Page 104 of Mean Machine

Brooklyn stepped closer. “What isn’t?”

Joseph looked calmly up and closed his laptop. “Hey, Brook, why don’t you get yourself a drink and join us?”

Brooklyn glanced at Cash, but the man pulled up his shoulders and nodded. “All right.” He went back to the counter, noticed that Cash and Joseph weren’t talking at all now, and Cash looked positively unhappy. Brooklyn studied the overly complex menu, with his dozens of extra options, but went with an enormous iced tea, rejected all offers of adding syrups to it, and then added one of those cheese sandwiches.

His body would quite happily have eaten two or three of those, but Joseph would murder him if he did. Team Mean Machine had grown by a number of specialists since the big win, but Joseph still oversaw every detail, including what Brooklyn ate and how many hours he slept per night on average. He’d think poorly about eating what was essentially highly processed dairy and highly processed carbs with zero nutritional value.

Once he’d picked up his food and drink, he joined Cash and Joseph. He carefully pulled the two wedges of sandwich apart with his fingers, his mouth watering at the smell and sight of the cheese strings forming between both. He gave an apologetic grin to Joseph, then with no small amount of pleasure, took his first bite. “So, what’s going on? What’s not sustainable?”

Joseph crossed his arms in front of his chest but waved one hand to prompt Cash to speak.

“Well, I spent some time looking at the press, and….” Cash inhaled deeply, held that breath, and let it out in a rush. “A bunch of people have sold their stories to the press. They didn’t even, you know, contact us and ask for some money to keep their mouth shut.”

Brooklyn set the sandwich down. “Shelley?”

Cash gave him a quizzical look but shook his head. “No. Flackett. Claimed all kinds of nonsense about you, including that you were violent towards him, groped him, that kind of shit.”

Brooklyn groaned. “The fucker.”

“Did you?” Joseph’s voice was calm and deathly cool.

“I wasn’t. No. Not that I can remember. I might have… flirted with him in a fucked-up way, but with Curtis around, I’d not overstep that line.”

“Good. Want to sue the bastard?”

Oh, it was tempting. The money wasn’t the issue. He had enough money to sue Les right against the wall and make him regret he’d ever thought opening his mouth had been a good idea. “I don’t want this guy to think he has anything on me. I don’t want him to see I’m twitching, even though this is bullshit.”

Joseph nodded. “We’ll get in touch with the paper and send them a statement. They might not run it, but we’ll keep it nice and impersonal. ‘Team Mean Machine doesn’t recognise this version of events.’”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Anything else?”

“Well.” This time, Cash seemed just a bit more nervous. “Your father has been ranting in the press about how ungrateful you are.”

It took Brooklyn everything he had to not jump up and flip the table, laptop, phones, and everything else. His face had grown cold, and an icy, nasty feeling was churning deep in his gut. He blinked, tried to even name it, but all he could come up with was hatred. “He has?”

Joseph reached out and placed a hand on Brooklyn’s arm. “Yes. He didn’t get many takers, but some shitty rag ran the story about how you’ve forgotten where you come from, and your old man gave them the pull quote.”

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Brooklyn said, his breath choking in his chest.

Joseph tried to make eye contact, but Brooklyn stared at his hands on the table. They’d formed fists, his scarred knuckles white under his skin, and he wished he could get them on the man who had the gall to call himself his father. “Yes, Brook, I’ve been there too. You got every right to be upset.”

“Upset?” He looked up, his eyes burning, almost expected Joseph to flinch back, but there was something in Joseph’s steady gaze that told him that indeed, Joseph knew about this too. Maybe that was why Joseph had turned out to be such a hardarse. He’d got the belt too. A lot. His eyes were burning, but it wasn’t tears.

Joseph’s hand grew heavier. “He can’t hurt you anymore. You earned that money, and he has no claims to it. He’s nothing but a bitter old wanker who fucked up his own life and can’t stand anybody doing better than he does.”

Brooklyn closed his eyes. So often, his “father’s” violence had been about money, about some alcohol-dazed vision of an alternate life where a wife and two children hadn’t ruined everything. Instead, they were the reason for all ills, all problems, were blamed for everything. And always that boiling, volatile rage, seething so close under the surface.

He realised he was shaking, and hated it. The last thing he wanted was to have a meltdown in a goddamned coffee shop where people brought their kids and everything—not at his size, his strength, even his damned reputation.

“Come.” Joseph pushed that iced tea towards Brooklyn’s hand. “Drink something. Breathe.”

Brooklyn opened his eyes, released a breath that had grown stale in his chest. “That’s the leeches and vampires you were taking about, Cash?”

“Yeah. We… I mean, we’re doing what we can to protect you from that shit. The wheedling for money and attention, we’re dealing with it. Just figured these two are worse than the others.”

“Ah, fuck Les. He’s never been important. He can go fuck himself.” He reached for his iced tea and took a couple swallows. “And my father can be glad he isn’t even in the same damn country or I’d wring his neck.” Another mouthful of iced tea. “Any word on Shelley?”

“Nothing.” Cash’s smile was a touch nervous. “I can check up on her. There were no begging letters from her. Not a word. Maybe she doesn’t follow boxing. Maybe she has no idea.”

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