by Cara Carnes
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yeah, you know I’m blunt. It sort of came out.”
“How did that go?”
“He thinks someone’s messed with my head. He’ll figure out I’m right soon enough, assuming this goes anywhere.” Mary stood. “Come on, let’s go gather the supplies and get started.”
“You’re wrong, you know. You aren’t out of his league, girlfriend. I’m glad you’ve finally met a man willing to prove it to you. I just hope he doesn’t hurt you. Addy would kill him.”
“Dylan and I aren’t anything but a diversion. Things are tense, emotions are running high. It’s a logical, naturally physical reaction.” Mary accepted the reasoned explanation for what she felt for him. He’d saved her life. She probably had some twisted up version of White Knight Syndrome or something.
You kiss like a dead fish. You’re lucky I bother trying.
Revulsion shuddered through her as Dean’s voice echoed in her head. She shook him away, but he was latched on tight, feeding off her insecurities and fears. Like always.
“Let’s go get our gear,” Mary said.
“TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH,” Dallas commented.
Dylan walked over to the corner of the barn, where his brother sat on a hay bale and stared out into the open pasture where the hundred and fifty head they ran grazed. He’d done a great job keeping the place up and running after Dad died. He and Riles. It couldn’t have been easy overseeing the ranch stuff between missions overseas, but he’d made it work somehow.
He’d hired a ranch foreman to oversee the place a year ago. Then Dallas left on a mission for eight months, barely walked in the door, and Dylan was sent off on a three-month stint for a new client overseas. It’d been the perfect storm for Hailey’s plan. Switch one brother for another.
“I tried talking him out of pushing this,” Dallas offered.
“He’s right. It’s time. I shouldn’t have torn off without talking.”
“You had your reasons. I’m sorry, man. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Regret darkened his brother’s blue eyes. He was one of the only ones who’d gotten Dad’s eyes. He was more and more like the man who’d raised them every day.
“She worked us both. I should’ve seen it.”
“How? Hell, I mull over what went down a dozen times every day, and I still can’t sort everything out, what she did. How neither of us figured it out. There’s no way you could’ve known.” Dallas fiddled with a piece of straw.
“Why didn’t you know? We’d been together for close to six months before I went wheels up. Surely someone mentioned I’d proposed, that we were engaged. Either way, she was mine, and you fucked her.”
“And I was gone all six of those months, and another two before that. Hailey was nowhere near my radar when I got back, brother. You gotta know that.”
“Then how did it go down?”
“I have no clue,” Dallas admitted.
The haunted expression on his face gutted Dylan. He sat beside his little brother and waited out the silence.
“You’d been gone three days. I was stir crazy. Mom and Riles were in my face, wanting me to talk about what was dogging me from the hell hole I crawled out of. It was a shitty last mission.”
Most of Dallas’s work with the black ops government organization he’d worked for after leaving the SEALs had been shitty. He’d barely escaped the last one, though. Dylan hadn’t heard the details until a couple months ago, when he’d returned.
“You’re out now, home where you belong. If we can get you to stop counting cows, you’ll get lots of wheels up time to stay away from Mom and Riles.” Dylan smiled. Dallas bitched, but he’d always been a mama’s boy.
“I escaped into town, had a beer at Bubba’s. That’s all I remember.” Dallas heaved a sigh and ran his hand in his hair. Elbow on his knee, he glanced to the side at Dylan. “One beer, brother. That’s all I remember.”
“You blacked out?”
“Not likely. I drank like a fish on a lot of ops. Hell, I’ve got the liver of a two-hundred-year-old man. All I remember is Hailey handing me the bottle and thinking it was the best damn beer I’d had in months because I was in my hometown, on safe land, and near family and friends.” He looked away and ran his hand at the back of his neck. “Been over it a thousand times, turning over the little I remember. Pieces have come back, none of it makes any sense. Marshall was standing over me when I woke up. Hailey was sliding out of the bed, a sheet sliding off her naked ass like the bitch was trying to cover up. Your ring glinting on her finger.”
Dylan’s gut soured. He didn’t want details.
“Four months now, brother, and I can still see the bitch’s smirk when she propped herself up.”
“She did something to the beer,” Dylan finished. “Shit, man. I—” What the hell could he say?
“I was going to tell you, but Marshall thought you needed rack time. We didn’t know you’d go hunt her down. I should’ve been there when you landed, told you what happened. I never thought the bitch would come clean, not like that.”
“She laughed,” Dylan whispered into the wind. “Told me she loved you, not me. I was a pit stop to scratch an itch until she got what she wanted. Then she told me she was pregnant with your kid.”
“There’s no way I’d...” Dallas shook his reddened face and fisted his hands. “I don’t run like that, man. Ever. Never would’ve given her a second glance. You hadn’t filled in the blanks of what was going on with you two, but she’d been sniffing pretty hard before I left. I knew better than to go there.”
“When Marshall called me, said she’d miscarried, I knew the bitch had worked us both, played some game to try and get in with you.” Dylan chewed on the guilt filling his throat a bit. “Should’ve manned the hell up a couple months ago, apologized for trusting what she said instead of hearing what went down from you. The longer I waited, the harder it got to let it go. I didn’t want to ever forget what she did. It’d keep me from being stupid and falling for someone else.”
“But you’re here, and I’m thinking big brother only has so much pull.”
“Yeah. Gotta admit, my eyes are open now. I’m seeing not all women are like Hailey.”
“She’s a hell of a woman. Lots of demons in her eyes,” Dallas commented.
“That’s why I’m here, purging mine so I can take hers on.”
“You tell her about Hailey?”
“She’s figured out pieces. I’ll share the rest when she’s safe. The bitch isn’t worth the breath, and I’d rather spend our time together doing other things, like feeding Peanut, or riding.”
“I heard all about Peanut. Riles was talking at the house, just a heads up. Mom’s got the look in her eyes.”
Dylan cursed.
Dallas laughed and slapped him on the back. “Let’s go chase that woman of yours down and find out what the plan is. Marshall’s taking everyone out in a couple hours. He’ll text us both when they’re on the way back.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. There were still questions looming around the Hailey bullshit, but he and Dallas were square. That’s all he cared about.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dylan and his brothers were all waiting in the conference room when Mary, Vi, and Addy entered. Riley had snagged Bree and Rhea for a girl’s night at the main house. They’d been thankful for a change in scenery, and Mary needed the break.
Psycho Barbie had chased her down. That was Addy’s name for the head shrink, and Mary admitted it fit. Well, the psych part at least.
“Edge, how did the doc work out?”
“She’s determined,” Mary replied, tossing a glare at Marshall. “You could’ve given me a heads up that she had my personnel record.”
“The redacted version,” Dylan added. “You decide what you do and don’t share about the redaction. She’s here to help you.”
“Well, she and I are going to butt heads about a few things. She thinks I need to lay off work, stay out of operat
ions for a few more weeks. She’s the one who needs her head shrunk if she thinks that’s happening.” Mary huffed. The nerve. The witch actually told her she was on the border of being mentally unfit for work.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Yeah, give the lady a prize. She figured out the obvious. Mary wasn’t impressed. Whatever.
“Let’s drop it. Given the choice, I’d escort her out of here right now.” Mary took a sip of her diet soda and motioned toward the large stack of files in the middle of the conference room table. They’d been placed in three stacks. “What’s with the piles?”
“Guesswork,” Nolan replied. “We didn’t like hearing a third of our selections didn’t make your cut. While you were in with Doc Parsons, we evaluated everyone.”
“The pile nearest you are the ones we suspect you might have issues with,” Jesse said. “I put myself in there, given what went down not too long ago.”
The pronouncement detonated tension in the room. The men around him shifted in their seats, glancing at one another. They hadn’t known.
“I’m fit for duty and ready. I can’t undo what those bastards did. I’ve got issues I’m working through. If you say Parsons is worth the time, I’ll go now. I figure if she can help you, she’ll do the same for me. Different situations, same level in hell.”
Mary’s mouth dried as the man’s thunderous expression pinned her from across the conference room table. She had no idea what to tackle first in his loaded words. The fact he’d take her word for whether Parsons was worth expending the effort, the trust. It floored her. She glanced down at her lap a moment and willed the burning moisture in her eyes away.
He didn’t need her empathy, not now. What he needed was an answer to the gauntlet he’d thrown down. Was he fit to lead a team into heavy enemy fire?
“Parsons is invasive. She’s going to bend you over and crawl into your ass like she has every right to be there. That’s what it’ll feel like anyway. Ten minutes in, your insides are scraped raw, and you’re bleeding out on the floor, waiting for her to crawl back into your brain and rip the next infected wound open.”
Mary hadn’t meant to share what it felt like, but he’d asked in a roundabout way. He should know what to expect. She ignored everyone else in the room, kept her gaze locked on his intense one, so like Dylan’s it killed her to know someone had hurt him. Gutted so much of what every person should have in life.
“You survived hell. I’m not gonna lie. I was in with the head witch for three hours. I think I would’ve preferred swimming in a lava pit over going through what she put me through, but halfway through, the weight around my chest, the pressure building in me, it lessened. She has a method she uses for PTSD. DBT. There are others, but she thinks that’ll work best for me. Research stuff before you go in. Only you know if you’re ready to get dragged back there, Jesse. It’ll help if you’re ready. But she’s a stranger. I—I couldn’t share, not with her. I’m too private. She didn’t earn the words, not yet.”
“But she will,” he finished.
“Yeah, I think so. And she didn’t dog me when I didn’t give them to her. I’ve been with head witches before and can’t stand them. Doc Parsons was the best I’ve seen, but I trusted she would be because Logan recommended her. If he hadn’t, I would’ve left after the first hour. It was that rough.”
“Even though you didn’t talk about it?” Vi whispered.
“Yeah, she draws things out, surface wounds you forgot existed. Things she notices in your file, observes. You know she came early? She watched me work putting up cameras, how I interacted with everyone. She’s astute.” Mary edged the conversation away from the therapy a moment. “She’d be a good conduit for whittling out the unstable ones in your crew.”
“I’ll get on her calendar,” Nolan replied.
“As for the pile,” Mary dragged it over and thumbed through until she found Jesse’s folder. Thick, like she’d expect from a soldier of his caliber. “Don’t ever put yourself anywhere but with the best. It takes a tough-as-nails soldier to endure what you did and walk away ready to take on the next battle. I see the fire in your eyes. There’s no reason you can’t wield it to guide your team. Just take your pulse, let your brothers and those you trust do the same. Don’t get burned by reliving what happened. That’s what I took out of my three hours with Doc Parsons.”
“Even the fire part?” Addy asked.
“Hell no. That witch wants me playing Scrabble or Candy Crush or something.” Mary choked back the laugh in her throat.
Dylan and his brothers grinned, the same panty-melting flash of teeth on handsome faces. Talk about heartbreak waiting to happen.
Mary had no idea what she was doing with Dylan. They’d gotten way closer than she expected. She didn’t regret the decision, but she was worried he’d scrape her off when things settled down and he realized how truly dull she was.
Out of his league.
“Okay, let’s do this. We’ve got a girl’s night to get to,” Vi said as she powered on HERA.
“Fuck, another one?” Addy asked.
“You know the rules. Your ass is ours if you aren’t on a mission.”
“Please, please, please put me wheels up,” Addy begged Marshall.
The man smirked but didn’t comment. Since his little sister had so easily wormed her way into Rhea and Bree’s inner circle, he probably appreciated having someone of Addy’s caliber near when they weren’t. Mary liked having her near her other friends, who’d decided to stay as far away from operations as they could to “stay deeper under the radar.”
Mary flashed Dylan a smile when she noticed him watching her. Her pulse quickened. They’d be taking off for San Antonio tomorrow, but that meant they still had a few hours to sleep, recover from the grueling chaos they’d handled. Would he invite her back to his quarters?
“Okay, I looked at Mary’s notes on the files, and I agree with most. A few surprised me because I would’ve green lighted them without question,” Addy said. “Let’s start with those we’ve identified as red, then discuss the others in more detail.”
Mary blew out a breath and leaned back into the chair. This was going to take a while.
THEY’D ALREADY ESCORTED Dan Hennessey off the grounds. Dylan was relieved he wasn’t a problem. Mary, Vi, and Addy were all in agreement on three others he and his brothers had also been a bit troubled by the past few days. They were newer recruits, only active on a couple missions so far, but they’d lacked the confident ease, the balls men like Sanderson and Graves had.
What did the women call them?
Ninjas.
Yeah, the name suited Gage and Fallon. Hell, most of The Arsenal’s operatives were damn close. With a couple years under their belt, they’d get there. Dylan glanced at the two men’s profiles on the overhead monitor. He never would’ve pegged either for a problem. Addy and Vi weren’t convinced. Only Mary latched on to some phantom tell only she spotted.
“Walk us through these, Edge. I don’t see it,” Marshall said. “Start with Mark Wells.”
“That’s the guy in reception when we blasted in, right?” Addy asked. “He was a solid soldier. Damn near knocked me on my ass.”
“He’s a closet hot head,” Mary answered, going straight to the problem. “He’s going to blow in the field one day, and it’ll be ugly. Real ugly.”
“How do you know that?” Dallas asked. “Talk us through how you flagged this, because he’s been on my team for several ops, and I’ve never seen it.”
“You won’t. Not until things go south and he’s the only one you’ve got at your back.”
Dylan watched her study everyone in the room, noted the tension in her back. Yeah, most everyone doubted what she said, including him.
“You’ve got a shrink here now. Make all the men we’ve identified sit down with her. See what she says. I’m telling you, I’ve seen a hundred of his kind at Hive. Driggs loved them. I can smell their shit ten miles out.”
“She can. It�
��s kind of spooky,” Vi replied.
“You have any proof of him blowing up in the past?” Cord asked. “I ran background myself and didn’t find anything. I did it again this afternoon.”
“His family’s loaded, old money in a backwater town in Kentucky, not unlike Resino in a lot of ways. When the backgrounds came back clean, I scrapped everything and went deep, to the sources. I found yearbooks from his high school years, basic training records when he was in the Army. I tracked people down, delved into their backgrounds, and established a troubling time line.”
“Using HERA, so don’t even ask how she managed all this in between everything else. She’s freaky good at this shit, and with HERA on her six, it’s really scary what she can find.” Vi held up both hands. “Trust me.”
“The first problem was an ex-girlfriend, two of them actually. Both their medical records indicated emergency room trips for broken arms. The injuries were almost identical.”
“Abuse,” Dylan guessed.
“Yes. Both women hung up when I phoned and mentioned his name. I finally got them to both admit he had a temper, went off like a stick of dynamite when things didn’t go the way he wanted. One of the women, a Beth Sands, suspected he’d assaulted a couple of quarterbacks from nearby football teams when they beat him. It was during their senior year, and he blamed them for the scouts not picking him up for football scholarships. The Army was Plan B.”
Son of a bitch.
“There’s more, but that’s the gist. Family money and notoriety in town kept everything off the books and him out of the cell, I assume,” Addy added.
“Yes, that’s what I think.” Mary blushed. “I didn’t get a chance to follow through with a couple of the retired sheriff’s, but I have a call into the one who was in charge when Mark Wells was a senior. He’s living in Florida now.”
“I can follow up with him,” Cord offered.
“I’ll get Wells in with Parsons, but a more direct approach might be in order,” Dallas commented. “We haven’t run a FUBAR op in a long time.”
“No, and I’m thinking it’s past due,” Marshall replied.
