Chapter Six
After stopping to fuel up and Mason taking the opportunity to stock up on snacks, Cat had directed Pete to the safe house. I’d spent the remaining hour of the drive with my eyes closed, wrestling with my thoughts.
That meant when we got to the safe house, I was in no mood for lighthearted banter between my team and Cat.
Moreover, I was in no mood for her giving me the cold shoulder while she was warm and friendly with Fallon and Mason, and to a lesser degree with Pete.
It seemed she hadn’t gotten a lock on my team leader yet.
It would’ve amused me how incorrectly she’d pegged Mason if I hadn’t been using all of my energy to wrangle my body’s reaction to Cat under control.
She had no idea that out of all the men I worked with, Mason was by far the deadliest. Pete had the patience of a saint, which was apropos of his name.
But Mason—when that switch was flipped, you could kiss his good-natured disposition goodbye.
He turned into a single-minded beast who stopped at nothing until all threats were eliminated—and that switch was easy to flip on.
“This place is nicer than my condo in Prescott,” Cat said as she walked into the kitchen from the living room.
Arizona?
“I thought you lived in DC.”
“I did. Now I don’t.” Cat’s attention diverted to Mason, and she mumbled, “I hate you.”
“What?” he said around a mouthful of chocolate bar. “I offered to share.”
I watched her roll her eyes to the ceiling. When they rolled back, she shook her head.
“There are times being a woman sucks,” she started.
“Like when we need to urinate outside or, say, in a public restroom. Then there are times like this, when a fit man without an ounce of body fat offers to share his chocolate like the calories magically don’t stick due to the Y chromosome.
While my double Xs soak them up, then store them in all the places I’d rather they not. ”
Mason crushed the candy wrapper in his hand and shoved it in his pocket while smiling. “You mean all the right places,” he corrected. “One day women will figure out men don’t like pointy bags of bones. We like curves, and soft, and something to grab ahold of.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I had a bad feeling about the direction of this conversation.
I knew I was right when Mase aimed his action-hero smile at Cat and added, “But it’s good to know all my hard work in the gym has paid off. I can show—”
“No, you can’t,” I cut Mase off.
“What can’t Mase do?” Fallon asked as he rounded the corner, coming into the kitchen from the dining area opposite where Cat entered.
“Show Cat my workout routine,” Mason supplied.
This was not my first shit-talking huddle, where jabs and digs were exchanged with the sole intent of getting under the skin of a bud. However, this was the first time those digs were aimed my way.
“You have a workout routine that includes clothes?” Fallon returned.
Mason smirked his answer.
I tipped my head back to stare at the ceiling.
“You know it’s not fun if you don’t participate,” Mason noted.
I ignored Mase’s jab and belatedly felt guilty for giving my brothers at Takeback shit when each of them was getting to know their women.
Not that Cat was my woman.
Catarina, being the smart-ass she was, latched onto Fallon’s question.
“Naked workouts sound dangerous. The treadmill must be murder.”
Christ.
“You have no idea,” Mason drawled.
I lost the battle.
“Honest to God, I’m gonna punch you in the throat.”
Catarina broke first and busted out laughing. Fallon and Mase weren’t far behind. Thankfully, Pete joined us, and I had a reason to put a stop to their stupidity.
“Time to lay your cards on the table, Catarina,” I said through their amusement.
“I don’t have cards,” she quipped.
“Jack’s right. It’s time we had a chat. Let’s take this to the dining room.”
Fallon and Mason heard Pete’s tone and immediately switched from idiots to the professionals they were.
It was obvious that Pete had spent his time upstairs not inspecting the bedrooms to assign sleeping arrangements but talking to Shep.
Which meant he’d been fully briefed on Cat’s background.
Something I was privy to, seeing as my old boss, Wilson McCray, was thorough in his investigation of anyone who worked closely with Takeback.
Catarina turned wary.
Interesting.
Further from that, what was more curious and annoying was she didn’t have a quick and ready comeback for Pete.
I followed Cat and the team into the dining room, commandeering the chair farthest away from the one Cat chose.
Pete cut straight to it. “Why’d you leave the Marshals Service?”
Now, that was a tidbit I was unaware of.
“Is that the real question you want to ask?” Cat shot back.
“For starters. Then we’ll move to why, after years of the CIA approaching you while you were in the Army, then while you were with Homeland, and again while you were with the Sex Offender Investigation Branch, you finally decided to take them up on their offer.”
Cat shrugged. “I was bored.”
Her tone made her sound just that—bored and uninterested.
“You seem to get bored a lot, the way you jumped from command to command. Didn’t stay on a team for more than a workup.”
“Or alternately, my skills were in high demand and the Army moved me where they needed.”
“I could see that,” Pete conceded. “It’s not every day the Army finds themselves a human lie detector with your powers of persuasion.”
What the hell was Pete talking about? That wasn’t in the original dossier I’d read back in Nevada.
“Is that what your source told you? Sorry, but they oversold my skills. I’m observant, not a lie detector.
And I didn’t have to persuade—that was always the problem.
Our military forgot just because cattle are treated better than women in most of the countries we were in, doesn’t mean they weren’t valuable.
All I had to do was ask nicely, show some kindness, and they talked.
You know the sad part? They didn’t want the money.
They couldn’t risk being caught with it.
All they wanted was to feel seen, heard, valued.
Once I gave them that, they gave up their men. ”
Well, fuck.
“Your intel took out a lot of terrorists.”
“I know,” Cat said proudly.
“Is that why you left the SOIB? The CIA offered to send you to Honduras to try your hand at turning women into informants?”
“Nope.”
She was lying. I saw the same small twist under her left eye I’d seen back in Vegas, when she’d told me she’d wait until we had backup in place before she headed to the auction at the mansion.
News flash, she hadn’t waited. Instead of making an excuse about why she was going to be late and driving herself there, she’d gone with Martin and his lackeys.
“Friends don’t lie to friends, Catarina,” I told her.
“Friends? I was unaware we’d all become friends. In that case, tell me, old buddy, why are you in Honduras?”
“We’re here to find a woman named Berta Lanza. She’s a Lenca woman who has managed to assemble a collective of Indigenous women who’ve built a network of safe passage for women and children to flee the country.”
When I was done, Catarina was staring at me with her lips parted, clearly surprised I’d be forthright and end the subterfuge. Now was not the time for a long, drawn-out game of battle chess.
I dipped my chin to indicate it was her turn.
“The Angel of Death,” she muttered.
“You’ve heard of her?” Pete asked.
“No. I mean, yes, I’ve heard of her. She’s why I’m here.”
And . . . fuck again.
“What does the CIA want with Berta?” Fallon joined.
“Nothing. I’m here to give her intel.”
Pete blew out a frustrated breath and leaned back in his chair.
“What’s the intel?” Mason inquired.
“Why do you want her?” Cat volleyed.
“Oh, no, friend, Jack went first last time. Your turn to give up the goods first.”
Catarina raised a brow and remained silent.
It was then that something hit me square in the chest. Cat had no idea where Berta was. She could’ve been in the city waiting on word of a location like we were. But the CIA had no idea where Berta was or they would’ve sent Cat directly to her or sent a local source to deliver a message.
The Agency needed Cat to find the Angel of Death.
And there was a way to get Berta’s attention.
“You were going to use yourself as bait,” I ground out.
Cat’s gaze slowly glided around the table before finally landing on me with a defiant lift of her jaw.
Motherfucker.
“Have you lost your fucking mind, woman?”
“I believe you’ve already asked that. And we established—”
“The only thing we’ve established is that you’re goddamn insane,” I growled, and pushed back from the table, taking to my feet but bending forward to plant my palms on the tabletop.
“You’re in a country where nearly four hundred woman are murdered every year.
That’s one a day, sometimes two or more.
And you’re setting yourself up to be taken in hopes Berta gets word an American woman was taken, and she herself swoops in to save you or she sends her people.
The problem with that is, hope isn’t a fucking plan.
Hope doesn’t mean shit when those animals can violate you in ways you’d wish they’d killed you.
And they can do that within minutes of your abduction.
They could do that shit to you in broad daylight on the sidewalk, and as you’ve seen, no one would come rolling to your rescue. ”
Catarina calmly sat there with a mask of bland interest on her gorgeous face.
A hundred different horrific scenarios sped through my mind, each worse than the one before.
All of the foul ways her beautiful body could be violated.
All the ways I would kill any man who dared to touch her, harm her, take her against her will.
Fuck this.
I pushed up from the table, glanced over at Pete, and as soon as he gave me a dip of his chin, I made my way across the room. I stopped at the archway and turned back to Catarina.