness and the stillness seemed to collapse under the weight of that confession as Frib stared down at his ex-partner feeling that same-old churning sensation in his stomach all over again.

“Who?” he breathed.

[Ravynlee]

The Cemetery seemed so absolutely still that for a moment Frib was almost convinced of the fact that time had suddenly ceased to exist. His heart was pounding. His mouth was dry. Again came the previous insecurities that Rob had drawn him out here for one sole purpose and now he was alone and unarmed he was about to make good on the promise. Frib held his breath but Rob still hadn’t moved from his weary-eyed study of the brown granite headstone in front of him.

“You have to promise me something,” he said, still speaking in a drone. “No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, promise me you’ll look after Jo and Haily for me. Rave too. God I’ve hurt so many people, I don’t even know where to start-”

“Who did you hurt Rob?”

“You’ve got to swear it. I want to hear you say it. Not just say it but mean it.”

When Rob’s eyes met his ex-partner’s again Frib was struck numb with the realisation of what he had been brought out here to do. It wasn’t a trap, it was a final goodbye; Rob was using this place, this land, this site by his son to confess his sins using Frib as his counsel.

“Someone needs to know,” Rob was saying, still staring up into Frib’s face, then up higher into the eerily blue and cloudless sky with the countenance of a man condemned to his fate but not at peace with it. “They’re going to come after me soon and I know it. I saw it. I thought if I took myself out of the picture that it would all blow over and he’d leave me alone but he won’t. They wont. I know too much. I’m expendable. He knows too many people now to make my life a living hell, powerful people, people I introduced him to and I can’t go through this shit anymore.”

“Rob, I-”

“Just hear me out, okay? We don’t have much more time.”

“What are you talking about?” Frib asked, but Rob was already rising up onto his feet looking around cautiously like he expected the next car passing on the roadway was a very real threat to him as he shrunk back flinchingly. Frib began to worry that if he didn’t retrieve his gun Rob would probably follow through with his plans back at the locker room and blow his crazy brains out all over his son’s grave - it was after all morbidly befitting. But the look Rob was giving him though dark-eyed and intense didn’t seem any more desperate then as it did now. Though he looked paranoid and acted paranoid and even sounded paranoid something about him, indeed about the whole situation at large seemed, at least to the young detective’s mind, to be purely honest. Rob was scared - and with good logical reason. He had made enemies on both sides of the fence and sooner or later one of them were going to come collecting to exact their pound of flesh. Rob Bourdon was a marked man and no way out, not even the two handguns in the waistband of his pants, would be enough against the likes of either party.

Struggling to get abreast of the situation that he could feel slipping perilously out of his control, Frib approached against his better judgement thinking that a fellow ex-cop would know protocol when he saw it and he didn’t want to risk antagonising the situation any further than it was. But he too could sense that time was running out. Whether it was the information beginning to process now in his brain or the way Rob was beginning to fidget shifting his body weight from one leg back to the other, Frib fought for the last vestige of logic even when it seemed logic had long since been laid to rest in one of the many graves littered around them.

“What if we told someone?”

“Who!”

“I don’t know, the captain? The Commissioner, someone.”

“Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said? Haven’t you been listening? I can’t talk to anyone! He owns them!”

“Who? You mean Mike? That’s-”

“Who do you think bankrolls this operation you’re in? The NEU? He’s got half the division already in his pocket. I know because I helped put him there, I was forced to of course-”

“Naturally.”

“Look, believe me or don’t. It doesn’t matter shit to me anymore I’m free, or at least I will be.”

“You can’t really expect me to believe a man that owns a strip club in the middle of Midtown is in charge of the biggest anti-drug operation this city has-” Frib began to protest, but then all of a sudden he fell silent. Something poignant seemed to have dawned upon him as he stood mute beneath the cobalt blue sky.

“Jason,” he uttered as if that one word finally explained everything.

He raised his eyes up seeking validation from Rob but Rob’s attention was far off in the distance staring out towards the skyscrapers that littered Manhattan like an impenetrable fence whose gate he would never be able to cross through again. He sighed. Against the still quiet backdrop of the sleeping cemetery it was as close to a goodbye as any of the residents here were likely to make.

“You have to realise something. Jason wasn’t just Mike’s kid brother. When their old man split years ago Mike was the one that stepped up to take care of them all. When Jason died it was like… it was like he’d lost a son… Something I could relate to. That’s what brought us together that night,” Rob said, slowly lowering his eyes aside to behold the grave in front of him as though it were his own.

“It was fate.”

Frib nodded. Truth was he didn’t know what else he could say at that moment. He watched Rob stoop to lay something upon the smooth cold stone that he noticed for the first time since arriving was the only grave anywhere in plain sight that had been swept clear of snow. It stood out like a small brown beacon in a landscape of white, black and grey.

The small round pebble sat alongside the others, a token of remembrance from a father who had nothing left to share. With a kiss to his fingers Rob touched the granite before he stood upright and looked at the other man sombrely.

“What are you going to do?” Frib asked, wishing he had something more poignant to offer in their place. He watched Rob shrug and reach for something in his back pocket.

“I have to disappear. It’s better this way, safer.”

The small notebook Rob handed him a moment later had the young detective frowning back in dubious consternation.

“Take it,” Rob urged. “It’s notes. As much as I could get before all this shit came down.”

“Notes on what?”

“There’s a lawyer near the Village, name’s Allie King. She’s the latest trying to get Chester out. Mike asked me to tail her but I couldn’t, not for long anyway.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just know he seemed keen on getting as much intel on her as he could. Probably fixing to take her under his wing too like he does everyone else to get whatever he sets his mind to.” Rob drew in a deep breath seeming to relish in the cold with his dark eyes gleaming with the reflection of snow. “I don’t know how far this is going to go, I don’t even think Mike himself knows. He’s so caught up in it now he can’t see through it. He can’t be satisfied because the one thing he wants he cant have. Killing Chester or starting a war against pushers or like cleaning up the city won’t change a goddamn thing in Mike’s eyes. It won’t undo the last two years. It certainly won’t bring his brother back. If taking an eye for an eye did that I would have traded places with my son that night in a heartbeat. But life doesn’t work like that does it?”

“No,” Frib agreed, despite the fact the question was obviously meant as a rhetorical one.

[Ravynlee]

The silence that followed was absolute. There was nothing to break it except the distant rumble of a plane passing overhead. Looking up Frib was distracted by the movement of the other man walking away from him.

“Hey!” he called out and rushed the few steps through the snow to meet him. “What about my gun?”

Rob came to a stop and appeared to consider it a moment before he resumed his leisurely pace away from the jagged skyline of the city.

“Why? So you can run me in and make me repeat all that again? No thanks. I’m not that stupid. At least if I get a head start I’ve got a chance somewhere else, but here… They put me in a holding cell there’s no way I’d be coming out of it alive. Come on, I’m a dirty cop, remember?”

Coming to a standstill at that Frib could only stare after him and wait the eventual moment it took for Rob to stop relent and turn around. He looked defeated to be handing it over but maintaining a firm grip a moment he stared back directly into the younger man’s eyes as if reaching deep into his very soul. Frib stared back vulnerably.

“Don’t do what I did,” Rob warned. The look on his face, despite the haggard growth and culminating shadows and stress, seemed more unforgiving than the stones and statues that surrounded them. “Don’t trust anyone, especially those around you. I don’t know how far it goes but I know it’s there; Mike’s influence, I know it’s there in the department. The corruption claims are only the start. Phoenix figured it out and look what happened to him. The others mightn’t even know about it yet but you do. This isn’t about right and wrong anymore, it’s not even about justice. It can’t be, too many people are dying because one man can’t let go of the past. Keep your eyes and ears open. The second you let your guard down you’re history. One side is going to win this war and right now you’re standing smack-bang in the middle of it. Just watch your back, Kris, most of all from Mike. He’ll find your weakness and exploit it and then you’ll belong to him and there’s no way out. Trust me. You don’t want to find out the hard way like I did. You’ll lose everything in the end.”

The pistol, once Rob let go of it, felt like a dead weight in the young detective’s hand. Though relief washed over him it was a departing tide in the wake of Rob’s final plea now left to die like the memory of those interred beneath the stones all around them. He watched Rob walk away choking on words he would never say, questions he would never ask, and the cold realisation that he was never likely to lay eyes his ex-partner in the flesh like this again.

The cold white stillness of New Calvary Cemetery was the last official place Frib saw Rob before the newspaper report that followed less than a week later when a man matching his description went missing after wading into the waters of the swollen Mississippi off New Orleans and disappeared, feared drowned. The official search, which yielded nothing more than a muddy shoe and his waterlogged mud-encrusted wallet, was called off several days later. Rob Bourdon, the once shining star of the New York City Police Department and troubled former Narcotics Enforcement detective was missing presumed dead on the morning of New Years Eve 2007. His state-arranged memorial service, poignantly held on what would have been the day of his son's third birthday, stopped traffic in the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he was born and raised, and was saluted still in memory as the hero that had risen up against the odds and had symbolically won.

In full regalia Frib stood alongside his comrades that afternoon watching Rob’s first and second wives and his young infant daughter follow the empty casket down the steps from the Synagogue and through the saluting sea of sombre NYPD officers that came to pay their respects to one of their fallen. Following the procession with his hand held to his brow and straining to keep in step feeling the collective weight of so many faces and cameras upon him Frib could only stare at the coffin remembering the last words Rob had said to him playing over and over in his mind. Whatever Rob had done to warrant his fate he was at last finally free.

As he watched the coffin being fed into the back of the waiting hearse beside Joel, Benji, Karl and Oded, it was then that the young detective saw a familiar face in his peripheral vision standing stately beside Police Commissioner Brown, Captain Goren and a young woman with brown-blond hair and a handful of others that Frib felt his blood turn cold at the sight.

It appeared as if Mike Shinoda had come down from his lofty tower to pay his final respects too.

Even in death Rob wasn’t far from his sights after all.

 

---

 

** Please note I just fixed a major time inconsistency that just came to my attention since posting this earlier today. Has since been rectified. Hopefully it flows smoother now, time wise. Soon see I guess

Thanks

[Friðbjörn]

wow, some drama! Mike the menace paying his respects

 

well no matter where he comes he always sends chills down my spine now you paint him so well as this evil menacing SOB, lol

[crazy robster]

WHAT??!! Don't tell me Rob really died sis, this can't be... I suspect, or maybe WANT to think, that he left all the false evidence (like the shoe and the wallet) to mislead everyone and let them think he's dead while in fact he has disappeared and will show up again at some other point in the story, right?? RIGHT?? *worried face* This update was so revealing, so poignant, so intense, so...wow!! I'm speechless... Well, Mike is not the son of a bitch I thought he was... His motives are not evil but he's so determined to take revenge that he doesn't even hesitate to become a criminal and murderer himself in order to achieve his goal...!! Hope I'm following this ok so far! Congratulations and a bow to you is all I can say my sweet *applauds* <3

[Ravynlee]

Yes you are following it sis, glad to hear

 

I never wanted Mike (or any character) to be two-dimensional characters, even the worst villain has motives, reasons why they are the way they are. As a reader you can empathize or not. Personally I don't have anything against Mike or even Chester as characters in this. We've all made bad decisions in our lives. Sometimes we don't act when we feel we should have, sometimes we feel cheated by life, by other people, by circumstances and so on. There's a fine line between vindicator and vigilante. Mike IS a villain by choice but he wasn't born that way. Like Rob said, I can't help but feel sorry for the guy.

 

And thanks guys.

[Pheonix791989]

hey guess what.. i am not dead!! lol just had midterms and loads of projects. been following it and its brilliant! keep it up mum please?!?!

[woodyloveslinkin]

hey guess what.. i am not dead!! lol just had midterms and loads of projects. been following it and its brilliant! keep it up mum please?!?!

 

wow twin sis. could've fooled me for a sec. yay, we're both in college then.

 

:thumbsup: good work ma. keeping me occupied.

[Ravynlee]

Thanks guys - and glad to see you're not dead Mel. Good luck both of you with your studies, hope it all goes well and... stuff.

 

More later... maybe?

[andrea]

Got a break in my school work so I finally caught up with the story. All I have to say right now is wow. Everything sort of coming together. And as always can't wait for more to come.

[Pheonix791989]

come on ma post some more pwease???? pretty pretty pwease????? w00t

[Ravynlee]

MS Part 2

 

Hi guys, I know it's been a while, but I sat down last night and started writing again, well, writing this. Not study. It's not what I had in mind when I started penning this obviously but seeing as how it's been a few months I have some time to account for. See where it goes.

 

---

‘NYPD: Corruption claims laid to rest.’

‘Dead officer linked to reports of illegal activity within force.’

‘Hero to zero; how former officer got away with it for so long.’

‘Commissioner Brown pleased by inquiry’s outcome.’

‘Detective’s burden; ‘Guilt drove him to it.’’

 

The man scoffed. With a rustle of paper he folded the tabloid before returning it atop the mountain of others. The vendor asked him in some gibberish if he wanted to buy it but the man shook his head and began to walk away. Then something caught his eye. He stopped. In a shop window a few feet away he saw a familiar face on the screen. Though he couldn’t hear what was being said over the blaring noise and bustle of inner city traffic he ignored the mute lips of the reporter and focused his attentions instead at the images playing again on the screen. Funeral. A cop’s funeral. Ah, he knew that face. Bourdon the name on the screen read. So the department had found their scapegoat to pin it on after all. He smirked. Drawing in a deep cleansing breath the man slowly let it out. The reflection of his short dark hair and glasses blinked back apathetically against the icy shop window. Feeling a pedestrian bump him he turned around and watched an old woman skulk her way past. Despite her total disregard the man’s smirk grew to a smile. It was good to be invisible. Raising his eyes up towards the sky he squinted at the glare and breathed in the pollution, the bitter chill and the overpowering intermingled scents of New York City at it’s peak with the relish of soul reborn.

Joining the steady flow of pedestrians he crossed the road and came to a stop on the sidewalk. A big black thirty-foot billboard loomed above him. He looked up slowly as if toward the heavens.

MS in Manhattan the billboard said. It was apparently advertising some publicised interview but the man ignored the details. The monochromatic pose of a familiar face frowning down over Times Square held him briefly captivated. His smile that had began slipping away picked up again with renewed enthusiasm. Beneath those large dark eyes he almost chuckled to himself.

Slapping at his pocket he withdrew the crinkled piece of paper and smoothed it out between his fingers. Though he knew what it said he found comfort in just being able to look at it and hold it now, as if reaffirming that it was indeed real and not some figment of his imagination. He had read it and reread it so many times that it was well tattered and worn yet he clung to it with such determination that his fingertips, pinched pink by the cold, were now glowing white.

It was a name and an address for somewhere in West NY. He wasn’t all that far away, just on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel. It wouldn’t take him long to get there, he assumed, even in peak hour traffic. Considering he had been waiting all these years a few hours were almost nothing to him. Still he was anxious inside his own skin. Rubbing the piece of paper with his thumb he drew in another deep and cleansing breath and steadied himself against the tide of emotions growing inside of him.

“Ava,” he said quietly to himself.

It was such a simple name yet it seemed to ring perfectly in his ears, a verbal caress, the name of an angel. His angel. At last, he had something to live for, he had a purpose, he had direction, a family that needed him. It really was that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get himself together not because he was told to but because he had to, she needed him and in his own way he desperately needed her too. Folding the piece of paper back up he carefully slid it back inside his pocket and patted it down securely. Slowly raising his eyes he looked at the poster in front of him and his smirk became almost malevolent.

Mike’s admonishing stare bore down over him like the eyes of God.

Again he scoffed. He shook his head. Then turning his shoulder Chester Bennington made his way down into the crowded subway and disappeared.

 

 

 

---

[Ravynlee]

---

Staring at his back Mel didn’t say anything. In fact she was barely brave enough to breathe. In the silence that followed it seemed as if the room was holding it’s collective breath expectantly. With all eyes focused ahead the only sounds to brave the silence was the constant and relentless ticking of the wall-mounted clock somewhere behind them. Someone cleared their throat but the tension only rose with the intrusion rather than break it. At last a handful of wary people silently and suddenly made their way out of the room. Watching the door click to a close Mel drew in a deep breath and prepared herself to speak. The words however never made it past her tongue.

“What do you mean, he’s out?” Mike muttered towards the glass.

It wasn’t said in malice. It wasn’t said in disbelief. Though it came across like a question what Mel recognised from his tone of voice was a strange mix of the two. Mike was frustrated. He was mad. He had been caught off guard. But now he was thinking aloud it appeared no one seemed game enough to challenge him as he kept staring ahead out the window. On the other side panoramic views of Manhattan sprawled out to the ends of the horizon like a city of ants beneath them. Dropping her eyes to the carpet Mel pursed her lips considerately. “How could this happen?” Mike wanted to know.

He looked to be talking to his reflection without seeming to see it or indeed anything beyond it. He turned around and met everyone’s eyes around him evenly. Five sets of eyes submissively hit the floor. Lingering on Mel Mike gnashed his teeth behind his lips and shook his head bitterly. Though he didn’t so much as raise his voice it was as if he had just spent the last three hours screaming at the top of his lungs at them, everyone in the room was reduced to youths almost half their age. Bravely glimpsing around at her peers as Mike was doing Mel was not comforted by the fact that she alone was the only one doing so. Everyone else, all men, all of differing ages and colours and builds and creed all stared at the carpet dismally like whipped dogs. Even she was disgusted by their acquiescence but she also knew that she walked a delicate path along side them. When she met Mike’s dark eyes again Mel obediently stared too at the floor. She heard rather than saw Mike move around the desk and settle in front of it, on the edge, and usher out a loud soul-derived sigh.

“I have the best legal team money can buy and you mean to tell me no one saw this coming?” he muttered into his chest.

When he looked up his underlings were starting to, warily, look up at him too. They were all dubious about not what to say but even how to answer. In the three and a half months that he had been here towering over the city in his palatial quarters made of glass, Mike had gone from another faceless drone on the streets to an entrepreneur in his tailored suits and fancy cologne but the ferocious stare he had given her back in the car park of the strip club lingered still – Mike was nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing but in a flock of sheep as big as New York was, Mike’s reputation had fast preceded him beyond even those of the rest of the pack.

In the moments of quiet introspection Mel’s eyes wandered around the office. It was as far a cry from the crude cramped office back at Fort Minor that always smelt equal amounts of liquor, sweat and desperation. No music thudded up from the floor beneath like a second constant heartbeat. No gaudy lights swung in dizzying directions from the material draped ceilings to visually distract her. This place, by comparison, was cold, pompous and sterile. It didn’t reflect what Mike the man was like at all, or so Mel could see, but she full well knew why he had adopted it. Whether bowing to political pressure Mike’s move from legitimate business man to this show of arrogance now, from the shadows to the spotlight had been every bit as calculated and as sudden as a surprise attack. The reluctant city ‘saviour’ on Mayor Bloomberg’s Zero-Tolerance campaign, maintaining what his previous predecessor had pioneered, Mike had eventually stepped up onto his podium to the admiring applause of his fellow New Yorkers, but only Mel and those that worked closely beside her knew that Mike’s motives were far more personal than politically driven.

In order to keep up with this greater demand of people and clientele all with eager hands jut out in appreciation for Mike’s ability to make friends of every calibre, and doing whatever deal they had to, to insure they had even a glimpse of his apparent influence, Mike had no other choice but to keep up appearances and become one of them or get left behind as another second-rate citizen. Mike had, for all intents and purposes, reinvented himself in the public eye by distancing himself from his now infamous club in order to take on this new façade as an up and coming challenger on the political forefront – but he hadn’t forgotten where he had come from. Surrounded now by a handful of men, and Mel, all his closest hand-picked crew, all as mismatched and different as you would ever hope to find in such a setting let alone such circumstances, Mike looked now to each of his employee’s faces letting that frustration leak out like an admonishing parent to his mischievous brood.

“Okay, so let me see if I got this straight. You don’t know when he got out, you don’t know how he got out, and you don’t know where he is, does that sound about right so far?”

Greeted only with silence Mike groaned, folded his arms across his chest and stared ahead at the carpet with that same disparaging pout on his face.

“What happened to that bitch lawyer of his, that Allie King? Tak, I thought you told me you took care of her months ago? I thought you told me she wasn’t going to make any trouble for us. You said she wasn’t getting anywhere with his appeals, isn’t that what you told me?”

The big black man in the baggy black garb and navy green beanie shrugged back without explanation. He probably knew as well as the rest of them did that his answer counted for nothing anyway, the damage was already proverbially done.

“This isn’t some pot hole in the road we could have missed people, this is the fucking Hiroshima bomb here and you mean to tell me not one of you heard or knew a fucking thing? All those people out there on the street and not so much as one word that this was coming? Nothing in the gutter? Not a fucking one of you?”

The silence in that office was so overwhelming that again it took considerable effort to breathe let alone talk through it as time could be heard clacking down second by second but felt to have stagnated inside those steel and glassed walls like an alternate universe. Staring at her shoes Mel’s shoulders slumped as she stood waiting for this meeting to pass so she could get out of here and get back outside to where the cool weather and the bright white sky could strip some of this weight bearing down on her shoulders.

“Jesus, will somebody say something here? I feel like I’m talking to a room full of deaf mute fucking morons.”

[Ravynlee]

“Phi,” he muttered.

Obediently Mel stopped. She smiled strangely at the way he used his little pet name for her in place of a more serious title as the situation dictated. But whether it was this informal address or the sound of his voice Mel back peddled and waited until she was sure the rest of her companions were gone before she closed the door once more closing them in together. Though she had been in this office far too many times to recall now, and despite it’s vast open space and high ceilings, it was all too easy for that feeling of claustrophobia to set in as she quietly made her way towards him. Glimpsing over his shoulder to assure she had heard and was joining him Mike sighed as he followed her with his eyes, losing the hardened edge of his expression of moments ago.

“Talk to me,” he implored.

With his fists in his hip pockets and his shoulders stooped Mike was staring out at the city below like a defeated man, not his usual confident unassuming self. It was a side to him very few, probably not even his doe-eyed wife, rarely got to see.

Gathering her thoughts together Mel drew to a stop beside him and looked out too. The vastness of this view terrified and amazed her. It was all too easy to embrace life’s fragility from such a vantage point and bring back into question her life and her deeds and her role in this whole sordid saga that seemed too surreal to believe at times. Pushing her thoughts aside Mel drew in a calming breath and looked at her employer.

“What do you want me to tell you?” she asked casually.

Mike met her even stare with a shrug and a small smile.

“Tell me what we’re doing here,” he said. Then his smile grew.

Mel had to look down at the carpet. Thoughts of crushing his lips beneath hers made her cheeks burn a hot and sudden red. But it was gone again just as quickly as it came and she breathed a sigh of relief to note he was looking away again, outside, with that same distant stare he always did when he assumed no one was watching. Glimpsing down at the ring on his hand she in turn glimpsed at her own. She wondered what she had been thinking when she accepted Shwag’s marriage proposal on New Years Eve and stood feeling her internal anxiety creeping up on her like some dark shadow. She hadn’t regretted her decision then, in fact with the crowds cheering the start of another year and with fireworks literally lighting up in the sky Mel had been snowballed by the entire moment, she had been blown away because it seemed so fitting, so right, so far removed from her everyday world of maiming and killing that she feared letting it pass her or she would never get that glimpse of normalcy in her life ever again. But now in the months that had passed and with each passing day the monumentality of her decision slowly settled in on her already burdened conscience. Mike’s warning from before, from when they first essentially met, made her question whether or not to still go through with it. And Shwag himself was being so cold to her lately, so distant. It was hard to tell whether she was imagining things growing between them or whether it was merely cold feet now beginning to settle over her. Then on impulse she wondered what Mike’s wife was thinking at that very moment. She wondered actually how she, as Mike’s other half, coped with their continual separation. Though she had met Rashell on several occasions since she and Mike had settled in on the Upper East Side she knew enough not to form a personal opinion on her employer’s choice of life partner. Regardless what Mike shared with Rashell Mel knew she always had to keep her opinions respectfully silent even if on the rare occasion Mike would share a not-so-flattering opinion of her. Rashell was after all Mike’s only real family here and as such warranted all due respect as difficult as that chore may have been at times – Rashell was after all, hardly the kind of woman people anticipated seeing dangling off Mike’s arm at their usual round of social occasions. Still, there were times even now Mel couldn’t help but wonder what the two of them discussed over the dinner table when Mike went home after doing half the things she had seen him do and knew he was capable of and try and pass himself off as nothing more than a loving yet hardworking kind-hearted husband. If she were in Rashell’s shoes Mel wasn’t sure at all she would be able to cope with the couple’s continually growing distance, especially now with the baby on the way. Still it was his life. Pouting to herself Mel drew her eyes up and stared up at the sky. The clouds were thick but high enough for the sun to reflect off. Save for the sheet of thick glass Mel was almost certain had she the will and the means to do so she would be able to reach out and stick her hand into heaven. That’s when she thought of her mother – and all thoughts abruptly ended on that note.

Beside her Mike was growing restless. It was apparent he was wrestling with his thoughts but was having a hard time stringing them together. It took him a few moments of silence before he eventually sighed and irritably rubbed at his brow and face still rugged with a fully grown beard.

“You know what gets me the most in all this?” he said with his irrepressible half-hearted smirk. “There’s only one person on this whole city that knows Chester as well as I do and he’s fucking unreachable.”

“Who?” Mel asked. Though she already well knew the answer.

“Rob.”

Rob Bourdon. Figured. Defamed cop of the New York City Police Department. Former NEU officer. Former golden boy of this big dumb witless city. She had been living in the shadow of a dead man for almost three months now and had long since grown weary of Mike’s continual comments about how and where and in what context he could use the late detective’s services if he wasn’t floating down the Mississippi somewhere like some bloated life raft rotting away in the putrid water. It was like a case of sibling rivalry though she had only met the man himself a handful of times and even then they were far from favourable impressions. But it was not with fondness now that Mike spoke of his once prized associate, rather with disdain, telling her that of all the trigger-happy officials he had even now at his disposal Rob was the one he had been able to rely upon most of all and wish he still had on hand to utilise.

Clenching her jaw at the indirect insult Mel could only draw her chin up and take it silently.

“I could do it for you,” she offered without knowing exactly what ‘it’ would entail. But Mike only smiled at her and shook his head as he made his way back towards his desk and with a groan settled now behind it.

“No. I can’t risk it. Too many people know what you look like. They know you’re with me now, they’ll smell a rat and hit the ground running. No, I need someone they don’t know to infiltrate them. I need someone he doesn’t know to get to Chester. That’s the only way I’m going to be able to draw him out without dragging this on much longer. Frankly I’m tired of this shit, Mel. I should have had Rob take him out in jail like I originally planned it but this… Lawyer of his… I need to find her. She has a family doesn’t she? Kids? Surely she knows someone, anyone I can lean on. Get it touch with Vaughn at The Times, that man knows everybody, see what he can dig up for me.”

“I thought we already tried that?”

“Well try harder,” Mike corrected with his elbows digging into the desktop. “Thanks to that man’s penchant for fast races and loose women that man owes me so much I could wipe his entire family off the map and he’d still be indebted to me well in to the next life, and the one after. If he can’t come through on this then we’ll need to get him to get someone else for us. I know, I don’t like using outside sources either but we’re running out of options. Too many people keep disappearing or dropping dead on us lately.”

“What about that reporter chick of his?” Mel suddenly heard herself asking.

“Who?”

“His ex wife. Rob’s. That one that tried to frame you.”

The silence that followed was so absolute she was even certain, if only for a heartbeat, she couldn’t even hear the sound of the wall-mounted clock ticking. Mike was frowning at her. When it dawned on him he rolled his eyes and slumped back into the backrest of his seat with a humourless laugh. It made the skin on her forearms prickle with gooseflesh.

“You’ve got to be shitting me? Are you fucking serious?”

“Why not?” Mel wondered though already felt pathetic just mentioning it. The stare Mike gave her ended her words, and her vein of thought, in that one sullen instant. Leaning forward in his seat to accentuate his point Mike was all but glaring at her as he locked firmly onto her eyes.

“You know why not,” he grit out. That was, as far as he was concerned, all there was to it. “Besides, she’s not even a reporter anymore. She’s as useful to me as her so-called dead ex husband is. That whole fucked up family is dead to me. The less I have to do with any one of them the better.”

As his words dissipated into that sterile silence again Mel sighed and swallowed down any further attempts at conversing and instead made her way around to take up a seat on the edge of the giant desk between them. Perched on the edge she sat picking at the material of her slacks that even in these fancy surrounds still seemed, at least to her casual sensibilities, to be too dressy. Wishing even for a moment that they were back at the club and both in their baggy street gear not here dressed up and feeling as put of place as their expressions attested Mel sighed again and let her thoughts and her eyes wander. But Mike was studying her again carefully. She met his direct stare with a degree of nervousness. Even at that relative close distance she could all but hear the wheels in his mind ticking and was never one hundred percent sure she wanted to hear what such a brilliant and sadistic mind was capable of.

“You know, you might be on to something,” he said eventually.

He was reaching out for the phone before he had a chance to explain himself. Mel watched him dial a number and sink back into his seat with his eyes still trained on her. Demurely she looked away, feeling a little flustered and frightened at the prospect he was undressing her with his eyes. Telling herself to stop being such an idiot she pretended not to listen as Mike asked for a man by name and covered the mouthpiece with his hand as the messenger on the other end apparently ran off to do his bidding.

“I like the way your mind works,” he praised, giving her that toothy confident grin and a wink that was painfully familiar to her by now. “You’re starting to sound more like me everyday. And I like it. I can only hope this kid of mine is anything like you.” At that Mike’s grin faltered. A moment later it picked up again. “It’s time to call in another favour,” he said. Then, turning his seat around with a sift creak, Mike turned his back on her to stare out through the window and down at the city beneath him once more.

 

---

[Ravynlee]

---

 

Joanna smiled as she cuddled against Joel’s arm contentedly. Though they were walking slow her breaths still seemed laboured as they casually strolled the winding path, watching the lush greenery and various assortment of animals scurry about their enclosures with leisurely abandon. In her stroller Haily was gurgling to herself as she gnawed on her mittens. Casting a protective glance at her daughter Joanna felt herself being bumped by an arm and looked up into Joel’s waiting eyes.

“What?” she asked him with a smile.

Joel shrugged and pouted as he slid his arm further around her shoulders.

“Nothing. I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he told her.

Joanna sighed and leant against him.

The sun was warm out but the unseasonable chill was still wrenching the breaths from her lips in small bursts of steam. It should have been warmer than what it was lately but then again, she mused as she cast a lingering glance at the sea lion exhibit, nothing in recent memory seemed to have run according to plan. Glimpsing down at the band that still adorned her finger she closed her fist before reaching up and clasping Joel’s arm and pulled it under her chin to bestow upon it a quick kiss. She let out a heavy and thoughtful sigh. Though it had been months since Rob’s death she still hadn’t been able to bear taking her wedding ring off yet. Soon, she told herself, and turned her smile back towards her boyfriend’s face.

“It’s nothing. I’m just being silly I guess. I was thinking of my sister again. I know she’s been out and living on her own now for a few weeks and she’s probably fine but I’m still worried about her. We haven’t spoken to each other in days. I hope everything’s okay with her. I miss her.”

Feeling Joel kiss the top of her head Joanna smiled back appreciatively. Tightening her arm around his waist she cuddled closer against his side. It was a relief in some ways he wasn’t as tall as Rob had been – and thinking that she felt herself cringe inside her own skin. Her smile grew uncertain and listless. As hard as she was trying to get her life back together again she couldn’t help but feel the lingering pains of the past pulling at her subconscious so.

“You worry too much,” Joel murmured against her. “I’m sure she’s fine. She wouldn’t have left if she didn’t feel ready for it.”

Joanna nodded but in her chest her heart tightened. Despite the distraction of a group of schoolchildren screaming past in front of their bedraggled teacher, Joanna could still hear the sound of her previous conversation with her sister echoing inside of her head and felt her defences rise and fall in disproportionate amounts. It seemed all they ever did was argue anymore. No, that wasn’t true. Since Rob’s death, even before that, Ravyn had been slipping down her usual downward spiral of depression and denial again. Though it was far from new behaviour to Joanna she still didn’t like it. As always she had suggested that her sister seek the help she so obviously needed and that she had stubbornly refused even after her attack almost six months ago now. Since then Ravyn had lost her appetite, her motivation, even the sheer desire to crawl out of bed of a morning, and existed on pills to help her function even on a basic level that was only exacerbated once Rob went missing. Joanna had spoken to her doctor but the prescriptions kept coming out to her each month and with each pill she took Ravyn was dying inside only to be replaced by some autonomous robot who wore her face and spoke with her voice but even when she smiled these days it was so forced it may as well not exist anymore.

Swallowing down a snagging lump caught in the back of her throat Joanna cuddled closer into Joel’s side and offloaded another heavy and thoughtful sigh. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she was alone in the world now, save for Haily and now Joel, and that her sister had gone the same way that Rob and their late son had, only this time by choice. And to make matters worse there was no grave to mark the place where her sister lay because technically Ravyn wasn’t dead – nor was she truly alive anymore as she once used to be. The last time Joanna and Ravyn spoke Ravyn had declared out of the blue she was moving back into the city, apparently to ‘get out of the way and stop being a third wheel between Joanna and Joel’ (not that Joanna had even dared suggest a thing, the notion was that ridiculous!) and was using some of her settlement from Rob’s estate to get a small apartment back in her old neighbourhood on the Lower East Side and get her life sorted out again. Joanna should have been thrilled but realistically she was just the opposite. She was scared that her sister was far from ready to get out into the big wide world again and even more terrified that Ravyn had apparently made mention of the fact she was looking to purchase herself a gun. Joel assured her that Ravyn was probably just looking to protect herself and that it was okay, should it come to that he as an officer of the law would take steps to insure she was well taken care of without such drastic measures and that Ravyn was probably just being a little melodramatic. Victims of violent crime could be that way sometimes, it was okay, he promised, he would take care of her too – despite the fact it seemed Ravyn wanted little if anything to do with him under any circumstances. Joanna was far from convinced and played along if only to keep the peace, but deep down she knew that he didn’t know her sister like she did, and with all sorts of crazy fears and thoughts constantly in the back of her mind, it was no wonder Joanna physically clung to Joel’s arm like a buoy in choppy seas. Now that Ravyn was lost in her own little world and Rob was gone, all Joanna had left to hold on to was the promise of a better life with Joel and her baby, and the hopes that, one day in the not to distant future, that this talk of Rob’s apparent corruption would die down and people would leave her alone and she and what was left of her family could go back to living some semblance of a normal happy existence once again.

But even as she spent the morning walking around the Zoo Joanna could feel unseen eyes on her coming from the people that passed them and those that stood reading newspapers by the various hotdog stands. Always she could feel that pressure constantly bearing down on her. When the claims first surfaced she hadn’t even received her late husband’s death certificate in the mail yet, and by what would have been the date of his 30th birthday some two weeks later, Rob had gone from being a hero mourned to a liar scorned as his police fraternity ‘discovered’ proof that he had been the one to murder not just his previous partner David “Phoenix” Farrell but also that much-maligned prostitute and former friend of his ex-wife, Jeanne “Jammer” Redfern. One publication had even gone so far as to suggest that Rob had engaged in an affair with the woman of the street, leading to rifts between the police department and prominent businessman Mike Shinoda, and so began talk of Mike’s apparent involvement in the corruption claims. Of course Mike himself refused to comment, but he was no doubt relieved to have those cases, that had been dogging him for the better part of a year, finally dropped. But now he was dead Rob was the departmental scapegoat for all sorts of dodgy dealings, anything from money laundering, extortion, solicitation and a few cases of police brutality. Joanna wanted to laugh at all of it, the stories were that ridiculous, but the sad truth was that the city was happier bad-mouthing a dead tarnished cop than embracing a living reputable one. Her lone voice was too easy to drown out and the sad part was not even his old crew at the NEU were allowed, by beaurocratic red tape, to speak up on Rob’s behalf. Joel had been gagged by his department unable to talk to Joanna about anything to do with Rob or the claims against him as they wound their way through the confusing mess of departments, suffice to say he knew there was talk he just didn’t want to hurt her anymore than she already was even if he could share them with her.

Now three months later Rob’s grave was a forgotten eyesore along side his son’s out in the industrial edge of Queens. Joanna didn’t visit him anymore as much as she sometimes wished to. The fact was on slow days the press would be there somewhere waiting for her to step out without her usual personal guard in the form of her new love (who himself was generating enough media by muscling in so fast on his dead friend’s territory) and would catch her and her infant daughter completely unawares. She was only now just finally able to leave the house again without fear of being bombarded but still she remained edgy expecting someone to recognise her or her name, that she maintained now purely for her daughter’s benefit, and thrust a microphone or a camera in her face and want to know how she was coping with all this apparent trauma. Now, walking arm in arm with her new love and basking beneath the sun’s brave attempts at warming her shoulders and head, Joanna glimpsed up over the tree lined exhibitions at the jagged skyline feeling worn-out and exhausted.

[Ravynlee]

Stopping to admire the Japanese Macaques as they sunned themselves on an outcrop of rock and groomed themselves, Joanna watched Joel manoeuvre Haily out of her stroller to nurse against his chest proudly. She smiled. Remembering her digital camera she fished it out of her handbag and took a few quick snaps of the moment. Then, pausing at the way her baby seemed to be frowning about with that inherently inquisitive stare and purse-lipped pout Joanna’s smile wavered. Feeling familiar pangs of guilt, regret and sadness press on her chest Joanna nodded to Joel’s enquiry of if she was okay and quickly returned the camera to its safety case. That was when she heard her cell phone ringing. Excusing herself she strolled a few steps away leaving Joel and Haily by the guardrail as she thumbed a button and answered the call. She smiled in greeting watching Joel hold Haily’s arm out and wave towards the monkeys. Though she had hoped it was her sister the familiar voice that answered back made her smile just as widely. It was her old friend Jos.

“Hey, how are you? Where are you?” she wanted to know.

“I’m in a cab on my way to work. You?”

“Central Park. God. It’s so good to hear your voice. I can’t believe you’re finally going through with this,” Joanna said.

When Jos had told her she had been contacted by Mike Shinoda himself, Joanna had been quick with her instinctive reservations. The fact he had been a suspect in Ravyn’s attack and attempted murder aside and up until recently also a suspect in Jammer’s murder was forefront in her mind and Joanna had been quick to dampen her friend’s enthusiasm. Though Mike had since been acquitted on one count and had never been formally charged with the other (now Rob was lumped with it), Joanna was still unable to get past her personal distrust for the man. Granted he had matured somewhat in the public eye and his overwhelming generosity pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into ant-drug campaigns, education programs, and establishing scholarships for those most at risk and less fortunate in the city’s target areas did make it harder for her to see him as the complete and utter monster as she once considered him as. And the news following soon after Rob’s death in the new year that Mike had sold his beloved club and intended to enter in to the political or business realms of affluent Midtown also came as something of a shock but Joanna wasn’t sure if she could trust a man who once ran a strip joint to run the city with any modicum of honesty. Still, by all outward accounts Mike Shinoda was a wealthy man and his power over the city was undeniable. People payed good bucks just to have him show up and bring with him his notoriety and influence and why wouldn’t they? In a matter of months he had gone from virtual unknown to best friends with Police Commissioner Brown and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, just to name a few. If there was ever a true rags to riches story to inspire anyone of any minority it had to be this man, and the whole of New York couldn’t seem to get enough of him. So when Jos had rung Joanna several weeks ago to tell her friend that her beloved lecturer at Brown Prof Brad Delson, and long time friend of Mr MS himself, wanted to know if she could offer her services to his expectant wife, Jos had been blown away by the prospect. She had jokingly suspected Ashton Kutcher to come out at any moment even now as she rode in the cab on the way to Mike’s private abode, and tell her that she was part of some unfunny gag for his world wide audience. Regardless what she thought of him as a person Jos was unable to deny the lure of having a name like Mike Shinoda on her job resume in the future. Just think of the doors such a reference would open, she gasped excitedly.

Of course Jos had met with his legal team and gone over the paperwork and agreed to the terms set out before signing on the dotted line with her hand visibly shaking. She still found it almost too good to be true that out of all the overly qualified and far more illustrious choices he could have had on hand to help look after his wife and bring his little heir into the world Mike would ask for and choose Jos exclusively. When she had put such fears to Brad he had merely smiled at her in his irrepressible way and told her that he had put in a good word for her and knew that among other things she needed the money. He had grown up with Mike, Brad had told her, and knew that his friend valued and appreciated those from good honest backgrounds. He too knew what it was like to grow up a nobody and now he was in a position to help Mike wanted to help those that were less fortunate.

They had to co-ordinate her start of course to coincide with the press release of their news, which was due now in a few days, and this time had allowed Jos to finalise her terms of employment with Sarah and Ava, who she already missed terribly, and to prepare herself for her new role integrating into the Shinoda household. Jos had excitedly rung to tell her boyfriend Pete their great news but to her dismay found he was no longer as responsive to her wishes as she would have liked. Pete wanted her to stay away from Mike and had been adamant enough to say should she take the job their relationship would effectively be terminated, but who was she really kidding anyway, she told Joanna with a pout, Pete had been so distant to her lately he may as well have not been on the scene anyway.

“I wish things could have been different between us,” Jos sighed into her cell phone as Joanna nodded appropriately. “You’re so lucky to have found someone like Joel. I hope I can find someone even half like him once I get to Mike’s. Never know, might find myself a nice rich one and set myself up for life!”

Joanna chuckled along, and after a few more moments of idle chitchat, and extracting promises to take care and call as soon as she was settled, Joanna soon bid her farewell and hung up with a sigh. It took a lot of strength to summon the will to smile again as she made her way back over to Joel and her baby and kissed them both lightly on the lips. Life at least was starting to feel like it was getting back on track, slowly. Cuddling in against her boyfriend’s side Joanna stroked her baby’s cheek and let her mind roam predictably back to her sister. She wished her sister wasn’t so damned stubborn. Why wouldn’t she call her? How much more could she help than she already had? Joanna thought to herself miserably. There seemed like there was nothing more she could literally do for her, short of having her older sister assessed and institutionalized, for her own safety and wellbeing. But as soon as she thought that she felt guilty and had to push it aside. Then glimpsing up at the towering high-rises and jagged grey city skyline in front of her Joanna set her shoulders against the cold and continued on her way along the path with her love and her baby in her appreciative arms.

 

---

[crazy robster]

At long last!! An update!! That's awesome I've been waiting for it for so long sis!! Man I missed the MS gang... So, now Chester is free we will have a whole new set of exciting chapters coming huh? Lots of action!! I'm with Mike!! Yeah in this case I'm with Mike! Mike VS Chester 1-0!!! lol Cause if you think about it Chester was a criminal from the very beginning while Mike just wants revenge for his bro's death, it's somewhat different isn't it? And of course no need to mention that I'm thrilled about me and Joely getting so close! I'm in such a romantic mood lately that I relish in reading about love and romance and blah blah... The only thing I still worry about is you sis. What is the matter with you now?? Why don't you contact your sis??? HUH? I wish you weren't that stubborn!! *bites* Anyway hope you update again soon my sweet, this story is really one of your best! ^.^