SuperStrongWayne wandered out into the gardens of the Nevaaaaaa again family headquarters. He was the #2 VIP and newly coined RHM to Nevaa. It was nice to be outside, away from the sight of LittleCapo throwing dynamite at their walls. His dweeby little arms and dyspraxic tosses reminded Wayne of his pathetic cousin, SoWeakWayne, who had recently been chopped up and mashed into the floor by his so-called favourite ventriloquist dummy. He sighed, secondhand embarrassment for LittleCapo and SoWeakWayne causing him to desperately require fresh air to blast away the memory. He sat himself at a bench and reached into his jacket. A blood-soaked diary was inside in the flowery hand of Soseki. He'd foisted it on Wayne shortly before he died. Wayne didn't want it. He couldn't care less for whatever dumb noble sentiment Soseki had to share. He flicked through a couple of pages. Seemed like it was a story about the war. Wayne chuckled and took out his pen. He ripped out Soseki's work and dumped it on the floor. He would tell a better story for sure. 

"I was awoken by gunshots outside my compound. Some people call it The Cogburn Estate and I like that name for its strength and obvious public resonance. People would be like, People would be like, "Woah, the Cogburn?" and I would just be thinking, "Yeah, you know." A historic name to reflect the project I had commissioned upon rising to the rank of Don and leading my own operation. A brick-built, two-storey dwelling within a secured gated premises set within grounds on three sides. The main estate building had a masonry outer leaf and a brickwork inner leaf separated by an air gap known as a cavity. That was useful in combating damp related issues because it creates a barrier where any moisture which penetrates the outer leaf cannot come into the property. I've heard of these new-fangled things called cavity trays and weep holes, which then redirect any penetrating moisture back out. Fancy, huh?"

Wayne wondered whether anyone would notice Soseki's sudden interest in the make-up of walls and moisture management. He dismissed it quickly and carried on. Surely everyone told really funny stories about buildings?

"That reminds me, funny story. People have actually begun filling these cavities with insulation material to prevent heat loss. A good idea in principle, right? I agree. The builder told me, though, that sometimes it can cause "bridging" between the leaves and, when saturated, not only isn't it effective as an insulator, but it can also actually contribute to causing the very damp conditions it was intended to prevent. Crazy."

A call came from the HQ. It was Nevaa. He was always trying to get Wayne's attention these days. He regretted agreeing to this. He could have been happily dead by now, an enormous corpse, still stronger than that random unemployed street kid who had been attacking their 20' Perimeter Wall. Probably doing more damage to it than LittleCapo as well. With a sigh, he slipped the pen and the diary back into his jacket and headed inside. 

That had been a complete waste of time. Nevaa was a moron. A dullard and a moron, a terrible combination in a Boss and a person. Wayne had pegged him as a bit gym averse at the beginning but held his tongue. Now he was regretting that decision and contemplating grabbing one of his arms in each hand and ripping them clean away from his body. What would he do after that though, just carry around two scrawny arms? No. Bad plan. He settled back down on his bench and flicked to where he had got up to. Open with a joke, that was what he was always told.

"I'll save my good joke about interstitial condensation for another day. Put that in your diary though because, let's just say, it kills at the Cogburn Crew of Three + "Bring Your Daughter to Work" Day. Anyway, the Cogburn Manor House, main dwelling, whatever you want to call it is absolutely banging. Haven't even told you about the suspended floors yet and shitting on the oversized throne, with that view. Oof, chef's kiss. This day, though, Friday I think it was, I heard the gunshots and knew something must be going down. My morning dump was going to have to wait, this wasn't a time for pleasantries. You see I am very astute and I live in a very nice part of town, so if there was violence in the air this far away from 'the poors', then you know there was a good reason for it. Shattered glass. Shit. Either they were inside or I was going to be stunned shortly. Maybe a bigger wall instead of a thicker, more thermally efficient one might have been an idea, eh? Too late now."

Soseki had always banged on about something when Wayne was speaking to him. Or at least trying to listen to him. He was also kind of dull now that Wayne thought about it. Had Soseki gone to the gym much? More than Nevaa certainly. He didn't give off a very masculine vibe though and that was concerning. Either way, Wayne paused wondering where to take the tale. Probably best to handle the attempted murder, right? 

He felt like this entry would really speak with Soseki's voice. He began to scribble away.

"I hopped out of bed and immediately armed myself. Something you might not know about me, ladies, is that I like to keep a gun near to the bed to whisper softly to at night, which turned out wasn't weird at all and was completely normal and sensible behaviour. Fuck you, Dr Holland. Practical Soseki, they call me, and this type of behaviour was why. I wrenched open the bedroom door and was met with the sight of some goons stomping down my hallway. They hadn't even taken their shoes off and were getting mud all over the carpet. Blood as well, how selfish. That would probably never come out. I shot them both before they could even react. Great. More mess. How much was it going to cost for me to get this cleaned up?"

Soseki seemed like the type of guy who would worry about how messy his carpet was at a time like that. 

""DIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" screamed a voice, breaking my thoughts away from my imminent cleaning bill. I looked up to see Thalia charging towards me, gun raised. I was caught cold, I have to say. There was nothing I could do. She had got me bang to rights. Should I have gone back? Maybe, but I'm not bitch. I took a breath and heard the clap of the gun. I closed my eyes and spread my arms, hugging death like my favourite Nan at Christmas. I was thinking that instead of a packet of wine gums and a t-shirt of a band I liked 5 years ago, I was going to get a right shellacking. Some gift. Only, it didn't. I opened an eye and I saw her shoelace was untied, causing her to stumble onto the banana peel I had tossed over my shoulder last night to keep my potassium levels up. She'd gone flying, arse over tit, slamming right into the wall. If I hadn't seen it happen, I'd have thought that someone was just making the whole thing up. I padded over, shirtless, and saw she'd knocked herself clean out. I thought about laughing.

Was that realistic? It seemed it in Wayne's pea brain. He would give it more thought during his next workout. 

Little capo skips over to Nevaa’s forts with a stick of dynamite looking around before he strikes a match and throws it towards the gate. Sadly as Little capo is little his arms don’t have enough power for it to make it fully over the wall landing just in the barbed wire of the walls. 
 

BOOM. 
 

the dynamite explodes doing little to no damage at all capo chuckles to himself as he hears someone scream like a woman after his unsuccessful attack, stepping back a little, capo sees SuperStrongWayne cowering behind the fortifications, capo bursts out laughing.

“Why would the right hand man hide behind his families walls instead of trying to stop the attacker?” Capo thinks to himself as he makes a speedy escape. 

SuperStrongWayne has not left the HQ gardens so is completely unaware of what is going on outside. If he was aware of what is going on, he would remind that person that a high pitched voice is a common consequence of steroid abuse and it can happen to any gym bro for any reason at all, and you should probably be respectful of their right to be absolutely hench, and not make fun of them for it because muscular men have feelings too. 

That aside, more story.

"Ha, I laughed. I pointed my gun at her, still chuckling. As I was about to pull the trigger I heard noises from the end of the hallway. I turned. OH NO, THAT DAMN BANANA PEEL. I felt my foot go under it, I was careering forwards, momentum carrying me directly towards the open window. I'd talked the installer out of fitting safety closers, and he'd said I would regret it. Egg on my face and banana on my foot. I was straight through the open window and tumbling towards the ground.

I crashed into one of my boundary hedges, breaking my fall and drawing hot scratches of fire across my arse, back and arms. Could have used a shirt too now thinking about it. No time to worry about that, I looked up and LA boys were at the window, dragging Thalia up still looking dishevelled. She seemed pretty mad, so it was probably the right time for me to make an exit.

I disembarked from the hedge and made a prompt escape around the back. I was right to have this flagged. A deck would have been slippery with November dew and how embarrassing would it have been to slip on a banana peel and trip on a slippery deck in the same morning? Not this guy, I was done and out of there. Time to find out what the hell was happening."

Wayne frowned down at the next few entries that Soseki had written. These were about his moronic cousin who had never even seen a benchpress in his life. He was not impressed at all:

"I first met SoWeakWayne months before, and I was not impressed with him. He was a weedy little dullard who always liked to tell people what to do. One of those guys who carried a clipboard around wherever he went and had multiple lanyards hanging over the banister in his house. I took an immediate disliking to him when he was brought along as someone's +1 to the monthly Cogburn Crew of Three mixer and drank a single can of Dr Pepper through a straw the whole evening. What a boring bastard."

Dr Pepper? Really, Wayne. What a loser this guy was. How had people let him rise through the ranks of an organized crime family? What did that say about Levon making him RHM? Pathetic. He continued reading over the din of LittleCapo missing another dynamite sling. 

"Hello, Wayne," I had said through gritted teeth. He looked up from his notebook, seeming to struggle with the effort it took to do so. Levon was dead and Telkin's wretched spirit was laughing about it, it was written all over his face. He didn't say anything and went back to scribbling something down. I gave him a minute, growing increasingly impatient, and eventually he closed the cover and set his pen down. He seemed relieved to put it down.  

"We're under attack," he said in his raspy worm voice. God, what an idiot. He slowly set out his thoughts and I immediately lost interest. What a chore being weak and boring. Eventually I realised he was looking at me expectantly. Shit, shit, shit."

For once, SuperStrongWayne could heavily relate to Soseki. He had misunderstood his Godfather to the last it seemed. He too had recognised what a pathetic nerd SoWeakWayne was. 

Soseki's inner thoughts about SoWeakWayne were almost enough to distract SuperStrongWayne from the calamitous assault upon their HQ Bars on Windows. For some reason they were using dynamite on the windows too. Did they not have a more appropriate tool for the job? Was dynamite really the answer to every question? This hurt SSW's brain and he quickly went back to reading Soseki's problem. Who hadn't ignored Wayne when he was speaking?

"Yeah, I agree." What else could I say? I only had two options: yes or no. He looked satisfied with whatever I'd just agreed to anyway and began the painfully awkward process of lifting his skeletal urchin frame out of his chair and onto his wobbling legs. 

"We'll get started right away," he said once he was no longer in immediate danger of falling over.

"On what?"

He looked at me quizzically. "Beating those bastards who've risked reducing Telkin beatings, tried to kill us, and are trying to take what's ours, perhaps? No wonder you wanted me to be your RHM if this is how good your memory is."

And that is how I mistakenly ended up with SoWeakWayne as the worst RHM I ever had."

There were no further entries. It seemed like appointing SoWeakWayne had been the nail in Soseki's coffin. Not even an old stubborn bastard like him could survive Wayne's insipid aura. SSW frowned and wondered whether to continue the story. He really hoped that he wouldn't have to. His hand was starting to hurt and it was really quite noise now that the 12' Perimeter Wall was under attack - also with dynamite, obviously. 

The throng stood outside in anticipation. The newly minted RHM to Nevaa was about to speak! Would it be a war update? Perhaps a peace agreement was in the works? This was surely going to be something important that the streets would not want to miss.  Everyone stopped and waited with baited breath...

As the muttonhead rambled on about insulation, IOIHM became lost in his thoughts. What next, knotweed? This was absolute torture. Somebody kill him, please...

He tried to suppress a yawn. He didn't want to seem disrespectful. Who knows, maybe he would work for Wayne some day? 

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

IOIHM burst out suddenly with laughter, sending a shock through the crowd. The meathead on the soapbox looked enraged. His skin became beet red and a thick vein on his forehead looked like it was about to burst. IOIHM weighed his options. What was about to happen? Did this city block just become unsafe to be in? IOIHM quickly ducked into the alley and made his way to friendlier parts of the city.