Jagged Edge (The Arsenal Book 1)

by Cara Carnes

  “Edge is not in target zone. New replacement has been acquired,” Vi commented. “Recommend extreme measures and ready for unknown variables. Parsons will provide further recommendations.”

  The line was silent a moment.

  “Copy, Quillery. Is Edge secure?”

  “Unknown. She is no longer our focus. We have a new asset in position. Begin when ready.”

  “Roger.”

  Vi removed the headset and passed it over to Doctor Parsons. The woman smiled graciously as she put it on.

  “Thank you for stepping in. I have no idea what happened. She just lost it. She’s been on edge a lot lately. I guess it was just too much.” Vi tapped away on the keyboard. “It’ll be nice to have a professional around, someone who knows psychology. Mary and I were always arguing over the best way to handle people.”

  “Well, interrogations are tricky and not my forte, as I mentioned.” The woman crossed her legs and smiled at Marshall. “I’m willing to do whatever must be done though.”

  Jesse and Nolan had Dylan as their sole focus. He flashed a quick hand signal for danger while Vi had Parsons distracted. Addy shifted away, standing to walk around the console and take a position nearer his brothers.

  Cord glanced down at the gloves Addy hadn’t removed, then over at Dylan’s bloodied face. He’d like to think hers looked just as bad, but the woman was fierce. “Looks like you knocked some sense into him.”

  “Well, he knocked more than that into me. Trust me, things aren’t always what they seem. I’m glad we got it worked out. I need to track Mary down though, do the same with her.”

  “Logan went to find her. He was worried,” Parsons replied with a smile.

  Yeah, sure he was. Dylan grunted and remained in position. He needed to contain the situation here before worrying about Mary.

  “Oh, well she’s in good hands then,” Addy said. “Let’s get this going. I’m ready for answers.”

  “You’re green for start, Graves.”

  “Roger, Quillery. We’re a go.”

  The feed into the room went dead. The overhead monitors turned to snow.

  “What happened?” Parsons asked.

  “Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention. Graves is a bit touchy about his interrogations. He has certain...methods...he prefers no one see. He’ll establish contact in a while, once he’s gotten Driggs warmed up.” Vi chewed on her bottom lip. “I doubt it’ll take long. Driggs isn’t exactly a hard subject to break.”

  “Likely not,” the doctor replied. “I really must insist on observing the entire process. I can’t help later if I don’t know what was done.”

  “I see you went to Berkley,” Vi commented. “Nice campus. I almost went there.”

  “You should have. It had an excellent curriculum.”

  “Yeah, too bad they booted you out your junior year,” Vi commented. “I bet that sucked.”

  The woman reached for her pocket, but Dylan was there, gun drawn. “Don’t.”

  Doctor Parsons laughed. “You think you can win? Honey, you’ve already lost. You lost before you were ever tagged in.”

  “Where is Mary?”

  “Long gone by now. This was almost too simple, not even worth our time.” She chuckled and leaned back in the chair, her gaze on the gun as though it was a water pistol. “Stupid little guppy, thinking you could swim in the ocean.”

  “What did you say?” Marshall whispered. He got in the woman’s face.

  “Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” she spat.

  “Bullshit. I heard. Where did you hear that?”

  “What’s it to you?” she retorted.

  “What the hell is going on?” Nolan asked.

  “Doctor Parsons is our mole. Logan, too, more than likely,” Dylan explained. “Addy and I went a few rounds and knocked enough sense into ourselves to realize we’d been played. Me. Mary. All of you. Divide and conquer, oldest game in the book.”

  “Surveillance cameras aren’t picking Mary up anywhere,” Vi commented. “I’m accessing her chip.”

  The woman typed fiercely on the keyboard, her brow furrowed. Dylan squeezed Parson’s throat. “One chance, lady. Where the hell did he take her?”

  “Front gate says no one’s been in or out,” Dallas said.

  “She’s headed north. Sending the signal to your phones and trucks.” Vi looked up. “Go get her!”

  Dylan’s jaw twitched. He wanted to charge out the door and run toward her, but they still needed answers.

  “Go. We’ll call in what Graves and Sanderson get from Driggs,” Marshall said. “Doctor Parsons and I are going to have a chat.”

  “I’m taking a team over to the old Burton place. I’m not hanging around for answers if there’s a hit squad at our back door,” Jesse said.

  “I’ll go, too, help clear and secure the tunnels. I’m thinking we need to have a chat with the realtor, take that property on.” Nolan looked around.

  “Yeah, get on that,” Marshall said. “Cord, you help Vi keep scanning. Feed us whatever you can.”

  Dylan headed out. God help whoever took Mary.

  Hang on, sweetheart. I’m coming to get you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Dried blood covered her face. Aside from a killer headache and questionable vision because of the likely concussion, Dan hadn’t messed with Mary. He’d hauled her to an abandoned building outside San Antonio and tied her to a rickety chair.

  As much as she wanted to be a bad ass commando and rip the chair up, kick the bastard’s ass, and run away, she knew this was a chance, a shot at finding out who was behind everything, pulling their strings.

  “She’s not answering. She should be answering.” Dan clicked his phone off, then dialed again. Each time increased the man’s agitation, rage. He paced back and forth, back and forth.

  The gun he’d shot Logan with waved in the air wildly with each pass. Mary flexed her arm muscles, testing the bindings holding her put. The chip she and Vi had inserted into themselves was still there, active. Vi could track her down.

  Dylan would rescue her.

  Hopefully.

  She swallowed back the regret she’d stewed in the past couple hours. He’d cared too much to take a backseat, let others get the answers she needed. That they needed. She should’ve trusted him to take his own pulse if it got too intense.

  Instead, she’d put the job first and cut him off at the knees. If she got out of this, she’d make it up to him. Even if he couldn’t forgive her, she’d apologize and give him what he needed to move on. He deserved better.

  She did, too. She wanted the happy he’d given her. She hadn’t realized how much until she’d woken up in the car trunk and realized she wasn’t safe on Dylan’s ranch. Dan had entered and left via the main entrance under the guise of picking up his last check and clearing out his gear. What utter bullshit. There’d been no reason not to trust him. He’d killed the escort.

  Logan.

  “Who’s not answering?” she tried.

  “If they hurt her, you’ll suffer twice as much. No, ten times as much.” He shook the gun in her face. “I could’ve snagged the other two he wanted easy, but he just had to have you, said you’d have all the data. They wouldn’t.”

  “Whoever hired you, Dan, we can work this out. Call Marshall or Nolan. You’re right, you know. They see now you were right all along. Cord should’ve been kept in charge of operations. I was a threat, a weakness. I let them down today, just before you found me at the barn. I failed them.”

  “Ha. She said you would,” he said proudly. “Baby sis is good, real good.”

  Baby sis. The pieces slid together as Mary recounted the therapy session, Parsons talking about her big brother, the wounded Navy SEAL who’d come back a different man. Of course. Why hadn’t HERA established the connection?

  “Doctor Parsons is your sister? I didn’t know.”

  “I made sure no one did. Things happen to families. The things we do, they come back. That’s why I signed on whe
n he approached, promised to keep her secure. All we had to do was this one job, then we’re set for life. Wherever we want to go.” The gun hand trembled. Mary’s pulse quickened. “I always promised I’d give her the world.”

  “Sometimes promises have to be broken.”

  “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Dan laughed maniacally. “Just too smart for your own good. That’s what he said. Too many brains get you dead.”

  Dread fired through her bloodstream as footsteps sounded behind Dan. Shadows obscured his face a moment, but two steps later, her entire world collapsed. Past collided with disbelief as she stared at a ghost.

  “Peter.”

  “He’s right, you know. You were too smart for your own good,” the man commented as he walked up until he loomed above her.

  Legs spread slightly, he entered her personal space and settled a hand beneath her chin. “It didn’t have to come to this, Mary. You should’ve walked away, let it go.”

  “I don’t understand. Why? How?”

  “I knew you’d put the pieces together soon enough. Smoke and mirrors covered my tracks longer than I expected. You and Vi have kept me busy lately. That program of yours was a big problem, started undercutting years of work. Decades.”

  Denial was poised on her tongue, but her heart burned as the truth seared itself there, branding its permanence on her soul. Peter Rugers was the mastermind. “This whole time. You’ve pulled Driggs’s strings the entire time.”

  “Martin does what he’s told, a good lapdog to have around.” Peter flashed the arrogant grin she hated. “Great with money. He started having trouble a couple years ago, though. That’s when I first realized you and Vi had been busy little bodies, siphoning money I’d pilfered. You got me in a lot of trouble.”

  “All this for money? That’s beneath you, Peter.”

  “Years of careful planning and worming my way into organizations around the world were destroyed by you in one afternoon.” Anger mottled his tone, like oil and gasoline burned with a match. “When you came to my office holding evidence of my life’s work, the deals and the sacrifices I’d made, I knew what had to be done.”

  “How long? How long were you dirty, Peter? All the things we accomplished. Why?”

  “You always had to be the white knight, riding in to save the day. That’s what I admired about you the most, the raw tenacity. The way you sank your teeth into something and never let loose, no matter what someone did.” His voice lowered as he stroked her hair. “I told Driggs you wouldn’t break. I watched. Listened. You did good.”

  Revulsion shuddered through her, a wave of nausea rolling in her gut. He’d been there. He’d watched. There were no compartments strong enough to withstand the shockwave the admission created in her.

  “Why? You were like a brother to me,” she whispered.

  “Sweet little Addy is a lot like you, always seeking approval. Coming back for more and more when she gets knocked down.” Peter chuckled. “I honed her into a beautiful killing machine, capable of doing whatever I commanded. And she did, you know. I never even had to give the details. She knew what I expected.”

  Mary recalled the lists, long and endless. Men and women Addy seduced for the sake of a mission. Peter had done that. Crafted a weapon from the tattered soul of his little sister. He was a monster, one far worse than the ones she’d spent her entire life battling.

  She stared up at the man she’d once respected. “I’m going to enjoy watching Dylan and Marshall tear you apart.”

  “You think The Arsenal can stop me?” He laughed. “Marshall isn’t in the major leagues, never will be. The only way you win the game these days is if you check your soul at the door. He wears his like armor, never wandering much past the line drawn by humanity. He’ll never touch me. I never had a soul.”

  “I don’t believe that. I saw the good you’ve done, the lives you saved.”

  “That’s part of the game. The people who hire me, the real clients, they need what I offer. A clean cover, an in to the governments and alphabet soup. I grease the right palms and everyone’s happy. And I get a very nice pay day.”

  “Then I found your nest eggs,” Mary surmised. “I bet that pissed you off.”

  “Was it just you?” Peter leaned in. “I told Driggs to take Vi, too, but he said you’d be easier to break. I knew he was wrong. I let him have his fun, play with you a bit.”

  Mary ignored the cloying fear in her and forced the conversation forward. “Then you steered me to The Arsenal. Why? Why them?”

  “I wasn’t stupid. I knew you and Vi were looking around, scoping options. Word gets around when we’re in such small circles. I knew if you two landed somewhere, it’d have to be a clean operation, one so above board it squeaked.”

  “So when I brought the evidence to you, thinking it was Driggs, you staged your death. Why?”

  “I needed a huge payday to appease the people your moves pissed off. Your head on a platter didn’t help anything. You were a cash cow breathing. Both of you were.” He sneered. “The Quillery Edge.”

  “And stealing HERA wouldn’t be enough. You always want more,” she spat.

  “You and Vi held your assets for that fucking computer and the programs it ran close. Never could crack either of you, find out who created the power source, the chemical weapons. You had no idea what gold mines you two stupid geeks were sitting on. You didn’t even care. Sitting in your cave, playing cops and robbers.”

  “We caught you, took every penny, didn’t we?”

  The slap stung her face, but she welcomed the pain, the burn as it spread through her skin and settled into a dull throb. The sensation reminded her Peter wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be. He was a monster, plain and simple.

  He rolled up his sleeves and sighed as he pulled a cart over. “I need those access codes, the data you gathered. I need it all, Mary. Give them to me, and I’ll make this quick. We both know what has to happen.”

  “Yeah, Peter, we do.” Mary gritted her teeth and willed her emotions away.

  For once, summoning The Edge, the emotionless bitch she’d honed through the years, was a welcomed chore. She smiled, confident the chip in her was one move he hadn’t expected. He’d underestimated her. That was his first mistake. All she had to do was hold on until Vi tracked her and Dylan and his badass commandos rescued her.

  THE VEHICLE FLEW DOWN the highway, but Dylan didn’t give a damn how fast Marshall drove. It wasn’t fast enough. He needed to be where the red dot on the navigation panel indicated. Now.

  They had Mary’s location. While a couple men handled loading Logan into a chopper, Dylan’s brothers had assembled teams with enough firepower to take over a small country. Vi did her wizardy computer mojo and hooked up a live video and audio feed that gave everyone in the responding vehicles full access to Gage’s interrogation of Martin Driggs.

  He stared at the dot, then back at the iPad he held.

  “You’re lying!” Gage shouted.

  Blood oozed from untended wounds along Drigg’s face and torso. Abrasions and cigarette burns in a familiar pattern, one burned into Dylan’s brain. He wouldn’t have had the ruthless efficiency to dispense the justice Gage did with Driggs.

  Mary’d been right. Gage knew exactly how to break the man’s spirit. Every cut, every wound inflicted, was a reminder of what he’d done to Mary. He’d endure the same pain she did for the limited life he had left.

  Fallon Graves gave the man suggestions before they’d torn off after Mary.

  I’ve had her six longer than she’s been your woman. No way in hell I’m staying here and handling garbage, not when there’s bigger trash to take out.

  Yeah. Mary was right. Fallon Graves was a good soldier.

  Though the feed was live, willed the answers to come faster. They had less than twenty miles until their destination and no fucking clue what they were headed into, not that it’d matter. He’d start a World War to save Mary.“You think I’m smart enough to pull this
off? I’m a money man. This was all Peter.”

  “You’re saying he’s still alive. Why fake his own death? What’s in it for him? He’d lose Hive, everything he’s achieved.” Gage asked.

  “You don’t get it.” Martin spat blood on the floor beside him and groaned. “I swear. He planned everything, including Mary’s capture. He said she’d never break, but he let me try anyway.”

  “What did he want from her?”

  “The money! She and that other bitch cleared every dime out. It wasn’t all his. We’ve gotten a large cut from cleaning money for some very, very bad people. The rest we earned making connections with dignitaries, governments.”

  “He was dirty,” Gage said.

  “Fuck, no way,” Marshall growled as he slammed his hand on the steering wheel.

  “You know what they called him before he retired?” Driggs asked.

  “The Chameleon,” Vi whispered into the mic connected to the vehicle’s speakers. “Why didn’t we see it?”

  Addy, who sat in the backseat shifted and cursed.

  “Ads,” Vi whispered.

  “Don’t,” the female operative warned. “Focus on the interrogation. That’s what matters.”

  Fuck. Dylan couldn’t imagine the shock rolling through her. If what Driggs said was true, her brother wasn’t the man any of them believed.

  What if it’d been Dallas? Cord?

  No. No way any of his brothers would ever turn. Then again, she probably thought the same thing. She’d learned everything from him. He’d gotten a little insight into the real dynamic between the two earlier, the one he suspected she rarely shared with anyone.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Would you be?”

  “We’ll find her.”

  “Yeah, we will. I wish I could say he wouldn’t hurt her, but I never...” She shifted forward until their gazed locked. “What Driggs said jives with the timelines. The accident happened right after Mary went to him with the evidence. We were all so convinced it was Driggs. I never pulled the blinders off and considered my brother.”