Rating: PG
Summary: There's more than one way to take revenge.
Spoiler Warnings: Belonging
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, or Bill Gates. Oops, I mean David Nesbitt. Joss does.

Career Homicide
By Matt
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I really can do it, you know. Rip his head right off his body. I've done it before. It's easier than you might think. Once the neck is broken, it comes off like a big drumstick. But you probably didn't want to know that.

I decided against it, mostly because Cordy would know who killed him and be furious with me.

Actually, that's not true. I should stop trying to be flippant. It always comes out sounding menacing when I do it. No, I decided not to kill him-despite my initial impulse-because he honestly didn't deserve to die. He hasn't murdered anyone. No rapes. Not even a bar brawl. He's never harmed another living soul. Physically.

But I remember that even as Angelus, I never talked to anyone that way unless I intended to break them. And I'm pretty sure that was exactly what he was trying to do. Maybe he thinks of it as "breaking in new talent." Maybe it's his twisted way of getting laid-sleep with him and he helps your career, and treats you better. Maybe he just likes the feeling of power he gets from abusing women whose dreams he holds hostage.
Whatever. Let the punishment fit the crime, then: I'm going to break him.
*
It was surprisingly easy. Gunn was more than happy to help after I gave him details of the way the bastard treated Cordy. He didn't actually have to do anything to enlist his people to help-he just pointed them in the appropriate direction to do what came naturally to them. I mean, how much encouragement do you think they needed to plunder some well-off, arrogant white guy?

It got funny to watch, after a while. He kept putting more and more elaborate security systems on his car and apartment, and Gunn's people just took it as a challenge for their skills. Which, I must add, are quite impressive. I picked up a few things.

Next, I went to David Nesbitt. First, I convinced him that there were no demons tailing me, and that he could put the sword away. Nice sword, by the way. Built to the exact specs of the katana in Highlander. Yes, even down to "folded over a million times." I shudder to think how much it cost. Then, I convinced him to buy the company that our boy worked for. Don't ask how, it required a bit of tap-dancing to get it done and still keep Cordelia's name out of it. She'd never forgive me if I cheapened her efforts by interfering. She doesn't want David to buy her success.

All I had to do then was walk him past a commercial our old friend was directing (after making certain that Cordelia wasn't in it). Dave's chivalry kicked in, and he was fired on the spot.

Now, Mr. Director was down pretty low at this point. But he wasn't broken yet.

Newcomers are meat in LA, and getting canned for mistreating them might get you shut
out of some places, but others just shake their heads and sympathetically talk about owners who don't know how the business really works.

No, the final blow fell later, and the key to it was something that Gunn's people found, but decided not to steal. But they'd told Gunn, and Gunn told me.

So when Mr. Director got home that night, he found his apartment absolutely bare and the police waiting for him. He comes to trial for cocaine possession next month.

Cordelia probably suspects who the "anonymous informant" was, but judging by the grin she gets whenever she looks at the clipping, I don't think she cares.

end

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