Nauti Temptress (Nauti Girls 1)

Brogan took a step toward him, intent on cracking the other man’s jaw on his fist.

“How bad do you want that compensatory package, Dawg?” he asked instead.

“Pretty damned bad.” Dawg’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“I’ll take that as a yes then. . . .”

“Well, now, I don’t know about that. . . .”

“Hell, you have my permission to marry her,” Ray snapped, glaring at Dawg. “You want to see her cry again, moron?” he asked with more playful affection than true anger.

“I was going to give him permission,” Dawg growled as he propped his hands on his hips and stared at his uncle with a fierce frown. “There was no damned sense in making it easy on him.”

Brogan snorted at the smirk that curled Dawg’s lips then as Brogan glared back at him.

As Brogan opened his lips to say something particularly insulting, Dawg’s expression suddenly creased into one of concern a second before a blaring horn had the rest of them turning quickly. The two-year-old bright blue BMW barreled toward them quickly.

“Samantha,” Brogan shouted her name, sprinting toward the vehicle as it suddenly slammed into another parked car. Racing to the driver’s side, his heart in his throat, he jerked the door open, only just barely catching his baby sister as she toppled from the vehicle.

Mackays were cursing as Brogan caught her in his arms, the sight of her blood matting her hair from a jagged gash in her scalp, a deep puncture to her shoulder, and a slice across the side of her neck that only narrowly missed her jugular. Glimpsed, but not ignored by Brogan was the sight of her partner, Kraig, in the passenger seat staring unseeingly into the window, half his face blown away.

Brogan felt his insides freeze to jagged chips of ice inside his soul as he heard Dawg ordering an ambulance to the marina.

“Brogan,” Samantha sobbed weakly, her normally tanned skin paper white. “They have her; he betrayed me, Brogan. He betrayed both of us.”

“Who, Samantha, who do they have? Who betrayed you?”

“Kraig,” she sobbed weakly as he tore the bottom of his shirt before folding it to apply pressure to the wound at her neck, where she was losing more blood than she could afford. “I think I killed Kraig, Brogan.” She stared up at him, her gaze feverish and dazed. “I killed him, but he let them take her, I’m so sorry.”

“Who?” he wheezed, but he knew. He knew who had been taken even before she whispered the information. Samantha stared up at him miserably.

“Eve, I’m so sorry, Brogan, I tried to stop them but they took Eve,” she sobbed. “She was going into the grocery store when we pulled in. Judge Kiser’s big white truck pulled up and his foreman jumped out and grabbed her. I tried to get out of the car and save her, but then Kraig pulled a knife on me. He sliced me pretty good until I could get a shot off. My phone got damaged in the fight—thank God you told me you were meeting Dawg here,” she whispered hoarsely as Brogan stared down at her and felt a darkness unlike anything he had ever known before fill his soul.

Brogan could hear Ray, Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches as they contacted Alex Jansen, John Walker, and Sheriff Zeke Mayes, and ordered them to the marina.

“Forgive me, Brogan,” Samantha cried weakly. “Please forgive me.”

“It’s not your fault, Samantha, I promise, I don’t blame you,” he managed to say through the awful buzzing that filled his mind.

“Samantha. Samantha, sweetie.” Dawg knelt beside them as he tore his own shirt from his back, folded it, and pressed it to her head wound. “Did Kraig say anything?”

“He said you and Brogan would know why.” She stared back at Brogan painfully. “He said I would be dead, but you would know why.”

“No, Samantha.” He held her to him, cradling her against his chest as Dawg fought to stem the flow of blood from her wounds. “You’ve never failed me, sweetheart.” Brogan stared at Dawg, feeling nothing inside him, not even desperation.

Dawg blew out a hard breath. “I should have known—she told me DHS was watching Judge Kiser’s home and suspected him of being part of the Freedom League with Dayle Mackay, before Dayle’s death. I should have checked into it immediately.”

“When did she tell you this?” Brogan narrowed his eyes on Dawg. “DHS has not had Judge Kiser under surveillance.”

Dawg frowned back at him. “Eve overheard Jed talking about watching Kiser’s house. She told me about it the other day at the family reunion.”

The ambulance screamed into the marina followed by Zeke, Alex, and John Walker’s vehicles. Immediately the EMTs surrounded Samantha and the dead Kraig still in the car.

“Find her, Brogan,” Samantha cried as the EMTs lifted her carefully to a gurney. “They’re going to kill her.”

Agony threatened the ice that had his emotions in deep freeze, saving his sanity. As Brogan rose to his feet, Donny and Sandi pushed through the crowd surrounding them, and went straight to Dawg and pulled his attention to them as Donny hurriedly whispered something quickly in Dawg’s ear.

“Brogan, the office,” Dawg ordered, staring around at the crowd. They moved quickly to the marina office, closing the door behind them as Dawg turned to Donny as Brogan glared at them. Donny shocked him, though, Donny and Sandi. They flashed their badges and identifications declaring them FBI Special Agents Clarke. Hell, they were married.