By the time Linda had dealt with Brad's little gang, I was already heading upstairs, glad to be putting some distance between me and that whole mess.
I knew better than to let guys like that get under my skin. That kind of talk, all bark, all posturing was designed to do exactly one thing: rattle you. And the frustrating part was that they were annoyingly good at it. Even when you knew what they were doing, it still worked.
Could I really deny every single thing they'd thrown at me?
I'd stood there and said it plain, no harm was coming to this place, not to anyone here. I'd said it with a straight face and a serious voice. But walking up those stairs alone, the doubt started creeping in like it always did when the noise died down and it was just me and my own thoughts.
