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  She grabbed a couple of grocery bags from the car. “I talked to Laura and Gabe last night. Once Betsy’s feeling better, we’re going to take her to a gun range in Pt. Charlotte and teach her how to use one. She needs a concealed carry permit.”

  “Isn’t that a little…excessive?”

  He knew June and Laura carried. He wasn’t sure if Eliza did, but considering Gabe was an FDLE agent, Laura had literally killed a psycho who was trying to kill her, Eliza was a martial arts expert, Brooke was a former archery champion, and Chelbie had fended off a baseball-bat-wielding attacker with only a sex toy and sarcasm, there were some pretty dangerous and deadly women in their own right among their close group of friends.

  June stopped and turned, walking back to him. Despite her tiny frame, he felt the urge to lean back, away from her. How Scrye dealt with her, he had no idea, because the fury now visible in the woman’s eyes scared the piss out of him.

  “No,” June calmly and quietly said. “Excessive would be me driving to Tampa and paying cash for a burner cell, having Betsy call him from it to meet her somewhere out in east Manatee County to ‘talk,’ and then emptying a magazine in his brain pan before I stripped his body, dragged him down to the river, and rolled him into the water, his body weighed down with three concrete blocks, after gutting him so decomposition gas didn’t make him float in a few days. That would be excessive.”

  She didn’t blink.

  Nolan thought he might have pissed himself, just a little.

  She widely smiled. “But that would also be illegal, now, wouldn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “So we’re going to teach her how to shoot and defend herself. Legally. Shooting is a great equalizer. Once she’s healed, I’m going to start her in my yoga classes to build her flexibility and spirit, and Eliza’s going to go with her to ju-whatsits whatever it is she does. Brooke is going to start teaching her archery, which is a completely impractical means of self-defense when compared to fists or a gun in close quarters, but will be a great confidence builder, as well as give her something to focus on. Between all of us, we have a plan. Tilly is our Tyler Durden of protecting Betsy. Only, you know, without blowing shit up.”

  He stared down at her, leaning back even farther as she leaned in closer. “We all like you and Kenny. We don’t have a problem if at some point in the future the three of you hook up. That would be good if it happens in a healthy way.” Thunderclouds darkened her expression. “But if you guys fuck up, or fuck her over, or fuck with her? I’ll make Tilly at her meanest look sweet by comparison.”

  Then she smiled, turned, and bounced toward the house with the grocery bags.

  He stood there, staring, heart thundering in his chest.

  Okay, that time he definitely pissed himself a little.

  * * * *

  Nolan had changed into shorts—and had changed his briefs—and was getting dinner started when Kenny arrived home. Betsy sat on the couch, obediently working on her job search as Tilly had assigned. June had already left.

  I guess as long as no one’s making soap, we’re okay.

  Nolan still liked June, but he wouldn’t deny she had completely flipped the charts in terms of terrifying. Tilly was now squarely tied for second with Eliza, while June had skyrocketed to number one with a bullet on the scary list.

  Literally.

  He’d had no doubts in his mind that the woman hadn’t just been threatening.

  She’d meant every last word.

  Kenny walked in, scowling at him as he leaned in to kiss him. “What’s wrong?” Kenny asked.

  Nolan was about to tell him nothing, almost ashamed to admit he had left a small dribble on the inside of his briefs, which now resided in the dirty clothes hamper, then he remembered the rest of June’s news and whispered, “Later.”

  Kenny went over to say hi to Betsy before he headed back to their bedroom to change. Once Nolan had dinner simmering in the electric skillet, he followed Kenny back to their bedroom, closed the door, and told him what June had told him.

  Well, the parts that she said Ed had told her. And about the women banding together to teach Betsy to defend herself.

  He left out June’s extremely disconcerting asides, because for starters, he wasn’t even sure if Kenny would believe him, and secondly, he strongly suspected June wasn’t kidding, and he didn’t want Kenny to know anything if Jack turned up dead in a river somewhere.

  Shot.

  Tied to cinder blocks.

  And gutted.

  The first rule about protecting Betsy is…

  When he finished, Kenny looked murderous. Nolan was wondering why he didn’t look terrified, except he realized he’d left the terrifying part out.

  “That fucker,” Kenny muttered as he stripped off his work clothes. “I see that fucker, I’m killing him.”

  A nervous laugh escaped Nolan. “Yeah, I literally think there’d be a line ahead of you and me, dude.”

  “I know. Tilly desperately wants a whack at him.”

  One more nervous burp of laughter he couldn’t control. “Yeah, no, not even her.”

  He remembered once as a kid, not even ten, if that, getting to go to the base with his dad for something. They’d been stationed out in California, and his father was having lunch with some friends. Because it was a Saturday, it was informal, and there’d been some other family function they’d attended that morning.

  But what Nolan would never forget were the men he and his father lunched with, men his father had apparently fought with. There’d been a look in some of their eyes as they’d talked, censoring their discussions before they’d gotten to what Nolan at the time had thought of as the “good stuff.”

  June had a similar expression in her eyes out in their driveway. Cold. Hard.

  Deadly.

  Tilly was a lot of seriously scary bluster that took care of ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the asshats single female submissives had to deal with in their local group.

  June reminded him of a silent, deadly watcher, a ninja.

  Waiting.

  Then Kenny pulled him in for a kiss, for a moment sidetracking Nolan’s brain even to the point of forgetting June’s glittering, deadly gaze and that dinner was cooking.

  “Yeah. Both of us, together,” Kenny said.

  “Huh?”

  “Killing that guy.” Kenny smiled and released Nolan. “I don’t know what the future will hold, but I’m glad she came into our lives.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  During dinner, Nolan finally brought the subject up. “June said we need to tell you something,” he said. “We didn’t want you worrying about it earlier.”

  There was something disquietingly prey-like in the way her head popped up, eyes wide and nostrils flaring, as if a rabbit preparing to bolt from a predator.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  Nolan told her what June had told him—minus the revenge not-quite-fantasy part of the tale.

  She didn’t react at first, and he wondered if she’d actually heard him despite sitting just across the table. She remained frozen, staring at him.

  “Bets?” Kenny softly said. “You okay?”

  That seemed to break her spell. She blinked her left eye, her right one still swollen mostly shut. “I don’t want you two hounded by the press,” she said.

  “That’s not your concern,” Nolan told her. “That’s ours. And they won’t hound us, because they don’t know where you are. Even if they did find out, we won’t let them talk to you.”

  “I should probably call my parents and warn them, shouldn’t I?”

  “Might not be a bad idea.”

  She held her fork for a moment, motionless, before setting it down next to her plate. “Would it be easier if I just let him skate on these charges?”

  “No,” both men strongly said, making her left eye widen again.

  Nolan softened his tone. “You cannot let him get away with what he did to
you. If it goes to trial—and it might not, because he might plead out eventually—we will all be there by your side, with you. You won’t be facing him alone.”

  “He’s going to say all sorts of horrible things about me,” she said. “I know he will. He used to love telling me the things he’d tell people about me if I tried to leave him.”

  “Unless you were grinding up live puppies in a blender,” Kenny said, “there’s nothing he can say about you that will make us think any less about you.”

  “What if he outs all of you? What if he mentions peoples’ names in open court?”

  “Just because he says it doesn’t make it true,” Nolan said. “This is about him beating you, torturing you, holding you against your will.” Nolan had a really bad feeling gelling in the pit of his stomach. That maybe, now that she was free of Jack, she might drop the charges against him just to make him go away.

  Meaning he’d be free to do this—or worse—to someone else, smarter now in the knowledge of exactly how far he could push a woman without her rebelling, how to keep her firmly under his control.

  It sickened Nolan.

  Kenny said it first. “How about if he kills the next woman?” he asked, hitting low. “How would that make you feel?”

  She stared at him.

  “I know,” Kenny continued, “that it’d make me, personally, feel like shit. That in the name of you trying to protect my privacy you didn’t testify and let him walk and someone died. I’d rather face a few weeks of media scrutiny that would settle down rather than live with the guilt that someone died because I didn’t press you hard enough to testify.”

  Nolan hated the shocked expression on Betsy’s face, the borderline hurt there, but he knew Kenny was right.

  They couldn’t let her back out.

  Eventually, she nodded. “I don’t want him doing this to anyone else,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Kenny said. “If you ask any of our friends if they have a choice between risking being outed and that fucker going to jail for what he did to you? I know our friends. To a person, they’d all tell you to testify. I can start calling them right now, if you want me to.”

  “No. That’s okay.” She stared down at her plate as a long, shuddering sigh escaped her.

  Nolan couldn’t help that he wanted to sweep her into his arms, hold her, comfort her.

  Finally, “Please keep reminding me,” she said. “Please keep telling me that.” She looked up, first meeting Kenny’s gaze, then Nolan’s. “Keep reminding me that this is about more than just me. That I have to be the one to finally make a stand.”

  “We will,” Nolan said. “And you won’t be making that stand alone. I promise.”

  * * * *

  Thursday morning, Eliza arrived even earlier than Tilly and June had the previous days. The men were still in their bedroom getting their own shower and Betsy went to let her in.

  “I have my marching orders from Tilly,” Eliza said with a smile.

  Betsy had spent a restless night, what little sleep she got filled with nightmares about Jack and what he’d done to her.

  About testifying against him.

  Eliza’s smile faded as she set her purse on the table. “What’s wrong?”

  Betsy told her what the men had said the night before, about the media.

  Eliza nodded. “Yeah, June called us all last night about it.” She rested her hands on Betsy’s shoulders. “The only way we’ll get upset is if you let this guy scare you out of testifying. We’re all behind you. The friends who absolutely cannot afford to be exposed to this, they’ve already protected themselves. This isn’t about them. And the prosecutor won’t let his public defender take rabbit trails on a case as basic and clear-cut as this. There’s ample evidence of what he did to you. This is about if he hit you, abused you, extorted you to keep you there, and held you against your will. Period.”

  “But what about the BDSM?”

  “So? That was between you two. His attorney won’t dare call any of us as witnesses for the defense. Not if he’s smart. And stop worrying until there’s something to worry about. Let’s get you ready to go see Ted.”

  Today was the first day she was able to shave and shower on her own, even though she asked Eliza to hang out in the bathroom with her, just in case. Some of the pain was easing, the swelling was going down in her right eye, and some of the lighter bruises had faded.

  The remaining bruises, however, were ugly, dark greenish brown patches, some still purple. She definitely wasn’t back to “normal” yet, whatever that meant. Once the swelling in her eye completely disappeared, that would go a long way to her feeling “normal.”

  Ted was glad to hear that Jack hadn’t talked to Betsy’s parents. And as Eliza prompted her to tell him about her fears regarding the media coverage, Ted cocked his head at her.

  “Do you remember how terrified you were about contacting your parents?”

  Betsy nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Did that turn out to be a valid fear?”

  “No, but I thought it was.”

  “Of course you thought it was, but it wasn’t valid after all, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Then put that same knowledge toward this instance. You don’t know if the media will try to track you down, or any of the worst-case things. Ed is an attorney. He makes his living planning for the worst-case scenario. It’s kind of what he does for a living, what people hire him for. For all you know, the press might let this die down and nothing else happens. I guarantee you there are hundreds of domestic abuse cases all over this state every month where the abuser tries to say the victim agreed to whatever outlandish treatment they were getting. You don’t usually hear about those on the news unless there’s a death, or a child gets injured, do you?”

  “No.” She took a deep breath in and tried to breathe out the stress and fear.

  “I have a recommendation for you for a counsellor,” he said, handing a card over to her. “I took the liberty of making you an appointment for next Tuesday morning. She’s good, she understands the basics of your situation, and she’s willing to work with you, understanding you’re unable to pay her at this time.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank us all by staying the course, leaning on us, and listening to us.”

  “I will.”

  * * * *

  After Ted’s, Eliza made a side excursion to shopping plaza in south Sarasota that housed a martial arts school. The sign outside touted several different classes in a variety of martial arts skills, as well as self-defense classes for women and children.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Betsy asked.

  “Because next week, and every Thursday night, you’re coming with me to class,” she said as she parked and unfastened her seatbelt. “We’re here to sign you up.”

  Betsy didn’t argue, and she somehow managed not to cry when Eliza produced a credit card and paid for the eight-week class for her. The instructor, an older woman who was retired military, scowled as she studied Betsy’s face hidden behind the sunglasses and under the hat.

  “Is the guy in jail now?” the instructor asked.

  “Oooh, yeah,” Eliza said. “Couldn’t make bail.”

  “Yet,” Betsy said.

  The instructor nodded. “Let me know if he makes bail,” she said to Eliza. “I’d like to meet him in person and have a little chat.”

  “You and about half of Sarasota,” Eliza said.

  * * * *

  The rest of Betsy’s afternoon with Eliza was spent at the house, with Betsy continuing her job search. She’d received nothing back yet from any of her inquiries except a few auto-responders noting receipt of her application and resume.

  She knew it was too soon to feel disheartened about it, but it was difficult to keep her spirits up.

  “Maybe I should apply to stores,” she said. “Get something while I’m waiting.”

  “For starters,” Eliza said, “it’s too soon. You need to heal u
p. Even if that’s what you end up having to do, no offense, it’s going to be hard to talk someone into hiring you when they see that goose egg. That might sound harsh, but it’s the truth. They don’t know you or your history, or that this is a one-time occurrence that won’t happen again. They might worry that you’ll be calling in more than working because of an abusive boyfriend or something.”

  “True.”

  “And what did Tilly tell you to do?”

  Betsy smiled. “Keep applying online.”

  Eliza pointed at her laptop. “Then get to it, young lady. This is the Tilly Says show until she says it isn’t.”

  * * * *

  On Friday, Betsy dressed in one of her few pairs of older jeans and a T-shirt before Ross and Loren drove her out to the industrial complex Kel owned. He and Mark Collins met them there, in the vacant unit where they’d left all the stuff they’d moved from the apartment.

  “Okay,” Mark said. “All you do is say keep, or toss. Let us handle the rest.”

  Betsy sank onto one of the two scarred dining room chairs that matched the discount-store table. Piled near the unit’s door, there actually didn’t look like there was a whole lot. Yes, the apartment had been small, but dwarfed by the cavernous empty bay, it looked like less than she’d even had at her previous apartment, which had been even smaller by comparison.

  Trying to think ahead, knowing there were some things she might need to keep, she helped them whittle the pile down to about half its previous bulk. The discarded items went into a large Dumpster, with a few going into boxes for Kel to drop back by the apartment and leave locked inside, with her key. The remaining items Kel was going to move into the unit where his office and spare apartment were because he had a prospective renter wanting to look at that unit tomorrow.

  Ed had joined them to let her know he’d been interviewed by a Tampa TV station. He also assured her that even though her name wasn’t on the apartment lease, since she’d changed her driver’s license to that address and had lived there for several months, she met the legal definition of being a resident. As such, while Jack could try to come after her legally and sue her, it was doubtful he would be able to because she could claim the items were hers. And yes, some of them were. Or, had been, before he’d confiscated them and claimed ownership of them, and her.