Chapter Twenty-Three
Lawson might have accepted the deal but that didn’t mean he was ready to button it up and call it a day. He turned his head and shouted toward one of the closed doors with notable glee.
“Boys? Why don’t you come out so we can all chat.” Lawson turned back to her, his eyebrow raised again. “Wait. I do have a question you didn’t answer in that way-too-wordy speech you just gave.”
He pointed at his face and made a disgusting pout to seem cute.
“How exactly did you know about me when you saw me at the party? I’m fairly certain your father’s intel didn’t include me yet. Like you, my father also kept me hidden until I was older.”
JJ knew it wasn’t the time or place, but what else did she have to lose?
She smirked and was about to tell him another secret she had guarded well through the years.
But, behind him, the world shifted.
The door he had called out to opened.
However, the boys he had been calling weren’t the ones who appeared.
JJ tried her very best to keep her face the exact same it had been before she recognized the two men. She might not have kept talking had she not realized that the burly man, who she believed to have been behind her, had been gone for a bit.
So, to stall, she continued.
“When I was sixteen, I found your father and then tracked him to a funeral he was attending for someone in your group. I stayed on the outskirts, trying to figure out how many of you there were and realized we were sorely outmatched. Then I saw you, standing at his side in a suit even then.”
JJ felt the old anger from the past flare anew.
“After that, I made sure every plan I made included ways to destroy you too. But I was told to take a breath by a godfather who wanted a much better life for me.”
That anger washed away. JJ felt a different kind of warmth in its place. One born from patience, love and understanding.
“Honestly, I guess he’s the reason you and I are both here right now,” JJ added. She turned to one of the men behind Lawson. He was the older of the two, weathered but not worn.
“Does a life for a life apply here?” she asked him.
Riker smiled.
“That’s definitely something we should talk about.”
All hell broke loose within the next minute.
The burly man came back and stayed as simple as before.
He ran right at the first person he could, just as Lawson reminded them that he did indeed have some skill.
He threw himself backward and started fighting Riker, a blessing in itself since the fight would have already been over had Riker had a good shot.
JJ couldn’t track that line of the fight too long. Her attention diverted to her immediate problem. The burly man was back and unavoidable. She braced herself for an impact that would at the very least break some bones.
It never came.
The man was stopped in his tracks by a hit that was so loud it seemed to vibrate through the space around them.
And Price kept going.
Hits were doled out in an impressive flurry against the bigger man, making Price look like a man possessed. They targeted his chest, side, and finished with a one-two wallop against the man’s head. JJ could only watch in awe as Mr. Burly went from as formidable as a wall to as placid as a doormat.
JJ watched as Price’s bloodied knuckles brushed against the man’s collar while checking to see if he was faking it or really unconscious.
The man was liquid.
He was out.
Price’s gaze swiveled to hers in the next instant but there wasn’t time to say a thing.
Lawson had gotten out of Riker’s reach, and it was clear he had a new target in mind.
JJ went from bracing against a potential attack from the burly man to barely being able to lift her forearms up against the new frightening attacker.
Unlike the man before, Lawson was going to make it to her.
JJ saw his fist incoming and knew there was enough torque behind it to do an unsettling amount of damage. He was already upon her as she gritted her teeth.
But so was Price.
Large, quick hands wrapped around her biceps and pulled her backwards just as Lawson’s hit landed against her forearm.
Pain lit across her, but she knew the quick movement back had saved her from absorbing the entire force.
JJ, never a woman to let go of control, melted into Price’s plan with absolutely no fight.
She let herself be slung back even further while Price replaced her position between him and Lawson with nothing but righteous anger. JJ stumbled several steps away from the new match up.
There she watched the man she had fallen in love with deliver a bone-crunching punch to the man she had spent years hating. Lawson let out a scream that gurgled as blood gushed from his nose.
That’s when she saw the gun in his other hand.
This is what JJ would think back on later as the downfall of Lawson Cole. A perfect example of his unchecked ego.
Riker hadn’t been able to take his gun away.
She definitely hadn’t had the chance either.
So, why hadn’t he used it against her when the opening had been there? Why, instead, had he come at her with his fists?
Was it out of anger?
Did he want to feel her hurt personally?
Or had he simply forgotten in the rush of the fighting that he had had a trump card that would have ended her?
JJ would never know and, in the moment she clocked the gun, she wouldn’t have the time to wonder.
Instead, only fear had taken over.
Not for her, but for Price standing between them.
JJ wanted to yell, to do something to stop the quick aiming of Lawson’s gun, but there was no time.
Thankfully, Riker had been forgotten.
And he was right on time.
Instead of using his gun to end the man who had given them such grief, JJ’s godfather used his weapon as a bat. He swung the handgun down with the strength of a man who had been waiting over a decade to get justice.
There was nothing any of them could do but watch it happen.
And watch JJ did.
Lawson Cole crumpled to the ground, blood across his face from Price, and a hit from Riker that might have killed him.
His suit, always immaculate, was stained red.
JJ found her footing again, easier this time. Her forearms hurt and the burly man near her wasn’t moving at all. Riker was heaving in breaths, his eyebrow busted and part of his shirt torn.
Price’s knuckles were busted and bloodied, but he used one of those hands to give her a thumbs up with a surprisingly cheeky smile. Amongst the chaos and adrenaline-filled people still standing, he delivered a one-liner that pulled a genuine laugh from her.
“I don’t think I ever told you, but I’m also actually really good at fighting.”