They both turned, and Audrey gasped as two more men came into the laneway, then she saw their black shirts, the bar logo on the chest.
“What the fuck happened here?”
Reece stepped forward. “Tried to jump me.”
“You take them all out?”
Reece bent down, pulled a wallet out of the pocket of an unconscious guy. It was stuffed with money.
“Dude, you took six guys out,” the bouncer’s eyes slid to Audrey then away, “by yourself?”
His partner was talking to someone through his ear tech. He asked for an ambulance and the police.
Reece took two fifties out of the wallet and tossed it to the bouncer. “Bastards can pay for my parking and a new shirt.” Then he went for his own wallet put the bills in and took something out. He stepped over the pile of arms and legs and held it over his head. He was showing the camera his driver’s license. “Cops can find me if they want me.”
“Wait. Who are you, Chuck Norris? What the fuck happened here?”
Reece put his foot against a body and rolled it over. “This is the guy who broke the bottle. Don’t think he liked me interfering.”
The guy’s face was a mass of red bruised skin and blood smears. His nose clearly broken. He moaned and flailed an arm.
The other bouncer said, “Is everyone still breathing?” He pointed at Audrey. “Do you need medical attention? You’re bleeding.”
Did she? Bleeding? She looked down, there was blood on her leg. “That’s not mine.”
Reece was there, with a torn piece of shirt. “Yeah, baby, it is from the bottle. It’s not bad.” He spat on the cotton and wiped at her leg. “It’s only a scratch.” He called over his shoulder, “We’re fine.” Then he took her hand and stood.
He led her out of the laneway while the bouncers got the attackers roused. None of them made any move to get higher than their knees. Two were still unconscious.
She went with him back to the car. He talked the whole way but she had no idea what he was saying. She kept seeing the calm and composed way he’d beaten six men into the ground. She did not understand how that was possible. It wasn’t simply adrenaline. It wasn’t being a hero, or using his size. He’d only had two beers. He’d been brutally systematic and methodically deadly, this man who cut sandwiches into animal shapes for Mia, and once let her draw tattoos all over his arms that took days to wash off.
He paid for their parking and they settled in the car.
He rang Etta. “I’m sorry we’re late. We’re on the way now. Twenty minutes. I said we were sorry. Yes, I understand the concept of overtime. Etta. Etta. Etta. Shit, all right. All right.”
He drove. She stopped seeing blood and hearing men shout. She stopped being shocked and acted. “What was that?”
He glanced at her. “Are you okay?”
He’d probably asked her that a dozen different ways on the walk to the car. “I am not okay. I want answers. I don’t understand what happened.”
“I’m a big guy. I can handle myself.”
She swivelled to face him. “You were a machine. You don’t get that way by being a nanny or by some miracle when you’re threatened.”
“No, baby. I leaned to do that. But I don’t do it anymore.”
She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. “You learned to do it, to beat people up. Explain what that means.”
“Let’s get home and get some antiseptic on your leg and we can talk about it with a cup of tea, okay?”
“I don’t want a fucking cup of tea.”
He flinched.
Six men coming at him with the intention of hurting him hadn’t made him twitch, but her use of a swear word did.
“Pull over. Call Etta and tell her we need more time. As long as it takes you to tell me what you just did. The damn bouncers didn’t believe what they saw. You need to make me understand how the man I trust my daughter with can beat six men bloody and unconscious and walk away without a scratch on him.”