Page 9 of King of Temptation

“That’s what I’m going to find out, sweetheart. Murphy, Rowan, head to your cars like everything is normal. Like you’re just leaving the house after a perfectly lovely dinner. I’m going to go out the side door and take the long way round.”

“I look forward to the day we don’t have to go skulking around like sewer rats,” Murphy muttered. “Call me if you need backup.”

“Thanks. I shouldn’t, but I’ll let you know.”

Praying Murphy could keep his son from doing anything stupid, Brody headed for the secret side entrance of his cousin’s house. It wasn’t listed on any of the blueprints from when the house was first built and it was carefully concealed in the wall so that even as many times as the house had been raided and searched by the cops it had, to Brody’s knowledge, never been discovered.

The car was parked facing west, so he headed east in the dark until he was sure he wouldn’t be spotted crossing the road. He moved unhurriedly, as if he were just taking a stroll. People in this neighborhood didn’t think anything of a well-dressed man taking a leisurely evening walk, but they would if he acted like he was up to something.

So he strolled, slowing only when he came upon the car. He knew before he even spotted her that they weren’t dealing with any form of law enforcement. For starters, her car was bright white, and if the half-dozen glittery bumper stickers on the back wouldn’t have given her away, the personalized ‘SMTATHR’ license plate would have.

Jesus tapdancing Christ, she was so bad at this.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he sent off a text to the family group chat, letting them know it was a false alarm and he was taking care of it. And then he sent a text for Killian’s eyes only.

* * *

[Brody: Probably won’t be back tonight. Dealing with a menace.

Killian: Ah. I’ll have your dinner wrapped up and waiting in the fridge. Enjoy yourself, cousin.]

* * *

That was an order he had no problem following. He was absolutely going to enjoy this.

Chapter 4

Goldie

God, she was bored.

Her stupid listening device thing was a bust. Not once tonight had she gotten so much as a whisper of sound from inside the stupidly large house the O’Rourkes inhabited. So mostly she’d just been sitting here, working her way through the pile of junk food in the passenger seat, and waiting for something interesting to happen.

She was just about to give up and head home when the front door opened, spilling light out onto the porch and illuminating a tall, broad figure. Brody? Or one of his cousins?

With the light behind him, she couldn’t see, at least not from this distance. Setting her useless listening device aside, she grabbed her binoculars and zoomed in on the house.

Damn. Not Brody. Just as tall and broad, but he was salt and pepper—heavy on the salt—where Brody was all ginger. Whoever he was, he moved aside for a tiny, timid-looking woman to step out onto the porch, followed by a man who looked like a much thinner, much younger version of the first man.

Father and son, maybe? It made sense. The mob, at least from her research, were big on family.

Truth? Or the bullshit Brody had said her books were full of?

He would know, as much as it grated to admit. Maybe instead of stalking him, she should try to talk him into an actual interview. She wasn’t really getting anything out of her surveillance, other than the thrill of doing something illicit, but that thrill had worn off about an hour into her stakeout, around the time she’d polished off her first box of cookies.

The soft snick of her car door opening alerted her that she was in trouble a split second before something hard pressed against her side. Terror rose up in her chest, choking the breath from her lungs.

“Don’t make a fucking sound.”

Her heart, which had taken off at approximately the speed of light when she’d heard her door open, slowed to a gallop. “What the fuck, Brody?”

A low growl rumbled in her ear. A literal growl, and she had to fight the urge to visibly shiver.

Well that’s one thing in my books that’s not bullshit, at least.

“Get in the passenger seat. And not another sound until I give you permission to speak.”

Permission to speak? Who the fuck did he think he was?