Brody started to make his way over to her. Ro reached the bottom of the steps and headed toward him.
Having followed her down the stairs, Yorke appeared anxious, almost distracted as he glanced down at his watch. But then the man disappeared behind the stage—to where, Brody didn’t know, nor did he care.
Ro’s obligation to this evening’s event, as well as Clayton Yorke and his newly rebranded company were complete. Which meant he could finally get her the hell home.
“So…how did I look up there?” She called out to him over the deafening pop song.
“Like a princess,” he hollered back.
Her lips curved even more, and damn, if he didn’t feel a primal sense of pride knowing he’d put that smile there. He also loved that it was meant only for him.
Definitely worth the risk.
The thought drove through Brody’s head with only a few feet left to go. With plans to take her hand in his and lead her straight out the door, he was giving the immediate area a final once-over when it happened.
Ro was walking toward him with that sexy as fuck smile still spread across her face. Another guest—some jackass who was paying more attention to their phone than where they were walking—accidentally shoulder-checked her.
Momentarily losing her footing, Ro nearly toppled over, but righted herself just in time. Brody rushed to get to her, but she simply laughed it off as if it were nothing. And then…
No!
Brody heard the telltale zip of the bullet as it flew through the narrow space still separating him and Ro. Her body jerked from the impact, and she fell to the floor before he could catch her.
“Ro!”
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out his Glock and threw himself over her fallen form. Determined to use his body—and the bullet resistant vest he had on beneath his dress shirt—as a barricade between her and any additional bullets, Brody kept his eyes up and his trigger finger ready.
“Shooter!” he shouted in his coms. “Shot came from the north!”
“On it!” Jagger responded first.
Christian’s voice came over the coms next as the team’s leader took charge and began shouting orders. All around him, the crowd had become a free-for-all of screams and panic. Yorke’s guests running wildly in their search for the nearest exit.
But Brody’s focus was on Ro…and the growing pool of blood on the floor beneath her.
10
“I’m goingto fucking kill him.”
Ro’s eyes flew from her injured arm to Brody’s blackened stare. The murderous fury burning there turned her veins to ice. “Please don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not?” The vein in his forehead popped with rage. “It’s the truth.”
Ro searched for even a hint that the man stewing before her was joking. He wasn’t.
From the time she’d regained consciousness in the back of the team’s SUV, to the minute they’d walked through Brody’s front door, to now, there was only one item on the angry man’s agenda…
Find Clayton Yorke and kill him.
Only Clayton hadn’t been the one to shoot her. Ro couldfeelit deep in her gut.
Detective Hansen and his partner—a woman whose name she couldn’t seem to think of at the moment—had come by the hospital to take down her statement, as well as Brody’s and the rest of the team’s.
She hadn’t been any help, of course. Being thrown to the ground from a bullet’s impact and then knocking herself unconscious had pretty much ruined her chances of offering anything useful.
And until the cops finished processing the scene and questioning Clayton and the other witnesses…
“It would be pretty stupid of him to shoot me in a room full of witnesses two minutes after he’d just been on stage with me,” Ro pointed out.