Jonah was already there, standing next to the Dumpster, smoking a cigar with Ernie and Bryan, his best bouncer buddies. She waved at them. “Hey, Jonah. I see you brought backup.”

He hadn’t expected her to appear, and his cigar twitched at the corner of his mouth. His buddies snorted.

“I’m not surprised you didn’t want to face me alone.” She sounded exactly like the eleven-year-old who’d once fought Dugan Finke for pulling up her T-shirt. Dugan had been twice her size and beat the crap out of her, but he’d never touched her or her T-shirt again.

Jonah was in a conundrum. Because she was female, he couldn’t swing at her the way he wanted. All he could do was drop his cigar and look threatening.

She believed in fair play, and she took pity on him. She walked closer and, with a smile on her face, shoved the heels of her hands against his chest, hooked out her leg, and sent him down.

Cursing, he was back on his feet in a flash, temper on fire, poised to launch. She braced herself, but before he could get to her, his pals sprang forward and grabbed his arms.

“Don’t do it, J.”

“You can’t hit her!”

Jonah struggled to get free. “Let me go! I’m going to take her head off!”

“Try it!” she countered.

He screamed more invective, and since he couldn’t get to her, it wasn’t honorable to keep taunting him, so she joined him in ordering his boys to let him go. They were so engrossed in yelling at each other that none of them noticed Coop’s Tesla squealing into the alley.

Just as Jonah managed to work himself free, Coop threw himself between them. “What the hell is going on here?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he swung hard, catching Jonah in the side of his jaw and sending him bouncing against the Dumpster. “You’re fired, you son of a bitch. I don’t ever want to see your face around here again.”

“She started it!” Jonah cried, cradling his jaw.

The adrenaline that had been driving her began to ooze away, leaving her tired and dispirited. “I kind of did,” she said.

Coop swiveled around and stared at her. When he finally spoke, each word was a surface-to-air missile. “You kind of did?”

“I hit him first.”

Ernie and Bryan nodded. “She did, boss.”

“I’m not good at self-restraint,” she said, as if that weren’t blindingly clear. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fire Jonah.”

Coop’s dangerous eyebrow went up.

“You would?” Jonah said, clearly dumbfounded.

“Not because of me, anyway,” she said.

Coop was furious. “Maybe I should fire you instead? Because clearly you can’t be left unsupervised.”

“If I could respectfully disagree...” Ernie said. “She’s been making our job a lot easier.”