Paul stepped forward but Zilla was there, grabbing Paul’s wrist in hers and turning him around, holding his arm at an angle that made him whimper and stagger to his knees. Paul’s friend jumped in, but Jacob pushed him back against the wall with one shove, putting him on his ass.

“Give us the phone and we don’t need to hurt anyone.”

“Do you know who I am?” Paul asked.

“Do you know who I am?” Zilla whispered in his ear. She was thinking of Ronan, her brother-in-law, former fixer and assassin, general all-around badass. But then it occurred to her that she was her own kind of badass, thanks to Jacob.

She looked over at him only to find him smiling at her. Right. They were doing things her way and her way meant he got to smile. Her way meant these idiots stopped hurting a good kid. Her way meant them…together, maybe. Trying, maybe.

“Just give these assholes the phone,” Paul’s friend said from his spot on the floor. “This isn’t worth it.”

“Gotta agree with your friend,” Zilla said. “Give us the phone.”

Paul muttered and swore under his breath and then pulled open a drawer and grabbed an iPhone out of it. Zilla saw inside the drawer there were four other phones.

“What’s on those other phones?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

“I think we’re making it our business,” Jacob said in his quiet voice.

“Give me the rest of the phones,” Zilla said.

Paul hesitated and she applied that good pressure Jacob taught her about and he cried out, fumbling for the other phones and handing them over.

“You’re going to leave Angela alone,” Zilla told him. “In fact, every girl on these phones, you’re leaving them all alone.”

“Fine.”

“And you’re going to stay in this room for the next half hour,” Jacob said. “And when you leave you won’t be telling anyone about any of this.”

She and Jacob applied just a little more pressure to the boys they were holding.

“Whatever, man,” Paul cried. “Just take the cameras and go.”

She heard Jacob open the door behind her and she let Paul go, only to have him jump up and shove her with the arm that he could still use. “Fuck you, bitch.”

Jacob was on him in a millisecond. There was a punch, a muffled scream. “Touch her. Look at her. Think about her again. And I’ll kill you,” Jacob said over the boy’s body on the floor.

Jacob stood there until Paul nodded and then Jacob turned and all but dragged her out of the room, her hands full of cell phones.

“Oh my god,” Zilla whispered. “It worked. We got the phone.”

They got down to the second floor and Zilla was trying to figure out where to put the phones when Jacob grabbed her and shoved her up against the wall.

“Jacob, what—”