“Get me an icepack,” Zé ordered Anderson before crouching in front of her.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Trying to make me feel safe there, green eyes?”
“Not particularly, no.”
She laughed at that but abruptly stopped, frowned, and then out of goddamn nowhere, she leaned in to him and pressed her nose against his neck. And Zé could be wrong, but it seemed like she was . . . sniffing him?
Zé froze, wondering what the fuck was happening. It was over in less than five seconds, but in that brief time, this tiny woman had managed to completely disturb him. And it didn’t help that when she leaned away again, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
He had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t matter. The other men heard it and their attention was immediately on him.
Confused, Zé admitted, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You have to know what I mean. What are you doing here”—her gaze bounced from man to man for a moment—“with them?”
Christ, this idiot was going to get them both killed.
Zé tried again. “Lady, I don’t know you. And you can’t even see my face.”
“No. But I can smell you. And, of course, you don’t know me . . . but you know me.”
Now just annoyed, Zé snapped, “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.” She frowned in confusion and her head tilted to the side. “Oh, my God,” she said softly, her eyes widening, “you honestly don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
Zé felt the muzzle of a semiauto pressed against the back of his neck.
“Yeah,” Patowski growled, “he doesn’t know what?”
“He doesn’t know what he is, and I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“What he is?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, smiled. “He’s a cat.”
Which was weird enough, but then to illustrate this comment, she lifted her hands, curled her fingers like they were claws, and made what could only be called a “rowrrr” sound.
A moment before, the barrel against his neck had been pressing down hard, but now it loosened and Patowski asked, “What?”
“You know. Kitty. He’s a kitty-cat.” She shrugged. “Well . . . actually . . . he’s a jungle cat, I think. Cats definitely aren’t my thing, but he’s not a lion or a tiger. Those are scents I’m well acquainted with.”
The gun moved away from his neck and Zé stood.
“Oh, boy,” Patowski sighed, removing the balaclava and revealing his face. A move that didn’t bode well for this woman. And when all the others did the same . . .
Uh-oh.
But Zé also understood their reaction because this woman was clearly insane. He needed to save her, but she was insane, which would only make his job that much harder. He’d thought he’d be dealing with some scared-to-death rich girl that he could move around as needed while he got her out of here and took down Patowski’s operation at the same time. That was his current assignment. Look, he knew from personal experience that leaving the military life behind was not easy. Civilian life had many challenges and none of the camaraderie most of these men had been used to. But to simply forget about the laws of the land so one could make a few bucks by kidnapping, murdering, or doing anything else someone with cash asked one to do was a shitty life decision in Zé’s estimation.
As a former Marine himself, Zé knew there were better choices to be made. He’d made them—why couldn’t these guys?
But this kind of mission was a lot easier when the victim one was trying to save was a bit more . . . pliable. This tiny woman might be too crazy to be pliable.
Zé pulled off his own balaclava and looked down at her. And she smiled back. A wide, breathtaking smile that made no sense in the current situation. Was, in fact, miles from sense.
“Let’s get the cuffs back on her,” Patowski softly suggested to Zé, something Zé was not about to do. But he didn’t have a chance to do anything.
Picking at something on her thumb, she said, “That’s not gonna happen.”
Patowski, known for his short fuse, glared down at her. “Pardon?”
Zé quickly raised his hand, hoping to cut off the man’s anger, and again crouched in front of her. “Look—”
She placed her forefinger against her lips. “Shhhhh.”
Annoyed—Zé hated when people shushed him—he asked, “Why should I?”
“Because we both know you don’t belong here. At first, I thought, ‘Why is this dude hanging around a bunch of ’”—she stuck her tongue out and made a “bleh” sound—“ ‘full-humans? ’ No offense, but . . .” she said to the other men before sticking out her tongue again and making that “bleh” sound. “But then I realized you don’t belong with them at all.” Her smile grew wide. “You’re an infiltrator.”
The men all stared at him, and although she was absolutely right, he still had to ask these idiots, “Are you really taking the girl who thinks I’m a cat seriously? Really?”
They exchanged confused glances.
“Look, you guys,” she said, smiling at them, “I’m here for one reason. I need you to tell me where Devon Martin is.”
Zé glanced at Patowski. “Our benefactor,” Patowski replied.
“Yeah. Your benefactor, but my pain in the ass. He keeps sending people after me, and I need it to stop. I’ve got too much going on right now.” She began to count off on her fingers. “I’ve got my sisters to deal with, the crazy cousin who did this to my face, the twin aunts who blew up my uncles on their plane, and now my uncles have moved into our house and I’ve got to fix that.”
“Your blown-up uncles live with you?” Zé asked.
“Of course they do. They don’t want to go back to Scotland until they figure out what’s going on, but . . . a bomb on a plane? Whose bright idea was it to do that? Everyone knows you can’t kill honey badgers just by blowing up the plane they’re on,” she scoffed.
“Your uncles are honey badgers?”
“Well, so am I.”
“Of course you are.” Zé sighed.
“Okay, we’re done,” Patowski said, and Zé knew he meant it. But before he could move, Patowski motioned to Anderson and Anderson took the butt of his pistol and bashed the woman on the side of the head. It was an unnecessarily hard hit. She should have dropped instantly. She didn’t.
“Owwwwwww!” she whined. Then, in retaliation, she punched Anderson in the nuts.
He roared in pain and anger, bending over before wrapping his hand around her throat and squeezing the life from her.
Gasping for air, her hands swinging out wildly, she locked her gaze on Zé.
“Let her go!” Zé bellowed at Anderson. When the kid didn’t, Zé shot up and turned to Patowski. “Now! Let her go!”
“She’s right about you,” Patowski guessed, his gaze sizing the taller man up, “isn’t she?”
Instead of stopping Anderson from killing the woman, the other men began to slowly move toward Zé, but when they heard it, everyone froze.