"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. Whathadthey 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 fucking 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 whatwasall 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.
