Fighter - Jericho's Boys #6 - ch. 2 (Patreon)

Here we go. As always, unbeta'd/unedited. Trigger warning for hints of disordered eating and past sexual trauma. Read with caution.

Matty hated dreaming. Not because he had nightmares, but because in his dreams, his life was idyllic, picture perfect really. It was a life where he wasn’t bitter or jaded or too damaged to be a normal person. In his dreams, he was bright and open and funny. In his dreams, when Lake said something cute or charming, Matty would laugh, smile, swoon…flirt.

He would kiss him like he meant something to him.

He’d been dreaming of Lake for weeks—months—now. Their night together had altered his brain chemistry. It had ruined him. Literally. He hadn’t been the same since. And it pissed him off. It was supposed to be a one night stand. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Why couldn’t Lake have just treated him how he’d wanted? Like he was nobody. Like the sex meant nothing.

Like he deserved.

Matty liked meaningless dick appointments. He liked casual sex that was one step above masturbation. He liked anonymous hookups that he could forget hours later. Bodies with no expectations. Names he didn’t have to remember. Eyes that didn’t look at him like they were trying to figure him out.

But now, Lake had ripped all of that away from him. Now, every single guy he met paled in comparison to his memories of that night. And it made him want to scream, to rage, to shake Lake and tell him how he’d ruined him. Matty hadn’t so much as kissed someone in months…because of Lake.

Because nobody compared to him.

And that sucked.

Matty was smart enough to know it wasn’t healthy. That he wasn’t healthy. That his aversion to affection, of anything meaningful, was a result of years of trauma he should probably work out in therapy. Years of tolerating something that never should have been allowed and had been blatantly ignored by any adult who claimed they could help. Years of learning that attention always came with a price.

Nobody could intellectualize his trauma more than Matty. But knowing there was work to do and doing the work were very different things. He was beyond hope at this point. All the bad things had solidified and this was just who he was now. He’d accepted that. He’d been okay being nothing to anyone but Jordan.

Nobody would guess what a bitter, miserable person he was on the inside. He’d gotten really good at faking it. At being the good student. The good son. And now, the good brother. At smiling when people expected it. At saying the right thing before anyone noticed the calculation behind it. He wasn’t sociable but people didn’t avoid him. He avoided them. It was just…easier that way.

He’d worked so hard to numb every feeling he’d ever had. All but one. Anger. He was good at hiding it, that seething undercurrent of heat always building under the surface just waiting. Waiting until someone gave him a reason. An excuse for all the pent-up rage bubbling up within him. It’s why he boxed. It’s why he’d learned to fight. Not to hurt people, but to find a healthier outlet for this anger that infected him like poison. To bleed it out before it bled into everything else.

And he’d been fine.

Fuck.

If Matty was being honest with himself—which he absolutely wasn’t—Lake had cracked something open, opened a scar he’d convinced himself he’d closed. He’d already been fractured beyond repair. His father had slammed his fist into the mirror that was Matty so many times, there was no gluing him back together. Matty had tried. But there weren’t enough horses or men for Lake to fix him. But he could have at least left Matty with his only coping mechanism besides beating a heavy bag.

It was infuriating.

Yet dream Matty was still hopelessly besotted with dream Lake. It was gross, really. He knew he was dreaming. He knew they weren’t really back in Matty’s bedroom at Aiden’s house. That they weren’t curled up in bed, Lake’s chin pressed to Matty’s head. That Lake’s arm wasn’t actually wrapped around him like he belonged there. It couldn’t be.

It felt real though. In that twilight between wake and sleep, it felt real.

But so did the pain. The more the real world bled through into his dream world, the worse the pain grew. His head was pounding, his ribs sore even with his shallow breaths. When he shifted even slightly, his body punished him for it with another knife-sharp dose of reality.

But in his dreams, when he tipped his head up to look at Lake, his mouth found his naturally, easily. Not with any heat or urgency, just slow, deep, thorough kisses that had Matty leaning in every time he retreated. Lake’s lips were addicting, his mouth magical. He could remember every touch of them that night if he allowed himself to.

Which he absolutely wouldn’t.

When he opened bleary eyes, he didn’t expect Lake to still be there, much less staring down at him with heavy lids. He was far closer than he’d been when they’d fallen asleep. Matty was still curled around him, Lake’s arm still beneath his head, but Lake’s head was tilted down, like he’d wanted to be able to check on Matty every time he opened his eyes. Like he’d been watching him sleep, which put his mouth right next to Matty’s nose.

All he’d have to do was tilt his head back just slightly and…

Matty blamed his dream, blamed his post-dream lack of filter. When their lips met, Lake didn’t push him away, but he didn’t pull him closer, didn’t deepen the kiss. But he did respond, warm soft mouth moving over Matty’s almost lazily. Careful. Like he didn’t want to start something Matty couldn’t finish.

Matty felt himself pressing in closer, caught up in the heat blooming through his chest. For one dangerous second, he forgot everything else—his ribs, the mess he’d made of the last twenty-four hours.

A sharp pain lanced through him, making him yelp like a kicked dog.

Lake jerked back like he suddenly realized what they were doing.

Matty felt something in him crash and burn. Of course, Lake hadn’t actually wanted to kiss him. Why would he? He hadn’t exactly made things easy on him since he’d come to bail him out of jail.

He was being such a douchebag to him but he just…didn’t know what else to do.

“Are you okay?” Lake asked, forehead creased with concern as he sat up, pushing a careful hand to Matty’s shoulder like he was afraid even touching him might hurt.

He gently pushed Matty onto his back, palpating the bruise over his ribs like a doctor performing an exam. He winced, but he didn’t cry out…even though he really wanted to. It hurt like a motherfucker. Why were ribs so fucking fragile?

“I’m fine,” Matty muttered, slapping his hand away. “I was just still half-asleep and forgot about the fight for a minute. My ribs reminded me.”

Lake studied him for a long minute like he was gauging whether Matty was being honest with him. For once, he was. He really had been half-asleep, still high off the remnants of a world he’d never actually been a part of. 

His heart sank as Lake sighed and said, “We need to talk.”

Matty scowled. “We really don’t.”

If Lake tried to give him some kind of breakup speech when they weren’t even together, he’d probably swan dive out the window.

His shoulders sagged as his phone vibrated its way across the surface of his nightstand. He was going to kiss whoever was on the other end of that phone for saving him from an it’s- not-you-it’s-me talk.

Jordan.

His lip curled. He was still fucking pissed at him. That didn’t stop him from answering. Or lying just a little.

He rolled away from Lake to answer, pressing his head into the pillow as he mumbled, “‘m sleepin’.”

His heart sped up as Jordan asked, “Alone?” voice laced with fake innocence. 

Asshole. 

“Nosey,” was all he could think to say.

Lake’s hand slid across Matty’s bare midriff gently. The touch was careful, almost absent-minded, but Matty felt it everywhere. Could he feel the way his pulse pounded?

“Who is it?”

His voice sounded too intimate. This felt too real. Also, the last thing he wanted was to confirm that Lake was in his bed…again.

Matty covered the phone with his hand, looking back over his shoulder, wincing as his ribs panged once more. “Shh.”

He turned away from him again but not before Lake chuckled softly, his fingers still splayed low on Matty’s belly. Like he had no intention of moving them.

“We already heard him,” Jordan said in a sing-song voice that made Matty homicidal. “I can’t believe you fucked him after you got your skull kicked in. Why are you so horny all the time?”

Matty snorted, ignoring Jordan’s question and the way he felt Lake vibrating with silent laughter behind him.

“He wishes,” he muttered, hoping Lake knew he meant him and knowing that even if he did, he wouldn’t take offense. Lake had that irritatingly calm way about him, like nothing Matty said could actually land a hit. He was shadowboxing. 

“And who got their skull kicked in? Only one of us is in a hospital bed right now and it ain’t me.”

“Yeah, yeah yeah, you’re a superhero. We get it,” Jordan intoned.

Matty’s breath caught as Lake’s body curled around his, his head resting against Matty’s like they were snuggling. Like this was the most natural position in the world.

He struggled to concentrate on Jordan’s words.

“Listen, Hicks isn’t just not home, someone staged his apartment to look like it was burglarized. We have no idea if anything was taken.”

Matty’s brain finally latched onto the words, the easy warmth of the bed evaporating as his instincts snapped back online.

“But you know it was staged?” Lake asked. “Could he have done it himself?”

Something curdled in Matty. Lake wasn’t cuddling, he was trying to hear the other side of a conversation that was none of his business. Sigh. What did Matty expect? He couldn’t be a dick to him then expect him to stick around.

Once more he covered the phone, craning his head back to look at him, putting him entirely too close once more. “Stop eavesdropping.”

Matty bit his lip as Lake’s fingers ghosted over his ribs absently, like he didn’t even know he was slowly killing him. Every slow brush of his fingers lit up nerves Matty would have preferred stayed dead.

“Put it on speakerphone and I wouldn’t have to,” Lake chastised in a way Matty’s dick found entirely too enticing.

“Uh, fine,” Matty said. “We’re both here,” he added, hoping he sounded exasperated and not sexually frustrated.

He flipped onto his back—wincing once again—hoping to put some distance between them as he hit the speaker button, but Lake stayed on his side, head propped on his hand, looking entirely too comfortable in Matty’s bed. Like he’d already decided it belonged to him.

“We don’t think he did it himself. We found his two cats in the closet,” Cree said. “He doesn’t seem the type to leave two animals to starve.”

Lake and Matty exchanged glances, Matty’s lips twitching when Lake mouthed we then rolled his eyes. God, Jordan was really gone over this guy and listening to Jordan gush about him for months and seeing them that morning solidified in his head that Cree was about to be a permanent fixture in both their lives…and that meant so was Lake.

There were no six degrees of separation in their incestuous little group. Everyone ended up tangled together eventually.

“What do you want to do next?” Jordan asked Matty. “His phone’s off…or the battery died. Either way, this doesn’t feel right. Even one of his hookups said that Hicks would never no-call-no-show on us. He didn’t even do that to his—many—sex friends. The vibes are way off on this one.”

“Meaning?” Matty asked, pulling the sheets higher to cover the fact that he was tenting his underwear and hoping Lake blamed it on him having just woken up.

That hope was soon dashed when Lake murmured, “Someone’s awake,” right against his ear.

His breath was warm against Matty’s skin. Way too warm.

Matty elbowed him in the ribs, satisfaction pouring through him when he grunted and gave him space.

“Meaning I think you need to SIM swap him,” Jordan said.

Matty’s heart began to gallop, his gaze snapping to Lake whose brows knitted together in a way he wished he didn’t find so hot.

“Can you do that?” Lake asked, sounding wary but also begrudgingly impressed.

“He can do anything,” Jordan said proudly through the speaker.

Matty did smile then. At least Jordan loved him. Still, now he was going to have to explain to Lake what he did. What they did. And why. And Lake wasn’t the type to take a shallow explanation and move on. Lake was the kind of person who followed threads until he found the knot.

Matty could feel his gaze boring into him even as he spoke.

“If you’re wrong, we’ve just left him completely helpless,” Matty said, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand.

Because focusing on Lake right now was a very bad idea.

“But if his phone’s off—for whatever reason—he’s already helpless,” Jordan reasoned. “There’s no way he ran. Not without his pets. He would have at least left them with a friend or something.”

He knew Jordan was right. Hicks was such a good reporter because he cared about people. He helped them out with information because he knew what they did helped people. He’d never leave an animal helpless.

Matty groaned. “Fuck. Fine. I’ll do it. You know it’s gonna take a while. I have to deep dive into his personal data first.”

“That’s fine. We have to go shopping,” Jordan said, sighing dreamily like a Disney princess.

“Shopping?” Lake and Matty said at the same time.

“Yeah, we took his fur babies,” Jordan practically chirped. “They need food and a litter box. They need stuff.”

Matty’s rapid heartbeat started thudding painfully against his sore ribs. “You know I’m allergic to cats.”

Had Jordan truly forgotten or had he just not cared? 

“I couldn’t just leave them,” his best friend whined. “They’re so little.”

Matty didn’t even have time to formulate a response before Cree said, “They can stay with me…us,” before tacking on, “You can stay with me, too if you want.”

“Okay,” Jordan blurted, flustered.

“Perfect,” Lake said over his shoulder. “Let’s swap roommates until we figure this out.”

Matty’s heart plummeted into his ass. “Absolutely the fuck not,” Matty cried, indignantly. “No way.”

“What? Why?” Jordan asked, words dripping with smugness. Matty had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach a second before he continued. “Wait, are you saying you’re so into him you’re afraid to even let him sleep in my room for a couple of nights?”

Why was he taunting him like this? Why was he being such a dick? He had to know what he was doing to Matty right now. How could he stay with Lake, under the same roof, for days?

He couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t allow Lake to stay there for the same reason he didn’t allow Jordan to bring home chocolate cake. He had no willpower. And Lake was the equivalent of death by chocolate. There was no resisting him. Matty wasn’t that strong.

“I know what you’re doing, Jordan Del Castillo,” Matty barked sharply. “It’s not gonna work. You can’t reverse-psychology me into living with my one night stand.”

“Hurtful,” Lake said, sounding like the word was punched out of him.

Guilt settled heavy in Matty’s stomach and he looked up at Lake with dread. Despite his tone, Lake looked no more upset than he had a moment ago. He looked almost…happy? There’s no way he could want to be trapped with Matty after the way he’d treated him. Was he some kind of masochist?

Matty didn’t want to reenact the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days plot but he would if pushed. This was a code-red emergency.

“Come on,” Jordan pleaded in that sulky tone that made Matty want to give in immediately. “I love cats. I never get to play with them ‘cause of your allergies. It’s just until we find Hicks. Well, until you find Hicks.”

Right, dump the work on me so you can have your fairy tale romance with your new boyfriend.

“And what will you be doing while I find Hicks?” Matty asked, dubiously. “Other than Cree that is?”

Jordan gasped. “How dare you. I am a lady. Unlike some whores who shall not be named.”

Oh, that’s right. He was mad at Jordan. How had he forgotten? Jordan always did this. Did something he knew he shouldn’t then charmed his way out of it immediately. He was just so fucking sweet it was hard to stay mad at him.

“Speaking of. Don’t think that we’re not gonna have a serious talk about how you’ve known who Lake was the whole time and said nothing. You’ve broken every rule of friendship. You’re in big trouble, mister,” he said, wagging a finger Jordan couldn’t see.

But Lake could. He grinned at him goofily and Matty’s heart ached. After a second, his head dipped. “Come on, Miles. Let me stay. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior,” he crooned right into his ear, voice dropping an octave as he added, “Or my worst depending on what you’re looking for.”

“No,” Matty had meant for it to sound final. Instead it sounded exactly like what it was.

Panic.

Blind terror.

He could not be trusted alone with this man. 

“Oh.” He said, looking like a kicked puppy. “You were just asking me to shower with you two hours ago,” Lake whined. 

What the fuck. Matty was not built for this. He was a steel-coated marshmallow. Jordan had realized that almost day one.

“I—That’s not—” Matty stammered, then abruptly cut himself off. He was never going to beat all of them. They had numbers and a complete lack of shame. “Ugh, fine. But I hate all of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Jordan sang. “As soon as you crack his phone, let us know. He had to back up his research on this secret society somewhere. It’s probably in his cloud. Find me a lead and we’ll run it down while you find Hicks.”

“I’m on it,” Matty said, holding his ribs with one hand and the phone with the other as he struggled to sit up. His body protested the movement immediately, a sharp pulse of pain radiating through his side. “But you can’t tell Aiden or Thomas about any of what we do.”

“Bold of you to assume they don’t already know what you do,” Cree snarked.

“Wait,” Lake said, now hovering over Matty’s shoulder. “Do you know what they do?” he asked his best friend, hurt seeping into his tone. “Other than SIM swaps apparently.”

“Yeah,” Cree said smugly. “Jordan told me.”

“So much for taking our secret to the grave,” Matty muttered, shaking his head. “Glad he’s not the cops or we’d both be in cuffs, traitor.”

“It was life or death,” Jordan pleaded. “Besides, he would have found out eventually anyway.”

Lake crawled out of bed so he could stand in front of Matty. Too close again.

“Will someone tell me what you two are up to and why people are being kidnapped and why we’re apparently stealing kittens now?” he asked, bewildered.

He looked cute when he had no clue what’s going on. Annoyingly cute. Distractingly cute. Especially in his underwear. Nothing but his underwear. Matty was also in nothing but his underwear.

“Show him, Matty. The cat’s already out of the bag.” There was a pause. “Literally.”

Matty didn’t answer, just hung up.

As soon as he tossed his phone onto the mattress, he leaned back on his hands to look up at Lake, both of them attempting to ignore that they were half-hard. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re going to let this go?”

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Lake said. “But first, food. I’m starving. And you have to be, too. You haven’t eaten since last night.”

The word food was like a sucker punch to Matty’s solar plexus, temporarily stealing his breath. He opened his mouth to say he wasn’t hungry, when his stomach growled loudly.

Lake grinned. “I don’t suppose you have any food in the house?”

Matty shook his head.

Matty’s food consumption usually consisted of what Jordan called girl dinner. He usually ate standing in the glow of the fridge light, consuming yogurt from the container, green beans from a can, fruits and vegetables from a bag, and—sometimes—lunch meat. If they remembered it existed before it turned green. 

Matty didn’t eat so much as…graze. A bite here. A bite there. Enough to quiet the noise but never enough to feel full. He had issues with food. He had issues with everything.

“I’m gonna order in then. Is there anything you want or anything you won’t eat?”

Matty shrugged. “Whatever’s fine. I’ll eat anything.”

Technically true. Eating it and finishing it were two completely different things. He’d pick at whatever Lake ordered until Lake finished, then toss it in the trash anyway.

Matty could feel Lake studying him until he finally glanced up and said, “What?”

Lake smiled. “I need your address. I can’t order delivery without it.”

“Oh, right.”

He rattled off his address, then went to his drawer, pulling on a pair of cotton joggers and a hoodie.

“Does this mean I’m allowed to get dressed again?” Lake asked, tone teasing.

Matty turned, giving him a hard once over, then smirked. “Only if you want to. It’s your house, too…roomie.”

He hoped to rattle Lake. He hadn’t. Instead, he crossed the room, pinning Matty against the wall, body pressed to his, Lake’s lips so close to his own he could feel his breath as he spoke. Matty simply ceased breathing altogether as Lake’s hand slid up under Matty’s hoodie. 

He talked to him in that low, soft voice that made him want. “I can’t figure out if you're testing the waters, pushing my buttons, or being the world’s biggest tease. But don’t offer something that’s not on the table.” He leaned in even closer, until their lips brushed. “It hurts my feelings. Understand?” 

Matty could feel the blood rushing in his ears. Suddenly, his hand disappeared from beneath his shirt and he took a step back. It took him a minute for his brain function to return. Only then did he realize Lake was still looking for an answer. Matty could only manage a stilted nod as he waited for his heart to leave his throat. 

Did anything shake him? Anything at all? How was someone so calm and self-assured all the time? Didn’t he have any family baggage or something that weighed on him?

Even if he did, why would he share it with you, stupid?

When he left his bedroom, Lake followed, his phone in hand. Matty fired up his computer and dropped into the seat while Lake paced, scrolling, probably looking at restaurants.

When his system warmed up, he went to his usual data broker site, typing in what little he knew. Cameron Hicks. Born in October. His current city and state.

It only took about thirty seconds for Matty to gain access to his full date of birth, former addresses, former employers and family members, even every car he’d ever owned.

He dragged that info to the top corner of his monitor, opening another window. He felt Lake drag over a chair from their kitchen table, but didn’t stop to engage. Lake settled beside him without crowding the space, watching the screen the way someone watched a complicated magic trick.

“What are you doing?” Lake finally asked.

“Searching a data breach site to see if Hicks had ever been part of one before.”

“What would that tell you?” Lake asked, sounding genuinely interested.

Matty shrugged. “Previous passwords, pins, websites he’s used in the past. That sort of thing.”

“And that helps you how?” Lake asked, frowning.

Matty finally glanced sideways at him. “People are surprisingly lazy when it comes to their passwords. Even after a data breach, they sometimes go right back to the same old ones or they only change one or two elements. Humans are creatures of habit.”

Unsurprisingly, Hicks had been part of a breach two years ago. He grabbed the information, including his social security number, and added it to the report. Next he went to the skip-tracing sites—the ones bounty hunters often used—and used the previous information to find Hicks utilities, his credit report and even his voter registration card.

Data bloomed across the screen in neat little columns. Hicks’s life, reduced to numbers and records anyone with enough curiosity could pull apart.

All he needed now was to call the phone company. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a phone and checked the SIM card, then pulled up all the information he’d gathered, attempting to pull the information that was most likely to be a security question. Mother’s maiden name, name or make and model of his first car, things of that nature.

The only wild card would be if they asked for a pin but he could override that with his social security number if he pushed hard enough.

He called Hicks’s carrier—something else provided in the data breach. A lovely woman named Donna with a lilting Southern drawl happily helped him get his brand new phone set up after the unfortunate loss of his expensive brand new phone that went over the side of a boat on a river cruise right before he was going to propose to his fiancè.

Donna even sympathized with him. People loved a mildly tragic story.

Lake watched all of this with a gobsmacked look on his face—like he was impressed by Matty’s acting skills—but Matty had done this hundreds of times by now. 

Lake abandoned him briefly to go get the food they’d delivered. By the time he’d returned, Hicks’s phone was now Matty’s. That was when the really tedious work began.

“Come eat,” Lake insisted, holding a cardboard box filled with white to-go containers with little metal handles.

Chinese.

Matty’s stomach growled again. He went to the fridge and downed a glass of water before looking over his shoulder. “Do you want something to drink? It’s mostly diet soda and water.”

“Whatever’s fine,” Lake said, echoing Matty’s previous words.

Matty grabbed two sodas and plates, then sat back as Lake divided up the food. Beef and broccoli, vegetable lo mein, egg rolls, steamed dumplings.

It was a feast of thousands of calories. Matty tried to gauge what each might cost him. Would he have time to hit the gym later? Probably not. He mentally sighed. He took the chopsticks offered and picked up a piece of broccoli, nibbling it. The rest of the food sat untouched on his plate, steaming.

“So, spill,” Lake said after he’d taken three huge mouthfuls of…everything.

“Wha’ ‘oo you mean?” Matty managed around his own bite.

“What is it you and Jordan get up to that requires you to be able to swap SIM cards and have a rig that would make Penelope Garcia weep?”

Hardly. She had a whole room full of servers. That was the dream.  He sighed, setting down his chopsticks. “We help people get their lives back…through any means necessary.”

“That’s a mission statement, not an explanation,” Lake said, mouth flattening into a hard line as he set down his own chopsticks and crossed his arms over his chest. It was obvious that Lake had the patience of a man who fully intended to wait him out.

Matty rolled his eyes. “Fine. When a violent crime happens, who do the cops focus on? The victims or the assailant?”

“The assailant,” Lake said, frowning like he wasn’t following.

“Exactly. If they’re lucky, they throw a few dollars from a victims’ fund at them and send them on their way. Most times their attackers don’t even get arrested, much less convicted.”

“That’s why we do what we do,” Lake said, clearly knowing Matty would understand what he meant.

“What do you do for the victims? The ones still alive anyway?” Matty countered, raising a brow.

Lake opened his mouth then closed it, a look of understanding spreading across his face. “Nothing, really, I guess. I mean, Jericho does a lot of outreach and charity but I don’t know that he helps any one victim specifically.”

“That’s what Jordan and I do. We help the victims,” he said, trying to keep it vague.

“By…” Lake prodded, motioning with his hand to continue.

“Most of the time it’s sexual assault cases, revenge porn, leaking nudes, deepfake videos. We scrub the internet and turn the tables on their assailants. Give them a taste of their own medicine.”

Lake sat up a little straighter. “Scrub the internet? Nobody can scrub the internet.”

“I can,” Matty said, cockiness seeping into his tone. “I wrote a script that basically attaches a…tracker of sorts, to an image and destroys that image every time it comes across it. It’s not a fast fix, but it helps keep the images from floating to the top of a search history when the victims go for jobs or scholarships later. With the rise of morality clauses and schools checking potential students’ online presence before accepting them, what we do helps ensure their lives aren’t ruined over someone else’s hurt feelings.”

“Why do I have a feeling there’s more to this? You said you ‘turn the tables’ on the assailant. What does that mean exactly?”

“Just what I said. Jordan gets me access to their phones, their laptops, their cloud servers. Whatever we need. Then we find incriminating information and send it to the police anonymously. They go to jail where they belong. Easy peasy.”

Lake scowled. “And if there isn’t any incriminating evidence?”

Matty smiled. “Then we just make it up.”

“If you can’t get them for their real crimes you just invent them?” Lake countered. “Do you understand how dangerous that is?” 

“No, tell me,” Matty countered, every word laced with sarcasm. 

Lake sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “You…you’re eighteen. If you get busted for this, you’re doing hard time. How long have you and Jordan been at this?” 

Matty shrugged. “I’d do fine in prison. These men are predators. And rapists don’t change. Ever.”

He could hear the venom in his voice but he couldn’t tamp it down, nor did he want to. Still, if he didn’t calm down, Lake was going to start to wonder if there was something deeper behind his and Jordan’s cause. And Matty just didn’t want to answer those questions. Not again.

“What we do ensures that monsters will be put in cages where they belong. Do you know that ninety-eight percent of rapists never even see the inside of a jail cell? Sixty-eight percent of victims don’t even bother to report it because they know the reality is that nobody cares. Not the cops, not the courts, sometimes not even their families.” 

Lake was studying him now like dissecting an animal, trying to peel back the layers, trying to figure out why Matty’s hands shook and his jaw tensed so hard it made it ache. 

Matty knew he should stop talking, but he just couldn’t. Lake needed to see. He needed to understand. 

“The sentences for rape, child abuse and child sexual assault are a joke. Even if the guy does get some jail time, he’s out on good behavior in a few months and back to hurting people hours later. Again and again. The cycle just continues. Some rapists have been in and out of prison for years and they just keep letting them go. We make sure they’re doing the time they deserve.”

Lake said nothing.

“Sometimes they even get custody back of the kids they assaulted,” Matty added, sounding like some zealot on a pulpit. “Jordan and I just tip the scales back. An eye for an eye. But we always help the victims first.”

Lake ran the side of his finger across his bottom lip as he watched him, like he was thinking about whether to keep questioning him. Like he was measuring the scope of Matty’s anger and deciding what had triggered it.

Instead, he said, “Your food’s getting cold. You need to eat. Your body’s healing. I don’t want you getting sick.”

Matty’s eyes went wide. He picked up his chopsticks, pushing his food around on the plate. 

“Eat, please,” Lake pleaded like he was arguing with a toddler over eating their peas. “Just a few more bites? I’m worried about you.” 

And that was the crux of it. 

Somehow Lake’s concern felt more dangerous than any argument he could have started.