Chapter Text
"it has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.” – Chaos Theory
×××
It was a hot night for Hell's Kitchen, New York. The sweltering heat seemed to linger most inside the office of Dameron and Walker. The air conditioning unit was broken, and the fans were on their last legs, so instead they fanned their sweat away with spare sheets of paper.
Rey had busied herself with solving their accounting issues. They were a few overdue notices away from being shut down and she had been using fake email accounts to use free trials of an accounting programme. She was worried that they were reaching the end of their tether. Finn was drinking coffee while going through some contracts and Poe was still eating the Chinese takeout he had bought for everyone, but he was too busy with work to eat while it was still fresh.
There was a heavy knock at their door. Rey looked up, seeing a dark outline of a figure through the frosted glass. She got up quickly, smoothing down her pencil skirt before opening the door. It was a somewhat short pale man, dark blond hair and a scowl that didn't seem to change at her presence.
"Dameron and Walker?" He asked gruffly.
"We're not open..." Rey started. She looked back, seeing Finn glance up from his desk. They hadn't had a client, at least not a money-paying client in a while. They couldn't afford to turn someone down right now. "What can we do for you, Mr...."
"Gunn. Zeke Gunn."
"Come in."
She opened the door wide enough to let him in before shutting closed behind him. She gestured towards the small but private meeting room, and Gunn sat down without a word. Finn and Poe were already shuffling papers away on their desks and entered the meeting room. Rey quickly grabbed her notebook and pen before joining them and closing the door behind her. They all settled down, making their introductions brief.
"I, uh. I don't know where to start," Gunn said quickly.
"How can we help Mr. Gunn?" Poe offered. He twirled a pen in his hand before putting the capped end in his mouth.
"Fifteen men, tough Irish. Armed. All of them blown away. It was a massacre." They exchanged glances. The Kitchen Irish weren't a gang to be messed with, along with the rest of the gangs that resided in Hell's Kitchen. They looked back at Gunn. "We weren't hit by any rival family there. We were hit by an army."
Poe leaned back, pulling out the chewed pen from his mouth. "That's quite a story."
"It's a fact. And believe me, you can go see for yourself. Burren Club, forty-seventh and tenth. Can't miss it," he said sardonically. "It's the part of New York that looks like a goddamn war zone."
"What's your... Involvement in their organization?" Finn asked in an uncomfortable tone.
"I've run with them for a long time. I don't deny it. Pick-ups, drop-offs, sometimes doing things I shouldn't be." He let out a heavy breath, shaking his head. "No question, I'm, I'm no choir boy. I'm tellin' ya, I just skirt the surface. Unlike the men I work for, and the guys that did this. I'm telling ya, I had nothing to do with that massacre."
"Assuming you're correct and the Irish were hit by a powerful crime syndicate tonight if you're the only one who survived, your good fortune's gonna rub some dangerous people the wrong way," Poe said, pointing his pen around as he spoke.
"No shit!" Gunn growled. "I got a pack of killers gunning for my men. My people think I'm a traitor or a rat."
"So, what can Dameron and Walker do for you?" Rey asked.
"Witness protection. You guys need to get me the hell out of here before I end up in the only place hotter than this."
"We're a private law firm." Finn pointed out, narrowing his eyes at Gunn.
"Yeah, a trustworthy one. Quite a reputation too, helping people who can't afford it."
He was right. But they were barely holding up with the little payments their usual clients could give. Dameron and Walker wouldn't last long without a good client and although Gunn wasn't the usual good working class types, it didn't look like they had much of a choice.
"The DA's office is the only place that can make a deal," Finn explained slowly, as Gunn hadn't quite understood his previous statement.
"Yeah, I'm not walking to the DA without representation." Gunn leaned forward. "I know a lot. I seen a lot. I'll give the cops anything to get me out of Hell's Kitchen."
"Well, we have a reputation for representing the good people of Hell's Kitchen, not for negotiating on behalf of career criminals." Finn folded his arms, shaking his head at Poe.
"What if a criminal wants to change his career? A second chance, that's all I want. I know I'm only coming here with my word. I got nobody to vouch for me, but I can barely cover your fee. But word is that Dameron and Walker put their faith in people." He looked at Rey, who seemed to have some sympathy for the man. "And I need a little of that right now. Please."
Rey looked at Finn and Poe no doubt expressing herself. Finn shook his head, but Poe placed a hand over his mouth in deliberation.
"Lie low," Poe said finally. "We'll look into it. You have somewhere you can stay?"
There was a silence and they watched as Gunn became a sickening shade of white before he slid off his chair and collapsed onto the floor.
"Jesus."
Rey rushed towards the man, Finn and Poe stood up warily. Rey crouched beside him, going to check his pulse and hoping there wasn't a dead man on their office floor. Her eyes caught the red stain on his shirt. She pulled away the leather jacket to reveal the blood staining his shirt.
"Hey, guys? Guys, he's bleeding."
×
"We got a couple of questions, Rose."
Finn and Poe had decided to chase down the only lead they had got from Gunn, and they needed to corroborate his story. Rey had decided to stay with Gunn at the hospital, amke sure that he lied low and remained in the hospital to get the care he needed when he awoke.
"If you're here to chase ambulances, you might notice there are none," Rose said grimly.
Yeah, no shit. There were bodies being wheeled off in every direction, bags with bloody hands and legs being tagged and carried off into a van. The entire scene outside was covered with cops to keep out civilians which had grouped around the area. Hell's Kitchen had never looked so grim in all its time.
"Any leads on what happened?" Finn asked, with a flirty smile. Poe looked at him with a raised brow and Finn shrugged.
"Oh, you wanna know what went down?" She asked in a sarcastically light voice. "Read about it in the papers like everybody else."
"We're not everybody else, Tico." Poe said.
She threw her hands up slightly and started to walk away. "You know I can't talk about an active crime scene."
"What if hypothetically speaking we may have recently acquired a new client that could help shed some light on this investigation?" Finn asked quickly.
She stopped in her tracks, narrowing her eyes as she turned back to face him. "How recent?"
"Farm fresh."
"Was he here?"
"Client privilege." Poe said matter-of-factly.
"Well, if that was true hypothetically speaking, I'd tell you that withholding your client from the NYPD would be obstructing governmental administration, and I'd probably just arrest your ass myself."
"In theory." Finn grinned.
"I guess we really can't help each other after all." She shrugged.
"I help you, you help me? That's all we want."
She looked around, untucking her necklace to hold it as she deliberated. "There's a total clampdown on any of this getting out to the press. I'd like to keep it that way."
"Rose, you can trust us. We're lawyers."
She looked at the crowd of people that were building up and then over at forensics. She tucked her necklace away and sighed. "Come with me over here. Come on." She pulled up the tape, letting them through before heading beside her car. "DA's going bat shit trying to figure it out. This isn't the first hit that matches this MO. Call it massive gang-on-gang overkill. Downtown office thinks we got new players in Hell's Kitchen, and whoever they are, we're talking some kind of paramilitary-type organization with the training, knowledge and hardware to take out half the city."
"What do they want?" Poe asked curiously.
"That's what's driving the DA nuts," Rose said in a hushed voice. "We don't know who they are. We just know who they're not."
"I'd say they're definitely not fond of the Irish," Finn said wryly. "This is worse than what happened to the Dogs of Hell."
"We got history," she said, digging a finger into Finn's shoulder. "So, I'll tell you as a friend, you stay out of this shit. If you got a witness, the smart move is to turn him over and walk away." She looked back over at the crowd that continued to grow. "Hell's Kitchen is about to explode."