Anna-Grace blinked. She hadn’t even outlined her plan or explained that it could cause Ramie immeasurable pain. And yet Ramie had signed on with no reservations.
“I am too,” Ari said with a growl. “I still owe those bastards some serious payback and I’m dying to reek some serious havoc.”
Anna-Grace almost smiled.
Then she looked at Ramie. “I’m asking for a lot. I know. I know what using your powers does to you. The price you pay. But I also believe it’s the only way we can locate Eliza in time to save her. I believe they mean to kill her to send a stronger message than the one they sent using me.”
Ramie merely nodded. “I’ll do it. Is there anything here belonging to Eliza?”
“There has to be something in her room,” Wade said, speaking up for the first time. “I’ll go find something.”
Anna-Grace leveled a look at Ari. “You are powerful. Magnificently so. They don’t stand a chance against you.” Then she lifted her shoulders in a rueful shrug. “My gift isn’t as intuitive or as powerful as yours. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. But I can read minds, and if there is information that helps us locate the other members of this . . . organization . . . then they can be taken out and will pose no further threat to any of us.”
Ari stepped forward and slid her cool hand over Anna-Grace’s arm. Then she squeezed it in silent solidarity. “Your gift is as powerful as mine and Ramie’s. We just have different powers, and that’s a good thing, because the three of us together? Those assholes don’t stand a chance.”
“No one is going anywhere, goddamn it!” Isaac roared.
He’d reappeared from the adjoining room, where he was no doubt calling in the troops. Fury was radiating from him in waves.
“Do you honest to God think that any of us would put the three of you in harm’s way? Caleb’s and Beau’s heads just exploded when I told them they better get their asses over here pronto because their wives were not where they were supposed to be.”
Anna-Grace looked helplessly at the two women whose husbands would likely burst through the door any moment now. Would they buckle under pressure from their husbands, who only wanted to keep them safe? Anna-Grace didn’t fault them for that. But she refused to leave Eliza to her fate, and only Ramie could help locate her, because she could be anywhere.
The impressions that Anna-Grace had lifted from the man’s mind hadn’t given a location. Any recognizable place. All she’d seen was Eliza with that cloth over her face and the water being dumped over it repeatedly.
“We’re not bailing on this,” Ramie said softly. “We’re going to find and rescue Eliza no matter what our well-meaning husbands think or say. Besides, if they give us too much grief, Ari can take care of that matter for us.”
A slight mischievous gleam entered her eyes while Ari outright laughed. She turned a smug smile toward Anna-Grace.
“She’s right, so stop fretting. As soon as we get a lock on her location, we’re out of here. With or without the husbands.”
Isaac let out an inarticulate string of what Anna-Grace assumed was a combination of curses and protests but none of the women paid him any heed.
Just as Wade strode from Eliza’s room carrying the item of clothing she’d worn last, before what she had on today, Caleb and Beau did indeed burst into the house, their expressions black, fear stark in their eyes.
“Don’t you dare give that to her,” Caleb barked, inserting himself between his wife and Wade.
Wade stared back at Caleb just as hard as Caleb was staring him down and neither man gave an inch.
Anna-Grace could admit being intimidated by Caleb Devereaux. Even Beau to an extent, although he’d been nothing but gentle and kind to her. But Wade was clearly unruffled by the dangerous glitter in Caleb’s eyes. And, well, he did have three huge mountains for men, who were loyal to him and not DSS, so the odds were even. The victor would be decided by which side Ari aligned with since she could incapacitate them all if she wanted.
Anna-Grace shot a quick look Ari’s way just to see if she’d faltered upon her husband’s arrival. But what she saw was a good sign. Or at least she hoped.
Ari looked annoyed, though she tried to mask it. But Anna-Grace could pick up fleeting impressions from Ari’s mind, including her repeated efforts to demonstrate that she was more than Beau’s equal and she resented that he put her in a gilded cage where nothing could ever hurt her when in fact, it was she who could prevent anyone from ever hurting him. Or any other DSS agent, for that matter.
And part of her thought pattern was hurt, because a tiny part of her regarded his obstinance as lack of trust in her and her abilities, and she’d demonstrated on numerous occasions that she wasn’t weak. She was capable of awe-inspiring things.
She could protect Eliza better than any man in this room. The women knew it, acknowledged it. But the men couldn’t see past their fear to accept that.
Ramie shoved Caleb aside forcefully so she was once more standing in front of Wade. She didn’t immediately take it from him but her lips were in a determined line even as Caleb pushed forward again.
She turned to her husband, her eyes hard.
“Do not interfere,” she said in a voice that could possibly crack stone. “Eliza is in trouble. She could die. She could be dead already. And I’m the only one who can track her quickly enough to give us a chance of saving her. You do not make my decisions for me. Eliza helped me, no questions asked. She’s never asked for a single thing in return. I will not abandon her because of your misguided notion that I’m too weak to suffer temporary agony in order to get back someone who is very dear to us all.”
Caleb went stock-still. Anna-Grace wasn’t even sure he was breathing. He seemed to be waging an internal war with himself because his thoughts were so chaotic and jumbled that Anna-Grace couldn’t get a clear sense of what he was thinking. The only word that came from his subconscious was no! In a litany. Over and over. As if he couldn’t bear the thought of her suffering even for a moment.
“That explains why Ramie is here,” Beau said gruffly as he stared his wife down. “It does not explain why you are here.”
She sent him a breezy smile as her words, though lightly said, still sent a chill down Anna-Grace’s spine as they filled the room.
“Because I’m going to take these bastards out. They are no match for me and my powers. They have one of our own. I would no sooner remain behind than I would allow harm to come to any person who is important to me.”