“I’m perfectly fine here.” Who was Ryodan and what didn’t Barrons want me to know?

“Up. Stairs. Now.”

I scowled. I didn’t have to look at O’Duffy to know he was regarding me with acute interest—and pity. He was thinking Barrons was the name of the flight of stairs I’d fallen down. I hate pity. Sympathy isn’t quite as bad. Sympathy says, I know how it feels, doesn’t it just suck? Pity means they think you’re defeated.

“He doesn’t beat me,” I said irritably. “I’d kill him if he did.”

“She would. She has a temper. Stubborn, too. But we’re working on that, aren’t we, Ms. Lane?” Barrons turned his wolf smile on me, and jerked his head up toward the ceiling.

Someday I’m going to push Jericho Barrons as far as I can and see what happens. But I’m going to wait a while, until I’m stronger. Until I’m pretty sure I’ve got a trump card.

I may have been forced into this war, but I’m learning to choose my battles.

I didn’t see Barrons for the rest of the day.

A dutiful soldier, I retreated to the ditches as ordered and hunkered down there. In those ditches, I had an epiphany. People treat you as badly as you let them treat you.

Key word there: let.

Some people are exceptions, mostly parents, best friends, and spouses, though in my bartending job at The Brickyard, I’ve seen married people do worse things to each other in public than I’d do in private to someone I couldn’t stand. Bottom line is most of the world will push you as far as you let them. Barrons might have sent me to my room, but I’m the idiot that went. What was I afraid of? That he’d hurt me, kill me? Hardly. He’d saved my life last week. He needed me. Why had I let him intimidate me?

I was disgusted with myself. I was still behaving like MacKayla Lane, part-time bartender, part-time sun-worshipper, and full-time glamour girl. My recent brush with death had made it clear that chick wasn’t going to survive over here, a statement emphatically punctuated by ten unpolished, broken fingernails. Unfortunately, by the time I had my epiphany and stormed back downstairs, Barrons and the inspector were gone.