Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,39

I need you out of this.” Kestrel didn’t wait for me to respond, just started undoing the overalls.

“I’ll grab a tarp,” Liam said.

“Clean up,” Kestrel repeated, but he was tugging the overalls down my arms and then pulling them free down my legs and encouraging me to step out. “Come on, Sparrow. I need to make sure there’s no blood on you.”

The water turned on in the sink. Kestrel tossed my overalls at the body. Rome stripped out of his shirt, and it landed on the body too. There was blood all over his arms and his chest where it had soaked through the fabric.

The tattoos looked like they wept tears of blood. I started to glance down at Stinky again, but Kestrel was in front of me and guiding me over to Rome. “Clean her up while I help Liam.” But he didn’t just move away, he waited until Rome glanced at him then me then back with a nod before leaving us.

Rome didn’t seem to have the same objections to the soap I’d had, and he lathered it up his arms and then over his face and his chest. The blood washed away, turning the water pink for several long moments before it rinsed clear. He reached above, pulling open a cabinet. He set a roll of paper towels down on the counter.

Kestrel and Liam were both back, Kestrel with a mop and broom, Liam with a heavy piece of tarp. Then Rome had my hands in his, and he began to wash them with the same efficiency he’d done himself, only his hands were warm on mine. He washed away the blood and the chill, cleaning around my nail beds and then under them.

He even got the grease I hadn’t been able to get earlier. The towels were dampened, and he washed my face. I closed my eyes at the gentle touch, not wanting to think how red the water had turned when he’d rinsed my hands.

Not the first time I’d gotten blood on my hands.

“The sweater needs to go, Starling,” Rome told me in an almost regretful voice, and it was the only warning he gave me before he lifted it up and over, leaving me in the thin T-shirt beneath. He tossed the sweater toward his brother, who already had the body completely rolled up in the tarp.

The glass and the coffee on the floor were gone. The blood vanished under Kestrel’s mop. The strong scent of peroxide filled the air. I’d have expected bleach, but I didn’t get a chance to ask as Rome cupped my chin in his gentle hand.

He tilted my head one way and then the next. A moment later, Liam joined him, twin mirrors of concern as they studied me. I’d never felt so stripped before.

“There,” Liam said. “Side of her neck. Something nicked her. But it’s not deep.”

Rome ran his fingers over my scalp, and tingles raced through me at the contact. It was gentle as hell and had my toes curling in my shoes.

“Liam,” Kestrel said from behind me, and at least that took one blazing gaze off of me.

“Does it hurt anywhere else?” Rome asked me in a soft voice as Liam moved away. I shook my head. “Did he touch you anywhere else?”

I glanced down at my arm. There were three red marks, livid against my flesh where his fingers had bitten through the overalls and the sweater. But it didn’t really hurt.

Gliding his fingers over the spots, Rome frowned.

“It’s fine,” I told him. “The coffee hurt more than he did.”

“The bruise on your cheek says he hit you.”

I’d forgotten that, in the panic and rush. “He might have. I was getting away.”

“You were.”

“I didn’t know him.”

“Me neither,” Rome agreed. “But I got a picture on my phone. We’ll find out.”

“I mean, I didn’t know him, but he knew who I was.”

The words halted all the activity in the kitchen, and the three men exchanged a look, one I didn’t need a dictionary to translate.

They were surprised.

They were also pissed.

“Rome,” Liam all but growled as he tossed something. His twin caught the set of keys. “My bike’s out back with my jacket and an extra helmet. Grab something for yourself and get Hellspawn out of here. I’ll find you later.”

Wait…

But no one gave me any options, because Kestrel nodded. “He had a friend. We’re going to need to find him.”

Whatever else he said to Liam after that I missed because Rome had threaded our fingers together