"We're not children here. The law is-how should I put it? A convenience. Or a convenience for some people, and an inconvenience for other people. Like, take the law that says you can't go into someone else's housel have a house, so, hey, I like that law. The guy without a house-what's he think of it? Stay out in the rain, schnook. That's what the law means to him." ~ Paul Castellano.
Vale, present day.
Saphron stared into her empty glass trying to contemplate Jaune's tale.
His story… it couldn't be real. It just couldn't, it defied all sense of logic, it defied everything she understood about her one and only brother.
The strong whiskey had gone to her head. Her goofy little brother. Jaune. He couldn't have done all these things, he just couldn't have. But she could see that he had changed, even the way he talked, she didn't pick up on it at first but the way he spoke, the way he carried himself. It was all different, it was like someone pretending to be her brother was here in front of her.
"You want me to freshen that up for you?" Jaune asked her as he dropped the burnt cigar into the ashtray to burn itself out.
She realized that she had been staring into the bottom of the glass for far too long and shook her head to him.
"No… I think I've had enough," she said, looking up at him and setting the glass down on his polished wood desk. "I shouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach anyhow." She told him, regretting that the room service she had ordered back at her hotel had probably found an empty room.
He smiled at her and stood up from his leather chair. How could a criminal smile so innocently? How could a murderer look at her like that?
"How about I cook you up a steak?" He suggested as he stretched out and walked around his desk and out the door. "This butcher shop that pays me protection just gifted me some wonderful looking ribeyes."
She took a moment before standing up and following him into the kitchen where he got to work. She watched as he set out a cast iron skillet onto the burners and rummaged in the fridge for two slabs of beef. She had to admit to herself that they did look delectable.
"There's no need to be so quiet, I know you have questions for me sis," he told her as she poured some olive oil into the cast iron and turned the heat on. "Go ahead… ask away."
That was an understatement. So many times she wanted to stop his story to ask him about everything he was telling her but just as she had one question she found herself with another. Listening seemed to be all she could do as he told her his gritty tale. And what's more, she wondered if she could stomach the answers to her questions.
But now with Jaune asking her to begin some kind of interrogation it was like a dam opening for her and she couldn't contain herself.
"Why are you telling me all of this!?" She burst out trying to imagine her little brother beating people to a bloody pulp, imagining him stealing, imagining him shooting two people in cold blood.
"You're family… and you deserve to know the truth," he answered her plainly.
"And how do I know that this is the truth!?" She spat angrily slamming her fist down on the marble counter.
"Do you think I'd lie about this Saph?" He asked her as he pulled salt and spices from the counter to apply to the steak. "If I was interested in lying to you I'd say something like I won the lottery or that I got a job working for some stock broker and made some smart and lucky investments."
"You think I would have believed any of that?" she asked him, finding that lie to be ridiculous.
"Would it have been that difficult compared to the truth?" He retorted with a frank look as he sprinkled salt and pepper onto the well marbled meat.
She crossed her arms. She supposed he was right, if he had told her that all this money had come from some respectable means she wouldn't have questioned him too much. She would have eagerly believed it over what he was telling her. "I suppose not," she bitterly admitted as she leaned against the counter watching the oil in the skillet begin to simmer.
She released a sigh as she bucked up the strength for her next question. "Why did you take that offer from Ozpin?" She asked him. "Why didn't you just… come home, or come to Argus to be with me?"
Her brother looked over at her and his gaze hardened. "And admit to you all that I was all right? That I wasn't cut out to be a huntsman?" He asked her. "Admit to dad that he was right about me being too soft?"
"Would that have been so bad!?" She asked motioning around her to the penthouse. "You gave that all up anyhow so it doesn't seem that doing all of this helped you. You said you didn't do it for the money but from this ivory tower of yours it's kind of hard to believe!"
His blue eyes narrowed at her as he set the first steak onto the cast iron. The meat sizzled and Saphron couldn't deny that in all her hunger it smelled divine.
"You really think I did this for the money?" He asked her, the hurt in his voice was evident.
"No… I'm sorry but this is a lot to take in Jaune, you're telling me you helped arm the people that did this!" She motioned around, as if they could see the damage to the city left from the attack. "You supplied dust to the White Fang… how can you live with that?" She asked him, she needed to know how he could justify that of all things.
"I stopped them," Jaune said firmly. "And right now the construction Unions that the Valean Mafia controls are currently rebuilding all the damage from their attack. That's where a lot of this money has been coming in from sis."
"So you're profiting from the destruction you helped cause!" she said finding the idea nauseating to even think about.
"This wasn't what I wanted, Saph," he said sadly to her as he watched the steak sizzling in the cast iron. "But it's where this path took me, I never wanted any of this but I did the best with the hand I was dealt."
"You told me when this all started that you wouldn't choose to have done anything differently. Is that true? When did you give up on the dream of being a huntsman? Of being a hero? When did you decide that it was alright to hurt people for money!?" She asked him sadly.
"I saved this city," he told her. "And I've come to see that huntsmen aren't heroes, they're just people with a license to kill."
That horrified her. How could he say such a thing? How could he even think that? As far back as she could remember Jaune always wanted to be a huntsman, they were his heroes. Her father, their father, was a huntsman. But to hear Jaune put it so plainly like that, to strip them down in such a way, it was almost sacrilege.
"You're breaking the law!" She argued with him.
"Laws are just pieces of paper drawn up by the wealthy and powerful," he told her, flipping the steak onto its other side. "And believe me those rules don't apply to the ones who make them. They only apply to those dumb enough to obey."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "And what makes you different from those lawmakers you say ignore the rules?" She asked him.
"Those with wealth and power get to ignore the rules because they're wealthy and powerful and it keeps them wealthy and powerful," Jaune answered flatly. "Guys like Roman and I break the rules so we can get that kind of wealth and power, we don't let those rules keep us in line."
"That's a flimsy difference," she told him, clenching her fists.
Jaune chuckled. "Oh I know sis… but you have to understand that Roman and me are no different than anyone who has power. We're no different than Ozpin or General Ironwood or any other council member."
"Those people don't murder anyone!" Saphron growled to him.
He gave her a deadpan look and she immediately understood just how stupid she was for saying that.
"Don't be naive Saph," he told her with a shake of his head.
She sighed and watched as he put the steak onto a plate for her and put his own onto the skillet to cook. "You're right Jaune but… I remember reading about those dust robberies… I have no love for the SDC but a lot of innocent shop owners had their business ruined. And now you're telling me about it as if you're almost… as if you're almost proud of what you did."
"I didn't like that part of the job I won't lie," he admitted to her as he took a bottle of wine from a rack and proceeded to open it. "Some people got hurt and I'm not proud of that fact, but some of those dust shops were just a part of the operation."
"What do you mean?" She asked him with a raised eyebrow.
"Think about it," Jaune told her. "Do you think there were really that many dust shops in Vale? Not too many people use the stuff, not the kind we were stealing anyways. A lot of those were mob owned and they let Roman and I steal the stuff and then collected the insurance money. And guess who they were insured by?"
"The SDC," she said, finding the idea actually somewhat amusing herself. "That's devious."
"This business is a web of rackets," he explained. "Hell, one dust shop that was under Roman's protection had me and my crew rob it five diffrent times. The fifth time he wanted us to start a fire and he was able to collect all that insurance money and retire. I remember reading an article in the paper about how sad it was to see that little dust shop abused and destroyed. I laughed reading it because I knew the owner was actually on some beach in Vacuo sipping mai tai's and working on his tan. I won't deny that people got hurt but since then I've tried doing whatever I can to keep my business from hurting the little guy."
She nodded as she took a seat at the table with her juicy looking steak. "Alright… I won't say that I like this Jaune… because I don't but… I think I can at least see how you got stuck in this… I just wish you would have decided to turn away."
"Believe me sis there were hundreds of times I just wanted to leave and go home." He told her as he set down a glass of red wine to go with her meal. "But the moment Lil Miss Malachite revealed that she knew where I grew up and that you and Terra were in Argus I knew that wasn't an option."
"Did they ever directly threaten us?" she asked him wearily.
"No," Jaune told her with a shake of his head. "They never threatened you guys but they didn't need to for me to understand that if I just turned tail and ran they'd have a way to find me and the rest of our family."
"What was Ozpin planning on doing about that?" She asked, wondering if he had reforged his connection with the now late headmaster and councilman.
"Not a damn thing," Jaune told her, plopping his own steak onto the plate and approaching the table to take his seat. "You need to understand sis… I was a pawn, just a piece to get a reaction and sacrifice. Ozpin didn't give a shit about me, and he wasn't going to ever make me a huntsman. He just spoon fed me the shit I wanted to hear and like the idiot I gobbled it right up. My biggest regret is that I didn't see it sooner."
She looked at her brother as he held his fork in his left hand and steak knife in the right. She finally risked a look and saw that indeed the left pinky finger was shorter than it should be. But more than that he wore a gold ring with a shield emblem of two dragons, one gold, one black.
A symbol of the Torchwick family like her brother had described Roman wearing beneath his gloves.
He really had cut off a piece of himself in penance. Because that headmaster wouldn't have let him quit when he had the chance. If even half of what Jaune had told her was true then it seemed the person that she wanted to blame the most was already dead.
She cut into her steak and saw that it was a perfect medium rare. She took one savory bite and had to contain a moan of delight as she tasted the tender meat and felt the bits of fat melt in her mouth. "Did you really shack up with a pair of twins?" She asked him, that part of his story at least seemed like an exaggeration to her. Jaune was always awkward with women.
"They just wanted some home cooked meals," Jaune told her with a proud smirk. "Believe me it wasn't like I was spending every night with them. Neo wasn't the only date they brought back to their apartment, try making breakfast for some stranger who stayed the night with them. I may have only been a friend with benefits to them but that was still awkward."
"Did you stay there for very long?" She asked, carving another bite out of the juicy steak.
"No I found a place of my own, not long after," Jaune explained, cutting his own slab of meat.
They fell into silence as they ate, the sound of cutlery on the plates and the simple sounds of eating and drinking was the only sound that permeated the air around them. As much as Saphron wanted to continue asking her little brother questions about his new life as a hardened criminal her hunger was a more pressing matter. And it gave her time to consider her questions and size up this new and unexpected Jaune.
It was only when she had consumed half of her steak did she set her fork and knife down to even bother touching her wine glass. It was pretty good stuff, not that she knew anything about wine. She usually let Terra pick out what they were going to be drinking with dinner.
She looked around at the penthouse her brother was occupying. It certainly was nice but she was sure it would be easier to appreciate if she knew that it wasn't paid for by unsavory business.
"So… you got a maid to clean all of this for you?" She asked him idly as she swirled the wine around in her glass.
Jaune chuckled as he cut the tender meat around the bone. "Mobsters don't exactly do maids," he explained to her. "When you're in this business you can't risk having anyone hang around to overhear something they shouldn't or plant a bug. I keep it nice and clean myself."
She chuckled at that. "You're a mobster with millions and you have to scrub the toilets?" She asked him, finding the image in her mind humorous.
"Most wiseguys marry someone that knows how to cook and clean," he explained to her with a laugh. "I do both, though Neo helps around where she can."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "So… you two live here together?" She asked him.
He nodded with a happy little smirk. "We do," he told her as he picked up his wine glass.
"So where is she?" she asked him.
"She's handling some business," he explained to her. "It's taking longer than expected… I thought she'd be back by now to meet you?"
"What kind of business?" She asked him, wondering if she wanted to know.
Jaune just laughed. "It's nothing nefarious I promise you," he assured her.
"So what is it?" She asked, figuring that if it wasn't anything bad then there was no reason he couldn't at least tell her what it was.
Jaune just smiled. "Just because it's perfectly legal Saph doesn't mean that it isn't private."
She sighed and took another delicate sip of her wine. "So you won't trust a maid but you're telling me all about your dirty laundry. What if I decided to go to the police and tell them everything you've told me?"
He gave her a long look as he finished dicing his remaining bit of steak. "I'm not worried about that," he told her confidently.
"Why?" She asked him.
"Because we're family and that means something. Because I'm sure that by the time I finish telling you all about how I got here you'll see things from my perspective. And because it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference if you did." He told her plainly.
"What do you mean Jaune?" She asked him with a raised eyebrow.
"I mean that the Vale Council and Roman have an agreement," he told her firmly. "They don't exactly trust each other and I wouldn't want them to know all about my story… but right now they know who the real power is on the streets of this town. It's better for everybody if someone can keep a leash on the criminals in this town."
"And that's you and Roman," she stated, understanding what he was talking about.
"It is… this city has been broken for a long time sis. And now that everyone can see the cracks they know that the true power here is the mob, and we're the only thing keeping this city together." He told her as he took down the last few juicy bites of steak.
"What about the huntsmen?" She asked him.
"Huntsmen are just mercenaries," he explained. "They're hired guns and monster slayers, they don't understand business. And it's business that's rebuilding this town brick by brick, not huntsmen… well except headmistress Goodwitch but she's certainly the exception that proves the rule."
"Does she know about this little… arrangement?" She asked him.
"It was her idea," Jaune told her with a proud little smirk.
That was horrifying to think about. The very people who were supposed to be seeing that this country was safeguarded were making under the table deals with powerful criminals. But to think that her own brother was one of those criminals was difficult to comprehend.
"Let me ask you a question of my own sis," Jaune said, picking up his plate and bringing it over to the sink to rinse off. "What do you think the mafia is?"
That question caught her off guard. She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again when she realized that she didn't quite know how to answer him. She'd watched gangster movies before sure but that was hardly what Jaune had described. She remembered after the Fall of Beacon the government officials in a press conference addressing the rumors of criminals fighting the grimm and the White Fang. They had flatly denied that any such thing had happened, they had even denied that there was some kind of country wide criminal conspiracy. But it seemed that Jaune knew better than her.
"I don't know… some criminal fraternity?" She asked him lamely.
Jaune chuckled as he placed the dish into the washer and moved to grab her now empty plate. "That's not wrong," he told her. "But it's more than just that sis… we govern criminals. And right now this city would be in chaos without us. The council and Goodwitch need us to keep things in line for them. They can't stop crime, but we can restrain it for them, control it to degree even. Keep it respectable. My business might be bad, evil even… but as far as Goodwitch and the council see things… we're a necessary evil."
She took up her wineglass as he washed her plate. When he put it like that it didn't sound so bad. It was about controlling what couldn't be controlled by other means. Perhaps if it had been anyone else telling her this she would have scoffed and called them a liar or deluded.
But this was her brother. This was Jaune. He wasn't some thug or bully. He was a gentle man, he was the guy that always tried putting himself between the school bullies and their prey. And he always got thrashed for it.
That was why she had hated the idea of being a huntsman. He wasn't gruff and confident like their dad. But that was what made this so hard to swallow. But then again, when had she ever known her little brother to give up on anything? Or to be cruel?
"I'm still having a lot of trouble digesting this Jaune," she told him. "Or should I call you Gent or Gentleman?"
"I'm your little brother Saph… you can call me Jaune," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest. "And I know I'm dropping a lot on you at the moment. This can't be easy for you to process."
"You… you murdered two people," she said quietly. Finally voicing what bothered her the most.
"I did," he admitted with a nod. "Those two and more… but it's not like huntsmen never kill anyone."
"That's different!" She protested to him.
"How?" He asked her.
"I… I don't know. But if you had stayed in Beacon you'd still be in classes… not assassinating drug dealers and gang leaders." She protested.
"If I stayed in Beacon I could be dead right now after what happened." Jaune told her. "If I didn't do what I did then a whole mess of people would be dead."
"So you killed people to save lives!?" She asked him angrily, feeling herself getting heated once more.
"Yes!" Jaune told her firmly, looking her straight in the eyes. "I don't like it, Saph… I still get nightmares about it. But I need you to believe me that I never once shed blood without reason. I never killed anyone that didn't need to be killed."
That took the wind out of her sails. There was no lie or deceit to his words. Jaune may have gotten here on lies but as much as she wanted to believe that there was some deception here she couldn't see any. He was her little brother, she knew when he was lying, even if she wanted to believe that he was.
At least she hoped that she did.
"I… I think I need to hear more of the story," She said, picking up her wine glass and taking a sip. She needed to hear the rest of this story, she owed him that much. Her brother at least deserved to be heard out before she passed her judgement.
"I agree," Jaune said, taking up his own glass and leading her into the living room where a nice comfortable couch was there for her next to a fireplace that was already lit. She took a seat and looked over at the end table where a framed picture rested.
She picked it up and examined it while Jaune threw a few fresh logs onto the fire. With winter fast approaching it was a little drafty and she was pleased that the living room was warm, unlike that office where he had begun telling her the story.
The picture was of Jaune, dressed up in a suit and getting his cheek kissed by a short neapolitan haired girl who was having to stand up on her tippy toes to reach him. So this was Neo, Jaune had mentioned that she was short but it was strange seeing it on display. To Jaune's left a ginger haired man with a cane was plopping down his feathered bowler hat onto her brother's head as if a joke. She supposed that was Roman Torchwick given Jaune's description of him.
But most impressive to her was the other figure in the picture. A greying old man with a charming smile and demeanor. She recognized the face of the famous singer Franky Martin. In the bottom corner he had written a message.
To the owner of the Moonstone Club, you're a bigshot now and don't you ever forget it. You'll always have my voice here. Love Franky Martin.
"Mom would flip if she saw this picture, you know that right?" She asked him.
Jaune chuckled as he took a seat in a chair. "Believe me I know… I've considered maybe asking Franky to play a show for her sometime." He said to her with a grin. "What do you think?"
"I think you'd become her uncontested favorite kid if you did that," she joked, putting the picture down.
"So that's Neo… I'll admit that she's beautiful. I'm now starting to think that you might have stayed with the mob for the girl," she commented.
"I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a factor in my decision," he admitted. "Neo and I had our number of ups and downs through this but… I'm just happy that we managed to eventually make things work out."
She nodded, she could at least be happy that he found a girl. Maybe not a nice girl exactly but she could tell from his stories that he did care about her at least.
"Was that taken the night you opened the Moonstone Club?" She asked him, ready to get back to the story. She wanted to hear about how the club, about Neo and Blake and how the rest happened. How he went from a panicking boy on the Vale docks to the person she saw today.
Jaune shook his head. "Remember when Roman said he'd straighten me out? I didn't know what he meant by that at first but that was taken the night it happened. That picture was taken the night I got made."