Slanting a look at Nalini, he said quietly, “If you ever do that again, I’m going to hurt you. I don’t care if you’re a woman or not.”
She reached out and cuffed him on the side of the head. “I told you . . . look deeper.”
Then she turned her head and the two of them stared at the other two, standing on the side of the road.
She held a gun, Joss thought numbly.
She held a fucking gun.
He’d been prepared to help her out of this, as long as she wasn’t really working with Whitmore.
But she had a fucking gun.
Look deeper.
As she raised the gun on him, Joss figured there really wasn’t much chance he could be misconstruing this.
But then she knocked the foundation of his world out from under him.
* * *
“IF you come over here,” Dru said to the woman, although she kept her eyes focused on Joss, “we’ll keep you safe. I’ve got a car. My friend will get you to it. Nobody will hurt you. And if that son of a bitch tries to stop you, I’ll shoot his balls off.”
The woman just smiled.
And that was when Dru realized she wasn’t cuffed.
No cuffs . . .
And where were the guards? They’d lost sight of them as they came through the woods, trying to keep as quiet as possible, but there had been two guards.
“Tucker.” She shifted.
He might not be able to read minds, and maybe she couldn’t read thoughts, but he understood her well enough, turning so that he had his back at an angle to hers. She scanned the area, hating the goggles even as she was relieved to have them.
“If you’re looking for the guards, you can find them in there,” the woman said quietly.
She jabbed a finger to the trunk.
Dru glanced over. Then did a double take as her mind started to process. Two men. Bound. Two guards, men she knew. They’d taken turns trailing after her more than once. And they stared at the blond woman like they couldn’t stop. It was eerie, the way they watched her. Like they adored her. Needed her. Worshipped her.
Setting her jaw, she swung her gaze back to Joss just as he moved forward.
“Stay back,” Dru warned.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the woman snapped. She turned to the truck. “This Mexican standoff is all very entertaining, but there isn’t much time. The others will be rushing up here in no time, and I’m sure none of us want Whitmore’s men moving into his cleanup protocol or whatever he calls it.”
Cleanup protocol—something tugged in her mind. A tug . . . then a push. She fortified her shields, even as she eyed Joss. He’d told her to stay out of his mind, damn it. She didn’t want in his mind, didn’t want him in hers, even though she was starting to suspect there was something more complicated going on.
Still staring at Joss, Dru nudged Tucker with her shoulder. They needed to move. Needed to do . . . something. What should they do? Had to get in there. What was going on, though?
“Here, English. Catch.”
“Cole,” Joss said, his voice hard with warning.
Dru tore her eyes from Joss’s face as something came flying through the night. She snatched it out of the air.
“Stuff it up your ass, Crawford,” the woman said.
Dru tuned them out, eyeing the leather ID holder she held. Tucker shifted positions with her, automatically guarding her as she stood there, stunned, slammed by the images crashing into her. Just touching an object usually couldn’t do this to her.
Hadn’t been prepared—
The woman, disguised. Holding a gun on a man.
Another disguise, shoving somebody into a waiting car . . . sirens flashing.
The bottom of her stomach dropped out.
The pressure on her mind increased as she stared at the credentials in front of her. The woman looked different, hair was shorter, darker, but there was no mistaking her eyes, those cheekbones. Or the FBI written in clear, dark letters.
FBI.
Tucker darted a glance at what she held. Started to swear. “Chapman, you get me in the worst messes. The fucking FBI?”
Dragging her gaze up, she ignored the steadily increasing pressure on her mind as she threw the ID back at the woman. Then she turned on her heel.
FBI or not, she was going inside.
This had waited long enough.
* * *
AS Dru spun on her heel and stalked off, Joss swore.
He hadn’t gotten much more than fractured glances at her mind, but the images he’d gotten