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it out and punch where it wouldn’t show. Last week a banker’s wife had come in without a visible scratch on her. Except, of course, for a ruptured spleen that had required eight hours of surgery six months before. It had followed broken ribs and a punch to the liver so hard the liver had sustained damage.
    Shitheads knew what they were doing, all right. Even in a fucking rage they knew enough to cover their tracks.
    Someone had done something like that to Chloe Mason, who moved so very carefully, as if she would fall down if she didn’t watch it.
    Oh man. Who could do that to someone like her? Who could do it to any woman or child? But especially to Chloe Mason, with her soft skin and gentle features and slender build?
    He glanced at Harry, expecting him to say something, then glanced again.
    What the fuck?
    It was like Harry was frozen. He simply stood there, staring at her. Not in a sexual way. Like Sam, Harry loved his wife fiercely and absolutely. He had zero interest in other women since his marriage. But something about this woman riveted his attention. And blocked his tongue, because he wasn’t saying anything.
    Harry knew as well as Mike that these women needed reassurance. They did not need a male staring at them. Particularly a tall, strong male. That kind of staring came off as aggression and women like Chloe Mason had had a bellyful of that.
    Mike elbowed Harry in the ribs, to no effect. Okay, so Harry was out for the count. It was up to him.
    “Welcome, Ms. Mason,” he said gently to the frightened woman slowly crossing Harry’s office. Since Harry wasn’t moving, Mike walked around the desk and approached her slowly. No sudden moves, just nice and easy.
    She stared up at him and he had to jerk his gaze away because he was staring, too, just like his idiot brother Harry.
    Damn, she was . . . she was lovely. The old-fashioned word was exactly right. Nowadays beautiful was the technical term used for a woman who worked on herself, got herself some surgical enhancement, who stood out because of the way she was dressed and was made-up.
    Chloe Mason had a different kind of beauty, made up of perfect skin, delicate features, soft blond hair, huge golden eyes, none of that, as far as he could see, enhanced.
    So that’s what she’d look like in the morning. After sex.
    Mike squelched that thought immediately, ashamed of himself. The last thing this woman needed was a man she looked to for help coming on to her.
    She was looking up at him anxiously, then back at Harry, clutching a purse and a big manila envelope, visibly worried because his fuckhead brother had his head up his ass.
    Since she looked like she was about to fall down, Mike chanced it and placed a hand under her elbow, as gentlemanlike as possible, though he wouldn’t object to carrying her to the client chair.
    No . Not going there, he told himself sternly.
    Women who’d been beaten up had antennae that quivered when men were around and in their space, because men in their space was a situation that often ended badly. He didn’t want Chloe Mason to have even a moment’s anxiety because of him.
    So he did the opposite of what he’d done walking, then running, through a bad part of town last night, trolling for trouble. Last night, his entire body had been one hand curled up in the universal come and get it sign, two bad-ass drugs in his system—alcohol and testosterone. A potent mix that got lots of men into trouble, true. But Mike had been trained by the best to meet trouble head-on when it came his way. He’d bristled with aggression last night. Aggression was his friend, always had been, had saved his life countless times.
    Aggression and sex were his constant companions.
    But not now.
    Now he needed to dial it all down, reassure this beautiful woman, not frighten her.
    “Ms. Mason,” he said, nodding his head at the two client chairs in front of Harry’s desk, “please take a seat.”
    He had a naturally deep voice, slightly rough