Page 115 of King of Temptation

When she nodded, he rose to his feet and paced a few feet away to call Killian. “Grab the twins and Naomi. We’ve got a situation.”

“Text me the address.”

Nothing more needed to be said, so Brody ended the call and dropped his cousin a pin letting him know where they were. With that handled, he closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nose.

Big mistake. All he could smell was the coppery scent of blood. His cousin’s blood, the blood of the men he’d killed.

It could have been her. If the Russians had seen her, if that shot had gone wide, if even one little thing had gone differently, Goldie could be the one lying on the ground right now, bleeding out.

But it wasn’t her. Dragging in another breath, this time bracing himself for that smell, he repeated that mantra over and over until his stomach untwisted itself and his heart slowed to a somewhat normal rhythm.

Feeling at least a bit steadier, he turned his attention back to his brat, who had stripped her shirt off and wrapped it around the gaping wound in Rowan’s shoulder.

“For fuck’s sake, Marigold.” Jerking his suit jacket off, he draped it over her shoulders to at least somewhat shield her from anyone who might happen to pass by.

Which was fucking ridiculous, because anyone who happened upon them would be way more interested in the dead bodies in front of him than a shirtless woman, but the thought of anyone laying eyes on what belonged to him had the edges of his vision going red.

“I’m trying to stop the bleeding,” she snapped at him, giving the knot in her makeshift bandage a yank that had Rowan groaning loudly. “Unless you’d like him to die a slow, painful death while we wait for help to arrive.”

“If you’d waited ten goddamn seconds, I would have used my shirt.”

“That’s a really weird fucking way to say ‘thank you for saving my worthless cousin’s life’,” she snapped, while Rowan groaned and rolled his head to the side between them.

She was right, even if it stuck in his craw to admit it. “Thank you for saving my worthless cousin’s life.”

“Hey. No’ worthless,” Rowan mumbled before promptly passing back out.

They stared at him for a moment before Goldie tilted her nose in the air and gave a delicate sniff. “You’re welcome.”

It seemed impossible for him to feel anything close to amusement under the circumstances, and yet it tickled his chest as he fought not to smile at her. “As soon as Naomi gets here and gives you the all-clear, I’m going to put you over my knee.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a brat, I need my ass beat, yadda yadda yadda.”

His palm physically itched to connect with her ass, but as he’d told her once before, there was a time and place for certain things. And kneeling on the ground with a wounded man and two dead bodies in front of them was neither the time nor the place for him to give her the attention she deserved.

Luckily for her, the sound of a slamming door distracted him from her bratting, and he jerked around to find Killian hurrying their way, Aria and Reagan and Naomi all hot at his heels. “What the fuck happened here?”

“Spotted this dumbass”—Brody gestured to their still-unconscious cousin while Naomi dropped to her knees beside him—“talking to those two. Turns out, he’s not our mole, he’s just a moron. He was trying to sell them information about you being a kinky bastard. Seemed to have himself convinced it would ruin you if that information was made public, so he passed off some pictures of you and Aria at the club.”

There were very few times in his life Brody had seen Killian O’Rourke speechless. “He did what?”

Ice coated Killian’s tone, and Brody had the brief thought it might actually be better for Rowan if he didn’t survive being shot. “You can kill him after we save his life.”

Closing his eyes, Killian drew in several deep breaths. “All right. What happened after that?”

“The smaller guy there pulled a gun, so I made my presence known, which led to something of a standoff until Goldie distracted them.”

Eyes flying open, Killian turned an icy glare on Goldie, who drew back with a soft whimper. “Distracted them how?”

It settled him on a primal level to see his own fury at his menace reflected in his cousin’s eyes. Confirmation that he wasn’t overreacting.

Or at least if he was, he was in good company.

“Threw a goddamn rock at a trash can.”

A cackle of laughter drew their attention to where Aria and Reagan had taken up spots on either side of Goldie. The latter had her chin in the air again, defiance all but radiating off her while Aria dissolved into laughter and Reagan smirked.

He was going to kill all of them.