CHAPTER 47
"So wait a second, wait a second, wait a second… let me make sure I have this right…" Amanda stated. "You want us to help you get a verified psychopath out from behind bars, a man who brainwashed several teenagers to attack my daughter and her friends, even breaking one of their arms, just because you have a HUNCH that he didn't do it?"
Johnny sat opposite Daniel and Amanda in the conference room of Larusso Auto that afternoon, storming into the building and demanding to meet with them. He had positively terrified Anoush as the man still remembered him from last time, but it was just as well too, as the man shot off like a slingshot to go look for Daniel and Amanda. He had found them within seconds, and to say that the Larussos were shocked to see him was an understatement.
"Well… yeah." Johnny replied. Amanda couldn't help but laugh in disbelief.
"Um… no thank you." She replied. Johnny looked at her, confused.
"W-what? What? Why?!" He exclaimed. Amanda raised an eyebrow.
"Um… for the reasons I literally just said!" She replied. "You're taking a wild guess that Kreese, a man who has already proven to be extremely dangerous in the past, is innocent. You want us to use our lawyers to go against a conviction that literally took a jury a half hour to come up with, one that had a literal confession that Kreese did it. Ignoring the fact that the chances of it actually working are astronomically low given an insane lack of proof and the government unlikely to overturn the conviction without damning evidence, we have a business to think about."
"The hell are you talking about?" Johnny snapped, not understanding Amanda's point.
"I think what Amanda's saying, Johnny, is that going after a rich, successful businessman like Silver and accusing him of such crimes is bound to attract a lot of attention, and if things don't work out for us, I don't know if our business can take another media bruising." Daniel said. Johnny turned to him and narrowed his eyes at him.
"So your business is more important to you than your daughter?" Johnny snapped.
"What? Of course not!" Daniel exclaimed. "But it's just…"
"Look, whether you want to admit it or not, Silver is more dangerous than Kreese ever was. Kreese, despite everything, still had what he believed to be his students' best intentions at heart."
"Yeah, is that before or after he sicced his students on mine and made Hawk break Demetri's arm?" Daniel remarked. Johnny glared at him.
"Well news flash… if that was Cobra Kai under Kreese, what do you think things are going to be like under Silver?! He's building an army, Larusso. He's manipulating kids into joining and when he's done training them, he's going to unleash them and then God help your students and mine."
Amanda sighed, realising what this was all about.
"This is about Miguel, isn't it?" She remarked quietly, causing Johnny to look at her with pain filling his eyes.
"You guys know?" He asked, quietly, and they nodded.
"The two of them came by this morning." Daniel admitted. Johnny's voice had completely lost its edge at this point and was now filled with concern more than anything else.
"How's he doing?" Johnny asked. Daniel and Amanda looked at each other, and then back at Johnny, and they sighed.
"About as well as you'd expect. The manipulation plan that Silver's doing has clearly run pretty deep as Miguel seems pretty settled into Cobra Kai." Amanda replied, as impartially as she could, not wanting to tick off either of the emotionally tense men beside her.
"Yeah, very settled. He's already concocting bullshit stories on Silver's behalf about Hawk breaking his car and hence why Miguel fought him." Daniel commented.
"He fought Hawk too?" Johnny asked, shocked. Daniel looked at him, confused.
"I'm sorry… too?" He asked. Johnny sighed.
"Apparently him and Robby got into it pretty badly last night, to the point where he nearly killed Robby in a choke. Was on the brink of making the guy pass out but then let go and ran away."
Looks of alarm flashed through both Daniel and Amanda as they thought about what Miguel had become.
"Good lord." Daniel mumbled, quietly, in shock. "He took out Hawk and Robby?"
"Yeah. Silver's these ideas in his head, I guarantee it." Johnny declared. "This isn't Miguel. This is Silver feeding on all of his anger. He's convincing Miguel to take action against the people who he feels have screwed him over. There was Robby. There was Hawk. Who do you think is going to be next on his list? I'm no fortune teller but I reckon his ex-girlfriend would be a pretty fair guess."
Daniel and Amanda looked at each other, extremely concerned for a while as they thought about their daughter, and how she was in more danger than ever. In Daniel's eyes, this was worse for Sam than any of the threats she had faced from Tory in the past year. Miguel wasn't only physically dangerous, but emotionally dangerous too. He knew Sam well, and so would know how to get inside her head, pick her apart from the inside out. The married couple had a telepathic conversation, their eyes doing all of the talking necessary, before they eventually turned to Johnny and shook their heads.
"Look, Johnny, I think it's really nice that you're looking out for Sam…" Amanda started, but sensing the answer that was incoming, frustration bubbled over for Johnny and he scowled at Amanda and interrupted her.
"I'm not. I really couldn't give a shit about what happens to your daughter or any of your students. I care about Miguel and my students staying safe." Johnny spat, not exactly telling the truth. He did care about Sam - she was actually a decent Eagle-Fang student and she had made Miguel happy the past few months so that put her in his good books.
"But despite how obviously selfless and caring you are…" Daniel remarked, sarcastically. "We can't just go on a vigilante legal mission, knowing the backlash that it could cause to our business and our livelihoods. Please feel free to come back if you have any more concrete evidence, but for now, we're just going to try our best to protect our students and I suggest you do the same for yours."
Johnny's eyes shot daggers at Daniel as he stood up in his seat.
"Right. I get it. You're too much of a pussy to do anything that'll affect your business, even if it's in the best interest of your students. You just wait for someone else to clean up your messes for you and then reap the rewards when it works out."
"Johnny, that's not true…" Daniel stated, trying to say something to Johnny but unable to be given the opportunity to speak as Johnny went on a rant.
"No, it's fine. Shouldn't have expected anything more." Johnny responded hotly as he turned towards the door. "Have a good day, LaPusso. Amanda."
Scowling at Daniel one last time, Johnny then turned and stormed out of the conference room and back to the main room of the dealership. As he was leaving, an employee walked up to him.
"Thank you for coming to Larusso Auto. Can I interest you in a…"
"Yeah, no thanks. Now get the fuck out of my way." Johnny snapped, shoving the petrified person aside and charging through the doors and back outside into the parking lot. He was filled with rage, so much so that he didn't hear footsteps running up behind him as he approached his car.
"Johnny! Hey, Johnny!"
Groaning as he recognised the voice, Johnny reluctantly turned around to find himself face to face with Daniel once more.
"What do you want?" Johnny snapped.
"What the hell, man? You didn't let Amanda and I finish when we were talking in there! You just stormed out!"
"What can I say? I can smell a pussy from a mile away and don't want it rubbing off on me." Johnny spat. Daniel sighed.
"Look, what I was going to say was that I agree with you. We should work together to get Kreese out." Daniel remarked. Johnny looked at him, completely confused.
"Huh?" Johnny grunted. "Thought you didn't want to do anything about it? Didn't want anything to interfere with the precious business?"
Daniel shook his head.
"You're right. I don't want it to interfere with the business." Daniel commented. "Which is why I propose we do this under the radar, at least at the start. Look over the trial and the case, and try to find more concrete evidence that Kreese's innocent, without alerting the cops, Silver, or anyone else who can use it against us."
Johnny honestly couldn't believe what he was hearing from Larusso. The man was actually somewhat on board with the idea of getting Kreese out from behind bars.
"And you're okay with Kreese being out of jail?" Johnny asked, surprised.
"Well… I'm not." Daniel admitted. "I'm going to have Sam with an Army platoon tailing her to keep her safe if need be. But I do agree with you that Silver's worse than Kreese ever was. I've seen first hand the mental and physical damage and destruction he can cause, and I don't want it to happen to any of the innocent kids in the Valley. So we need to work together to put Silver behind bars. That is, of course, if you and I can agree to tolerate each other long enough to work together? Can we, Johnny?"
Johnny scowled at the man for a few moments, all of their issues the last time they 'worked together' being dragged back up. The dojo merge. Their finding Robby mission after he went on the run. Everytime they worked together, chaos and a massive fight between them followed. They just hoped that if this happened again, it would be AFTER Silver was behind bars and they could afford to take their eye off Cobra Kai a little, not before.
"Yeah… yeah, we can work together. The enemy of my enemy, right?"
Daniel slowly nodded, and the two men shook hands, sealing their deal.
"Yes. The enemy of my enemy…"