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The rain fell heavy and hard across the wide corrugated steel roof of a downtown factory. The scantest source of light hid in its bowels, tucked away in a tiny room above the mammoth machines on the shop floor, built like still-life behemoths waiting to lurch to life once more the coming morning. The light in question came from a dim yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling, illuminating a heavy figure sitting behind a foreman's desk and the lower half of a man standing near the door. The shadows were sharp as razors, framing the figure at a slant across his ribcage and catching the faint wisps of smoke from a cigarette that glowed eerily in the unlit portion of his frame. The man behind the foreman's desk was a heavy-set individual, but not one without a commensurate amount of strength to embody him as a large and fearsome presence. He sat, chomping at a cigar while staring at the figure across from him in silence, glowering and contemplating the words that must be spoken, but not spoken poorly.

"He needs to be made a Gospel," the hog gruffly stated, his eyes diverted to the desk in front of him. He knew the magnitude of his declaration, and glanced, eyes upturned past furrowed brow at the shaded figure before him. "There's no way around it. He fucked the wrong man over, and I want an example to be made." The statement elicited little more than a brief brightening at the tip of the cigarette held between the lips of the shadowed figure, the orange light illuminating his sharp Doberman features, ebony fur accented by several scars across his muzzle and cheek. There was a long pause as he exhaled a stream of smoke that curled and twisted in the yellow light that had not yet revealed him.

"Who else is working this?" The voice was of a timbre akin to the earth sliding across itself, coarse and low. The hog, momentarily pausing to rub at his tusks, eyes averted, took a few moments before replying.

"Maude and Viceroy," he muttered. The figure at the door scoffed, taking another long drag from the cigarette.

"So you want him to make _that_kind of choice," the shadowed man intoned darkly, lifting the cigarette from his lips and ashing it on the floor of the office. "How much lean do I have on this, either side?"

The hog looked slightly irritated by his companion's disregard for the cleanliness of his office; though a boar, he was no pig. He sighed, his expression softening, and leaned into the high-backed leather chair, looking out the window of the office as rivulets of wind-whipped water danced across the dingy panes of glass.

"As much as you need." He shook his head in what could only be construed as disappointment, lips pursed. "Christ, after all I've done for that kid, he pulls this shit." A few moments of silent staring and the hog abruptly slammed a fist against the heavy desk. "Fuckin' prick kid," he roared, suddenly pointing a finger at the Doberman, "I fuckin' paid for his wedding. Did you fuckin' know that? He made me Godfather to his fuckin' son, and then he goes and does this?"

"Solomon," the Doberman said sternly, stepping out from his partially obscured position to a spot directly under the light to reveal the visage of ice-blue eyes, one accented by a long vertical scar; it was part of a set of four, each progressively running farther down the bridge of his nose, "he made his choices. Who knows what kind of damage control we're going to have to run on this. This is the beginning of the whole shit-storm, and the body count is only going to go up once we take care of bunny-boy downstairs."

Solomon shook his head once more, muttering quite a number of "fucks" under his breath, and glanced up at his grim companion.

"He's in the basement. Make his choices clear to him. Call me when you need a clean-up crew," he muttered, producing from his dress-shirt pocket a burner phone that he placed upon a stack of invoices haphazardly strewn across the mahogany desk. Without a single word, the Doberman stepped forward, took the phone, and slipped out of the office as if he had never been there.

It was no mistake that he had a dog in this fight. Poor decisions, born of fear or desperation, often led him to peoples' doorsteps. This situation was somewhat different from the norm; he knew the kid, but it was still business. He descended the stairs from the office, amid the deafening roar of rain across the roof, and proceeded down to the shop floor, tossing the butt of his cigarette off into some dim corner as he made his way to the storage area of the factory. Despite his naturally dour demeanor, one could easily mistake him in his suit and tie, his long confident strides, for a simple businessman having an exceptionally average day. He silently contemplated the morass of collateral damage he was about to create when his work was done here. As he rounded a corner and descended the stairs to the concrete tombs below the factory, he couldn't help but feel oddly wistful. All those summer barbeques and birthday parties, and it comes to this. In a few short hours, Johnathan J. Stanton's name would be stricken from any records and forgotten by all who knew him that dwelled within these dim, dark places. He would become nothing more than an addition to the many sordid secrets these dusty old walls kept but never spoke of. These secrets were in no small part a credit to his work as a "consultant" within the Org. Pausing at the bottom of the steps, he tugged at the edges of his sports coat, straightened his tie, and proceeded inward; the groan of the large steel door heralded his arrival into another nightmare.

Fluorescent lights droned and flickered above the room, ten by ten by nine, that Johnathan was held in. The light cast a sterile blue glow across everything, complementing the lingering smell of disinfectant, stale blood, and piss. Sitting at one side of a stainless steel table, handcuffed to his own chair and already worked over to a sufficient level of discomfort by the grunts he formerly knew as friends, drinking buddies, and confidants, he waited for one of the only things he could imagine coming his way. Sure enough, the door creaked open, and in stepped Francis. Of course, he typically preferred "Frank," but people close to him knew him as Francis Bernholdt. Francis, of course, was not a pleasant sight for Johnathan's sore, battered eyes; at least the eye that wasn't swollen shut. His stomach dropped, and his eyes followed suit, staring at the polished steel table in front of him. He lifted the hand that wasn't chained to a chair to wipe away the blood that slowly oozed from one of his nostrils.

"Fuck me, Francis, they're making you do this?" Johnathan muttered. Frank simply closed the door behind him, standing and staring at Johnathan with his hands in his pockets. The kid hadn't changed one iota in the decade Frank had known him. Short in stature, if you don't count those rabbit ears, he couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall on a good day. Those brown eyes of his, at least the one Frank could see, still held the same weight and sorrow that they did so long ago. It was the shine, Frank thought, that's what's different. It was gone, and this kid went with it. There was a long silence, interrupted only by the occasional sniff from Johnathan. After what felt like an eternity, Frank sighed and sat down across from Johnathan, leaning on his elbows and lacing his fingers together as he peered at his captive.

"They're not making me do anything. This is what I get paid for, remember? And you --" he said with a chuckle and a wag of a finger, "-- just so happened to land on the bad side of one of the most important men in this town." There was just a hint of a pause, and he leaned back in his seat, hands dropping to his sides. "I can't help but feel sorry for you, John," he muttered as he shook his head. Any trace of levity left his face in that moment. "Not only did you think that you could fuck Solomon over, but you thought you could get away with it. Do you know what that means?"

"I know, I know I fucked up, but fuck, man, it was my only way out. I'm trying to raise a family. This is no life for them," Johnathan sputtered, spit and blood forming a rather unflattering string down his chin as he fought back choking sobs. Frank seemed entirely unphased, barely shifting his position in the chair, but something was stirring. He remembered John's 29thbirthday. Not so long ago, now_. It was a pool party. Beers and brats. Deborah wore a one-piece from some fancy designer. Telling stories, playing with John's kids. Cindy's only four and smart as a whip. She's going to break hearts someday. Damn, Paul is growing like a weed. How old is he now? No shit, nine?_ How far they'd come from the alleyways and street corners that shaped them. Junkies, thieves, prostitutes... some truly were victims of circumstance. He remembered looking into those sunken eyes, set in a dirty face that looked up at him as he passed. The poor, half-frozen girl that clung to John's side, clothes tattered and torn; she could have just as easily been a corpse were it not for the shakes that rattled her strung-out, meager frame. Frank broke from his reverie with a sharp sigh. He lifted a hand, inspecting the well-manicured claws of each digit.

"You know what I'm here for," Frank said after a few long moments, "and I wish it was as simple as killing you in the fashion that I'm accustomed to," he lamented, drawing a silver cigarette case from a jacket pocket and withdrawing a single one, tapping the filter against the stainless steel table a few times before placing it between his lips. His eyes flicked over to the battered rabbit across from him.

"You want one?" he inquired, offering the silver case in an outstretched hand. John, who had been barely holding himself together up to this point, choked out a sob. Tears welling up in his eyes, he stared straight back into Frank's icy blues.

"Those thing's'll fuckin' kill ya, you know." Frank could only crack smile at that, but that wit, in that particular moment, wounded him beyond reason. It was something so familiar and dear to him previously, but that busted lip, the swollen eye... it was only the echo of a ghost now.

"Don't I know it."

He'd always been partial to John. He was great at moving product. Always did it by the book. He was a smart kid; he just wasn't smart enough. John took one of the cigarettes anyways, as Frank produced a box of matches and lit his own before sliding them across the table. He took a long drag as he looked long and hard at Johnathan, poor Johnathan, and finally exhaled.

"You're to be made a Gospel," he murmured, twisting the cigarette between his fingers, eyes averted. The finality of the situation settled upon his erstwhile friend. This news struck him in such a fashion that he froze, his rigid body finally giving way to a quivering lip. He shakily took a hit of his cigarette and licked at his split and bloodied lips.

"How bad is this gonna be, Frank?"

"You've been given an option on how this goes down. Two choices:" he declared before a pause, "either I kill you, and your family is forced to watch a video of your prolonged and very unpleasant murder before being killed themselves," he stated to matter-of-factly, "or," he said, accented by a rather forceful gesture of a single upturned finger, evoking trial lawyers and prosecutorial fashions, "... you kill them, and take your own life." You could almost hear Johnathan's spirit break in that moment, and silent sobs slowly loosed their bonds from his chest and choked him for quite some time while Frank looked on. "I'd strongly recommend you take the latter option. Maude and Viceroy are on this one, and you know how Viceroy gets," he leaned against the table on one elbow, cigarette trapped between his lips. "Remember what he did to that pusher who was skimming off the top? What was her name again?" Fingers were snapped a few times before he leveled an index finger in Johnathan's direction. "Naomi, that was it." He tsked a few times, shaking his head. "Such a shame. She really only stole about five, maybe ten grand over the course of the year. It's kind of amazing that Solomon even found out about it." He leaned even farther in, staring intently at Johnathan who seemed entirely too wracked by the enormity of his situation to even register the story Frank was reciting. "However, it's even more amazing that they found enough of her to bury." He let that sink in for a good bit of time before finally leaning back in his chair. "Do the right thing by your family, John. It should be you that does it."

Johnathan doubled over in his chair, his grief finally pouring out of him in agonized screams punctuated by bitter sobs. Frank took a final drag of his cigarette before snuffing it out in the metal ashtray at one end of the table, a silent and stoic figure amidst the wails of a broken man. This would only be the second time in his career where he didn't enjoy his line of work.