And so they split. Rob, Carol, Lily, and Tommy spent the day at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Lily stood in front of a Monet so long that a security guard asked if she was feeling all right. They visited Independence Hall, walked through Old City, and ended the evening at Pat's King of Steaks on 9th and Passyunk, where Lily ate a cheesesteak the size of her forearm and declared it the greatest culinary achievement in human history.
Tommy said it was fine. Carol said it was a little greasy. Rob said nothing because he was on his second one.
The others - twelve of them - went shopping, then clubbing. The plan was to hit the nightlife on 2nd Street, which someone had said had the best clubs in the city. The young ones were excited. The parents were indulgent. The evening stretched ahead like a promise.
They got back to the hotel at eleven p.m.
Without the girls.
Lily was brushing her teeth when the pounding started on the door. She opened it to find Greg Davis in the hallway, his face the color of old paper, a bruise blooming on his cheekbone.
"Get your parents," he said. "Now."
Five minutes later, sixteen people minus four became twelve in the Bennetts' room, and the story came out in ragged, overlapping fragments that Lily had to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle thrown at a wall.
They'd gone to a club on 2nd Street. A high-end place - crystal chandeliers, leather booths, a bouncer the size of a refrigerator. Inside, the music was loud and the drinks were strong, and Kyle and Jake had done what young men with too much alcohol and too little sense inevitably do: they'd noticed a group of men at a nearby table staring at the girls.
"They were just looking," Karen wailed, mascara streaking down her cheeks. "The girls are pretty. Men look. It's normal. But those idiots-" she jabbed a finger at Kyle and Jake, who had matching black eyes and the hunched posture of dogs who'd been caught eating shoes - "those idiots had to start something."
Kyle's voice was barely a whisper. "They were touching Brittany. I told them to back off."
"And then you threw a punch," Greg said flatly.
"He grabbed her arm!"
The brawl that followed was short, violent, and one-sided. The men at the other table were not ordinary club-goers. They were soldiers of the Rocchetti crime family, and their boss - Giacomo Rocchetti - was sitting in the VIP section with his girlfriend when a flying glass caught her across the cheek, leaving a bloody scratch.
That was when everything changed.
More men appeared. A dozen, then twenty. The Bennetts and Prices and Davises were beaten down in minutes. And then Rocchetti himself came down from VIP, blood on his girlfriend's face, fury in his eyes, and pointed at the four girls.
"Those," he said, pointing to the four girls. "For my trouble."
"You can't-" Frank had started to say, and one of Rocchetti's men had hit him across the face with something hard enough to split his lip.