Chapter 11
He was giving Bishop a murderous glare. "Answer me!" he said.
Behind me, I heard the car door open. I turned around to see Bishop slowly getting out of the car. Automatically, I moved to the side. Bishop shut the door behind him and tossed Lawton the keys.
As if by reflex, Lawton snagged them in mid-air.
Bishop turned toward the restaurant. He started walking.
"Hey!" Lawton called after him. "Where do you think you're going?"
Bishop didn't turn around, but his voice carried across the cool night air. "To get a burger, beer – hell, a cab, I dunno. You guys work it out. I'll catch you later."
"Hey!" I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered "There's nothing to work out, dipshit!"
No reaction. No twitch. No hesitation. No nothing. I glared at his receding back. That jerk. He must've heard me. He was just like his brother, maddening beyond description. I wanted to scream.
Next to me, I heard Lawton's amused voice. "Did you just call him a dipshit?"
I whirled to face him. "You think it's funny?"
He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Nope. Not me."
"Then why are you smiling?" I said. "God, you are such a—" I shook my head. "I don't even know what to call you."
His smile faded. Slowly, his gaze traveled the length of me as if cataloguing my body parts, as a doctor, not a lover.
"You're okay?" His voice caught. "You look okay." He reached for my hand. "But what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be home?" He visibly swallowed. "In bed or something?"
I yanked my hand away. "Oh, because some psycho locked me in his basement?" I laughed, a foreign, hysterical sound. "No big deal. Happens to me all the time. Life goes on, right?"
His face crumpled. "Baby–"
"I already told you, don't call me that." I pointed toward the restaurant. "So why'd you do this here? You want me to lose my job? Is that it?"
"No. I get it. You love this job. I know that."
"Oh yeah. That's why I'm working here. Because I love it soooo much."
His eyebrows furrowed. "You don't?"
"Hell no," I said. "But I still don't want to get fired." I reached up to rub my temples. "I can only imagine what those two guys from the trunk are saying right about now." I closed my eyes. "God, what a nightmare."
"They're not saying anything," Lawton said.
I opened my eyes to look at him. "What are you? Some kind of mind-reader? Admit it, you don't know squat."
"I know one thing," he said. "They won't talk."
"Why?" I said. "Because they're too afraid that I'll talk too? Yeah, like that's gonna happen."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "that I don't want to get dragged into some police station." My voice rose. "I don't want to be sitting there all night, telling my pathetic story of how they tried to drag me into a car and –" I let the sentence trail off. What had they been planning to do, anyway?
"Hey, don't worry," Lawton said. "Nobody's dragging you anywhere. They won't talk. And you won't have to either."
"How can you be sure?"
Lawton's voice was quiet. "Because they know better. They're not gonna say one word about you."
I glared up at him. "Yeah? How do you know?"
"Because if they do," he said, "they'll find themselves dropped off someplace worse next time."
My gaze narrowed. "What next time?"
Lawton shrugged. "Depends on them."
Tonight, they'd been dropped off in a crowded public place. There'd been people and police and even some paparazzi club wannabe. I looked around. "What could possibly be worse than this?"
His face hardened. "My old neighborhood."
From the look on his face, I didn't have to guess what kind of place it was. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to talk about it either.
"So answer me this," I said. "Why, of all places, did you bring them here, where I work?"
"You wanna know why?" he said. "Because this is exactly where they were gonna drop you."
I felt my forehead crease. "What?"
"Yeah," Lawton said, an edge creeping into his voice. "They were gonna strip you down to your bra and panties and dump you right here. In this parking lot." His jaw tensed. "Want to know what they called it? A prank. Just a f*cking prank."
"Seriously?" I said. "That's all they were gonna do?" Compared to what I'd feared, yeah, it sucked. But it wasn't half as bad as the other scenarios that had run through my mind.
"All?" he said. "Isn't that enough?" He made a strangled sound deep in his throat. "God, Chloe. They hurt you. They scared you."
"Yeah." I gave him a hard look. "And they weren't the only ones, now were they?"
"No." His voice was quiet. "They weren't."
"So what was all this?" I said. "Your idea of justice?"
"Something like that." His gaze bored into mine. "We did exactly to them what they were gonna do to you. Seemed fair enough."
"Fair?" I made a scoffing sound. "Yeah, but you didn't stop there, did you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "that you also beat the crap out of them. And, you ruined their car. So it wasn't exactly an eye for an eye, was it? "
He gave me an incredulous look. "You're sticking up for them?"
Was I? In truth, those guys got exactly what they deserved. And I sure as hell didn't feel sorry for them. But if Lawton was expecting me to run into his arms just because he delivered some well-deserved payback, he had another thing coming.
Tonight, a handful of people had suffered. Me. Those guys. But as far as I could tell, one person who hadn't suffered one single bit was Lawton. After what he did, not to those guys, but to me, he didn't deserve my understanding. And he sure as hell didn't deserve some kind of hero's welcome.
So, was I sticking up for those guys? Did it matter? I shrugged.
"You are serious. Aren't you?" he said. "After what they did to you? You think that's alright?" He turned to glare across the parking lot. "Because I'm not gonna lie to you, Chloe. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And if they ever pull that crap again, especially with you, they're not gonna get off so light."
I gave him a smirk. "So they got off light, huh? Well, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"You got off lightest of all, didn't you? Look." I pointed directly at his chest. "You're fine. Not a scratch on you, is there?" I turned toward his car and pointed again. "And look. Your car's fine too." I turned to face him. "Seriously, what has any of this cost you?"
"Chloe." His voice was very quiet. "It's cost me everything."
"Yeah." I rolled my eyes. "Right."
"Everything that matters."
"You know what?" I said. "That's real easy for you to say." My voice rose. "Me? I'm an inch away from losing my job. Those guys, they got their car trashed. But you? This has cost you nothing." I took a step closer. "Nothing!"
With an anguished expression, he reached out for me. I slapped his arms aside. "So who's gonna kick your ass? Who's gonna get you fired? Who's gonna trash your car?"
"You want someone to kick my ass?" He threw up his hands. "Go ahead. I'd welcome it."
"Sure you would."
"Think I'm lying? You think I don't know that I deserve it?"
"Yeah? Well, words are cheap." I turned to go.
"Wait," he said.
I stopped. "For what?"
"Proof."