He went to him and abruptly grabbed Joel by the shirt, shoving him back against the table. Our glasses tipped and spilled over our food. Even though Joel was near Borden’s height, he didn’t have his mass. Fear shone in Joel’s face, and I knew there would be no way to get out of this without Borden getting his way.

“A man dines in my restaurant, eats my food, insults my waitress, and has the audacity to call me a lunatic,” Borden stated loudly to everyone at their tables.

I stood up, helplessly watching the situation unfold in stunned silence. Everyone was staring in awe as Borden then dragged him to the entrance of the restaurant gripping the back of his neck. I snapped out of my trance and raced after them, stumbling a bit in my heels along the way.

By the time they were outside, Borden threw Joel effortlessly onto the pavement. He landed with a big thud on his side, grunting in pain as his flesh scraped against the sidewalk. But instead of leaving him, Borden approached him again.

“Stop,” I yelled hysterically. “No more! We’re going!”

Borden ignored me and threw his suit jacket off. He began rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt, staring gravely at Joel. “You call me a lunatic and I’ll show you what a lunatic is,” he said, raising his voice no further than usual.

He bent down, grabbed Joel and stood him back on his feet. The doctor was too dazed to know what was going on.

“Call me a lunatic again. Go on.”

Joel shook his head pleadingly. “I didn’t mean –”

Borden interrupted him with a punch across the face. Blood flowed freely out of Joel’s nose as he fell back.

“Call me a lunatic again,” he repeated through clenched teeth, standing over his mangled body, looking deceptively calm. “Go on.”

He went to grab at him again, and all at once my anger swept me out of my stiff stance. I ran to him and grabbed his shoulder, screaming into his ear.

“Just leave him alone. Let go of him!” I screamed, looking up at the passerbys as they slowed. “Someone, stop him! Help!”

Nobody would help.

Without caring who he was, I frantically grabbed at his arm and stood between him and Joel. Borden went to move past me, but I forced myself in his way, pleading for him to stop.

Joel’s face was a bloody mess after just one punch and Borden would be going for another blow. I couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Leave him alone,” I told him, and without thinking, I grabbed his face with both my hands, trying to turn it to me.

“Look at me!” I said angrily, moving my face so that I was only a few inches away from his. He’d have no choice but to look at me now.

Borden’s blue eyes flickered for a moment to mine, then to Joel on the ground, and then to mine again.

“Look at me. Borden.”

He was clearly not expecting this. His wild eyes looked over my face for a long moment and he shook his head a bit, as if he was being roused from a dream.

“Look at me.”

His face relaxed a little.

“Leave him alone,” I said, maintaining full eye contact so that he wouldn’t fly off the handle again. “Leave him alone, Borden. He was an asshole, I know. He was being horrible and the waitress didn’t deserve that, but it’s done now. Just leave him alone. Hell, let’s talk about it. Just you and me. We’ll sort it out. I-I can talk for him and we’ll sort it out but just… don’t hurt him. Okay? You’ve done enough.”

He didn’t move for what felt like an eternity. His gaze travelled to my mouth, lingering there for several seconds. Abruptly, he turned away from Joel and I brought my hands down now that I had his full attention. His eyes never strayed from mine and it took everything in me not to look away. He was so fucking intimidating, it was unnatural. If I’d had a shred of rationality left, I’d have been shaking in my heels.

I startled when his hand rose up to my face. I suppressed a shiver and felt his fingers briefly moving along my jawline and over my bottom lip. That puzzled expression from before on his face. Then he dropped his hand down.

“Be at my table in five minutes,” he told me.

He turned away from me and casually picked up his suit jacket from off the ground. He headed back into the restaurant without so much a glance in my direction, his body relaxed and unaffected. I looked around and saw at least a few dozen people crowding the pavement around us, gawking at me with bewildered expressions. Yeah, they were probably wondering the same thing I was: what the fuck was that all about?

Turning back to Joel, I gingerly went down to my knees and used parts of my dress to wipe his face clean. A basket of napkins from the restaurant was placed beside us. I looked up at another waitress who appeared deeply disturbed by the bloody mess.

“Thank you,” I said, faintly.

“I can call an ambulance if you want,” she offered.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I asked Joel. “Can you hear me? Should I take you to the emergency room?”

“No,” Joel managed out, barely opening his eyes. “Home. Take me home.”

Before I could respond, shadows fell over us. I looked up at two men – one of them Hawke – and watched as they bent down and grabbed Joel off the ground.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Put him down!”

“We’ll be taking care of him from here on out,” Hawke snapped. “You get inside.”

“Will he be okay?”

They didn’t answer. I watched as they lifted him up on his feet and steered him away. Joel’s head was down in defeat, his body limp and barely moving.

“You really need to go,” the waitress told me solemnly. “Mr. Borden doesn’t like to wait.”

She returned to the restaurant and I just shook my head at myself. What happened to my quiet uninterrupted life? I felt like it was a different reality ago.

I turned my attention back to the entrance of the restaurant where a lunatic was waiting for me inside.

Joel’s creepy prison conversation suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

Thirteen

Emma

I felt absolute dread as the waitress from outside led me to his table in a discreet area on the second level. I was made to wait a short distance away from where Borden was already seated. He was looking casually down at his cell phone as he chatted with a man across the table from him. He seemed so unaffected. Did he not care that he just punched a man and made a huge scene?