We were all in a good mood despite the mediocre dinner, thanks to the pleasant company. James and Imogen were great conversationalists, and Emmy and Angela were happy to keep the chatter going. Talk had ranged from the Manhattan townhouse market, to Emmy’s new studio and our sort-of hidden house, to the ski-in condo the Athertons just bought in Jackson, Wyoming. Imogen and James had recently been to the Maldives, and Angela wanted to know where they stayed and how they enjoyed it, since she was thinking of planning a trip for the three of us. What with one thing or another, we spent a couple of hours talking and generally having a pleasant evening.

Laughing about how bad the barbecue had been, we spilled out into the parking lot. The night had gotten cold while we ate, but it was nice and clear. Thanks to the distance from any major cities, the dark night sky was filled with stars. Emmy commented on it, and so we were all looking up and not really paying attention to our surroundings.

I heard a noise and saw three scruffy guys leaning against an old Suburban, looking as if they were waiting for us.

“That’s a really nice car,” one of the guys said. “I bet it cost a lot of money.”

I stepped in front of Angela and Emmy and said, “Yeah, it is a nice car,” I agreed.

“Be a shame if it got scratched or somethin’, I dunno,” the guy said, pulling a fixed-blade knife from a sheath on his belt and making a show of cleaning his nails.

“Yes, it would,” I agreed again, stepping towards the guys. “But nothing like that is going to happen. At least, not tonight,” I said, taking another step closer.

“I dunno,” the main guy said, straightening up and taking a step towards the Porsche. “I mean, really, who knows the future, right?”

I took another step forward to try to get the angle between Scruffy and the 918. Turning in my direction, he vaguely waved the knife towards the car. “I bet you pay a lot for insurance for that car,” he said. “Maybe a little anti-scratch insurance might be a good idea. It shouldn't be too much for you, rich like you are. How much you got on you?”

“Walk away,” I told the guy, getting closer.

“Well, you’re a fucking tall thing, now aren’t you?” he asked, looking me up and down.

“Walk. Now,” I said again.

“I’m startin’ to think that maybe I wasn’t askin’ for enough. How about you hand me the keys to that sweet ride and I let you out of here in one piece?”

“I am going to take that knife from you and stuff it down your throat if you wave it in my direction one more time,” I said, my voice level.

“Don’t take that shit from that dyke!” yelled one of the other idiots.

“I ain’t taking no shit from nobody!” the main guy said. “But I will be takin’ other things, if you get my drift.”

“Last chance to walk away,” I told the guy, taking another step in his direction. “Last chance for you to get out of this unharmed.”

“Fuck you, bitch. I ain’t the one gonna get cut!” he said, lunging forward.

His rush was entirely predictable, so I wept his arm away and punched him right in the face, breaking his nose and spraying blood everywhere. He staggered back unsteadily, dazed. I kicked his wrist, knocking the knife loose, sending it flying across the parking lot.

I followed up with a heel kick to the side of his head, slamming him to the ground, down for the count.

Seeing one of his friends reaching under his shirt for the back waistband of his jeans, I leapt forward and front kicked him back into the old Chevy. The gun he’d been reaching for fell to the ground, so I kicked it away and slammed a back elbow strike into his face. The third guy was backing up, looking around in a panic.

“Fuck off,” I told him and he did just that, turning and running down the empty street.

The second guy was staggering back to his feet, so I kicked his knee and sent him to the pavement again.

“Stay down or I’ll kill you,” I told him, and he seemed to believe me. The first guy was moaning but not really trying to get up, so I wasn’t too worried about whether he’d died or not.

I glanced around and saw James was on the phone, presumably calling the police.

“You guys O.K.?” I asked, getting confirmation that they were alright, even though some of them looked shaken up.

The sheriff’s deputies showed up a few minutes later, after half of the restaurant staff had come outside to see what was going on.

James spoke to the deputies, explaining that there had been three guys that tried to mug us. He described the events, minimizing how confrontational I’d been. The deputies found the knife and pistol quickly enough, manhandling the two remaining idiots into the backs of the two Explorers. After taking all our information down and saying they’d be in touch, they left.

As the two police cars drove off down the street, James said, “Leah, it’s just a car. You could have been killed for the price of an insurance deductible.”

“It wasn’t about the car, per se,” I said, holding Angela, who was trembling. “Nobody threatens me. Nobody.”

Shaking his head, James helped Imogen into the 918. “See you back at the track,” he said as he climbed into the low-slung Porsche.

“Angela, ride in the back seat with me,” Emmy encouraged. I helped Angela into the BMW, then shut the door for her.

Nobody said anything on the short drive back to the casita, but when I parked Angela said, “You were never afraid, Leah. I could hear it in your voice. You were never afraid.”

I opened Angela’s door for her and helped her out of the X6. “No, I wasn’t,” I admitted. “I was never in any real danger.”

“He had a knife! And the other guy had a gun!” Angela protested as I led her inside.

“Yes, but they were drunk, and the way they were acting, I don’t think either of them have ever done any worse than get in stupid bar fights with other drunk assholes.”

“I was terrified for you,” Angela said, suddenly breaking into tears. “You could have been killed!”

“Those guys weren’t killers,” I said, wrapping Angela and Emmy (since she was already hugging Angela) in my arms. I kissed Angela’s hair and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Those assholes thought that they could just bully us into giving them money to go away. They had no plan for when that didn’t work.”

“He tried to stab you!”

“He wasn’t committed to it. I think he would have been more surprised than anyone if he’d actually done it,” I said. “I almost feel bad for those idiots.”

“Lee… Leah,” Angela said, still crying. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Please don’t do things like that any more.”

“Ange, baby,” I said, kissing her hair again. “I can’t make that promise.”

“But-” Angela started to protest, but I put my finger on her lips.

“Baby, I will always, every single time, do what I can to protect you and the people that matter to me. Every. Single. Time. This is who I am, baby. I don’t want to put myself in these situations, but when they happen, I am never, ever going to back down.”

“This is who she is, Angie,” Emmy said, her voice soft and comforting. “Leah is… A warrior. She is a lion, fierce and strong, and you cannot ask a lion to change her stripes.”

“But- lions don’t have stripes?” Angela said, puzzled.

“And that is why they cannot change,” Emmy’s laughter like wind chimes breaking the mood. Angela couldn’t help but laugh along at the silly metaphor fail and of course, Emmy’s infectious laughter.

Relieved that Angela seemed to have broken out of her shock at seeing the violence, I kissed her again, then kissed Emmy.

“I’m going to check to see that Imogen and James are alright,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

Knocking on the door of the next casita over, I wondered for a moment what I was even doing or going to say, but James answered the door almost immediately.

“Hey, James. I just wanted to make sure you two are alright. Things got a bit crazy, and…”

“Leah?” Imogen’s voice came from inside, so James opened the door wider to let her talk to me.

“Leah, what you did was incredibly brave, but really, it’s just a car,” she said, seemingly more concerned for me than I’d been.

“Like I told James, it wasn’t about the car. Those idiots were waiting so they could mug us, one way or another. They saw an exotic Porsche and figured that some rich out-of-towners would be easy marks.”

“I guess so,” she said, leaning on James’ arm. “But even at that, it would have been easier and safer just to give them some money so they’d go away.”

“That would be rewarding bad behavior,” I countered. “If they learn that doing that is an easy and painless way to make some quick cash, they’re that much more likely to try it again the next time the opportunity presents itself.”

“Yes, but…” Imogen tried to protest, but ran out of words. “You could have been hurt.”

“No,” I said. “Not from those guys.”

James turned to Imogen and said, “Honey, I’d like to talk with Leah for a few minutes. Do you mind if…?”

Getting her assent, James stepped out and shut the door behind himself. “Let’s take a little walk,” he said.

Walking out in silence to the moonlit track, James indicated the bleachers, so we sat and looked out over the tarmac looping through the desert.

“Leah, you have a reputation in the Valley,” he began.

Wondering where he was going with this, I kept quiet and let him talk.

“People do talk about you, you know. It’s actually quite remarkable how small and insular the community we travel in really is. Everyone knows who you are, if they don’t know you personally, and the people who do know you talk about you.”

I made some sort of noncommittal noise to show that I was listening and that he should continue.

“So you have a reputation. Everyone knows you’re good at your business, and anybody making money outside of tech is looked on with a degree of wonder and suspicion, as odd as it sounds, but that’s… Well, that’s only part of it. People who have done business with you say that you’re… Well, that you’re someone nobody says ‘no’ to. You always get your way. Add to this the rumors, which all of a sudden I find much more believable,” he said.

“The rumors I kill people?” I asked.

“So you’ve heard them?” he asked, surprised.

“Yeah, I have,” I said. “They started early in my sophomore year at Stanford, and just don’t seem to ever go away.”

“That guy with the knife tonight,” James said. “You didn’t blink once. You faced him down like it was nothing,” James said.

“Those guys were drunk. They were more of a danger to themselves than anybody else,” I said dismissively.

“I don’t know anyone else who would have walked up to a man waving a… A Bowie Knife around like that and told him they would shove it down his throat if he didn’t put it away,” James said. He turned to look at me, silent for a moment. “That wasn’t your first time, was it?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “The rumor is that you are somehow involved in some sort of crime, but nobody knows what it is. Drug dealing, arms sales, money laundering… those are all the leading contenders.”

“Well, that part’s not true,” I said.

“But the rest of it?” James asked, looking back towards the track.

“A lot of it, yes,” I admitted. “That was not the first time I’ve faced situations like that, and not the first time I’ve resorted to violence. You’ve never asked about the scar on my face,” I said. “I was cut by a skinhead’s knife in an alley in San Francisco, so I beat him and his friend up pretty badly.”

“I always thought that story was bullshit,” James said.

“It’s true. In fact, I think that’s where the serial killer story started. The police never found the two guys- they just seemed to have vanished. The story was that I killed the two and buried them in the woods or something for what they did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but the short version is that they attacked Emmy first and were going to cut her up when I saw them in the alley, and rushed in and killed ‘em all by myself. Do you know anything about volleyball?”

“Volleyball?” James asked, not sure he’d heard me correctly.

“Yeah, I played varsity volleyball for Stanford. In volleyball, a hit that the other team can’t respond to is called a ‘kill’. I got a reputation as a freshman for spiking the ball so hard that nobody could, or wanted to, block it. So the team nickname I picked up was ‘Killer’. The name quickly spread throughout the Pac Twelve, then through the rest of the NCAA. It got so bad that even the game announcers referred to me as ‘Killer’. Well, that set the stage, right? so when a couple of skinheads who attacked Emmy go missing and I publicly admit to beating them up, despite one of them having a knife, well…” I said.

“One thing leads to another,” James says. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Did you?”

I sighed, letting my breath out slowly. “James, you’re one of my best friends,” I said. “I’m going to tell you something, but please, this is between you and me, O.K.?”

Leaning forward and nodding, James said, “Of course.”

“In business, having a reputation as someone who is absolutely not to be fucked with is a real benefit. In fact, I’ve had clients who have literally told me that my reputation is a big part of why they invest with me.”

“I can see that,” James nodded.

“So I’ve never really done anything to squash the rumors,” I told him. “It gives me psychological edge, you know? That’s part of why I’ve never had this scar fixed,” I explained, pointing at my cheek. “People who’ve heard the rumors, and like you said, the Valley is a small world, they see that scar and it confirms to them that it’s all true. I mean, here’s a big, intimidating woman with a freaking knife scar on her face, right?”

James chuckled a little bit at my self-description, but he didn’t contradict any of it.

“So they look at me and they take me seriously, completely overlooking that fact that I’m so young, or a woman in a man’s field, or whatever. Instead, they see someone they can’t bully or shove around, and have to accept as an equal.”

“So it’s just an act, then?”

“Well, my gangster boss persona at the club is an act, but everyone knows that. Some accept it as a sort of meta joke, because, like you said, they might think I really am some sort of crime lord, right? Others just enjoy the dress-up play-acting of the whole thing.”

“But the rest?” James asked, fascinated.

“The rest is absolutely correct. I will not be bullied, talked-down to, or sidelined. Take me seriously or I will make you regret it.”

“Yeah, I certainly saw that tonight,” James said. “I really did think you might kill that guy with the knife.”

“Nah, I wasn’t going to kill him just for being an idiot who really should know better,” I said. “But I definitely was going to make sure he learned the error of his ways.”

“But killing him was an option? I mean, it was on the table?” James asked.

I turned and looked straight at him and said in a level voice, “It’s always on the table.”

He looked at me with wide eyes for a beat, two beats, then broke out laughing.

“Jesus, Leah, no wonder everybody thinks you’re some sort of serial killer!” he said, continuing to laugh.

Laughing along with James felt good- sort of a catharsis for the emotions of the night. We got up and made our way back to the casitas in amiable companionship. We wished each other a good night and parted ways for the night, slipping into our respective casitas.

Emmy and Angela were already asleep, so I peeled off my clothes and climbed into bed with them.

“Oh! You’re freezing!” Angela said when I snuggled up against her, waking her up.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s alright,” she said, turning to face away from me but scooting back into my embrace. “I’ll warm you up.”

“Are you doing O.K.?” I asked, nuzzling into her long, thick black hair.

“I’m sorry about the way I acted tonight,” Angela said, her voice soft.

“What are you apologizing for?” I asked. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Well, like Emmy said, a lion can’t change her spots, right?” Getting a little chuckle from me, she continued. “You told me from the beginning who you are. You told me you’re a lion. You never hid it from me, so I can’t blame you for what you did tonight. You are a lion, and lions do lion things.”

“Rawr,” I said as I gently nipped her shoulder.

“See? Lion things.”

The next morning started the same as the day before, with a cup of Reggie’s wonderful coffee.

“Joachim and I were comparing notes last night,” he said as he refilled my cup. “You were going really fast out there. Have you considered actually racing?”

“It might be one hell of a lot of fun” I said. “But I already don’t have the time to do the things I already don’t have time for.”

“That almost made sense,” he said with a laugh. “But I get it. It’s a big time commitment.”

“Time and money,” James said, joining the conversation as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but between the two of you, money doesn’t seem to be in short supply,” Reggie said with a chuckle.

“No, I guess not,” James admitted.

“Hey, Leah,” James said, subtly steering me away from Reggie. “Imogen and I had a long talk last night. About what happened, and what you and I talked about.”

“How did that go?”

“Well, I think she wants to leave me. Do you have room for another in your harem?” he said, smiling.

“For her, for sure,” I grinned back, shoulder bumping him.

“So as I said, we had a long talk, and, well, I guess the upshot of it is that it didn’t damage our friendship, yours and mine, and didn’t chase Imogen away, either. I think in a way she’s taken by the idea that we have, um, ‘dangerous friends’,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers. “She commented repeatedly on how you never hesitated, and you moved like some sort of action movie star. She’s convinced herself that you- well, that the stories are likely to be true.”

“And that doesn’t make her want to run away screaming?” I asked, curious.

“Not a bit. Actually, maybe just the opposite. I think it made you somehow more interesting, and by extension, made Emmy and Angela… Well, your unusual living situation has always been a source of fascination, and this just compounds the fact.”

“So that’s Imogen,” I said. “How do you feel about things?”

“I think I understand you a bit better. And I have a better idea of where your, um, legend comes from,” James said. “But the more I talked about it with Imogen and thought about it, you never actually denied that it was true.”

“That’s right,” I admitted. “I didn’t.”

James looked at me, unsure whether I was joking or not. I gave him a very slight nod, and his eyes widened. Almost as quickly, he nodded back and no more was said.