by Cara Carnes
“The best,” Zoey whispered.
Jesse rounded the table and sat toward the end of the pile—clear across the room from Ellie. The woman shrank deeper into her chair at the obvious distancing tactic. Her gaze locked onto the table as red heightened her cheeks.
But Zoey saw the equally pained expression on Jesse’s face for the first time. He wasn’t hiding his emotions like badass commandos typically did. The newfound realization that this was as hard on him left her stupefied. What the heck could she do to resolve this?
“Leave it be, Z,” Nolan whispered again. “There’s history there none of us can fix. They’ll work it out when they’re ready.”
She nodded and raised her voice so everyone could hear. “I’m sorry I channeled my inner bitch, guys. Thanks for not kicking Addy’s ass when she dragged you over here.”
“There wasn’t any dragging. I texted, Whiteboard room. 911. Zoey meltdown.” The woman shrugged. “It was quicker.”
Meltdown was an appropriate description. Zoey sat in a seat beside Ellie and watched in silence as the Mason men divided up the paperwork between themselves. Marshall and Nolan relegated the others to signing approval forms while they sat at the far side with the forms Zoey had slid to them. Zoey couldn’t control what was going on downstairs and how it’d affect Gage, but she’d at least done right by Ellie.
Congressman Cherling was still in custody. There was little doubt he’d eventually finagle his way out of the abuse charges, but the media firestorm had burned his political aspirations to the ground. That combined with the fact that his ill-gotten gains had been seized moved that war into the win column.
Time to check in on Sara.
Zoey extricated herself from the whiteboard room and went to the main house, where Momma Mason resided. It was a white, one-story, ranch-style home with a large wraparound porch. She’d raised seven of the most amazing people Zoey had ever met in the house. Hopefully some of that magic would rub off on Sara.
Doctor Sinclair met Zoey at the bottom of the stairs. She was wearing her standard light-colored capri pants and a polo shirt. The red of the shirt spotlighted the natural highlights in the woman’s hair. On the surface, Rebeccca Sinclair looked…normal.
Approachable.
“Is everything okay?” Doctor Sinclair asked.
“It’s better than it’s been in a long time. We still have loose ends, but I wanted to see how Sara was doing,” Zoey replied.
“I was going to come look for you, actually. Let’s walk.”
Uh-oh. In Zoey’s experience walks meant there was trouble—not that she’d spoken to the head shrink a lot. She’d seen her on these little walks with people, though.
“I’m in a delicate position on this, but I feel I need to express my concern.”
“Is Sara not okay?”
“She’s acclimated well to being here. Mrs. Mason has been a tremendous asset. Sara’s more confident in her mothering abilities now, which is a huge step in the right direction.”
“But?”
The doctor paused their progression back toward where Zoey had come from. “There’s a deeper wound she’s not talking about. I’m concerned she’ll regress if I don’t get to the heart of her problems.”
“Do you want me to try and talk to her? I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I can try.”
“I was hoping you’d gotten more information about the situation with her father.”
“Most of our focus has been on the NSA director. He was deemed a greater risk because of his past affiliations with the Collective and Hive.”
“I understand, but we need to try and figure out what we’ve missed. Sara’s behavior is atypical enough to concern me. She’s regressed.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Perhaps filling her in on what has happened will help. Let me know if you need anything,” the woman said with a smile. “Now, how are you doing? The past few days have been stressful.”
It wasn’t a question. Zoey nodded. “It’s been scary, but I haven’t been the most impacted by everything that’s happened. I…”
“Whatever you tell me will remain between us.”
“Can you make someone sit down with you? Like, all the operatives who were involved in the takedown?”
“That’s a lot of people. Do you want to narrow the list down? If you’re worried about someone, there’s a reason. Quite a few people have told me you have excellent instincts.”
People had been talking about her with the shrink? That couldn’t be good. Zoey filed the thought away and sighed. “Addy took the coms down several times during the op. She claims it’s because she didn’t want to derail Mary’s and Vi’s recovery from what happened to Mary, but…”
“You think it was more. A couple of people have expressed the same concerns. I’ve tried speaking with Addy several times since I arrived, after Mary’s problems. So far it hasn’t worked out very well,” the woman admitted. “I’ll try and speak with her again, though.”
“Thank you.”
It sounded like a herd of elephants was storming the house when Zoey entered. DJ and TJ were running full-out toward her.
“Zoey! Zoey! Zoey!” DJ shouted.
“Ssh, Ariana’s sleeping,” Momma Mason chided softly as she and Sara entered. “Come on boys. Let’s go check on the cookies and give them some time to talk.”
The boys sprinted into the kitchen. The elderly woman chuckled as she followed.
“Thank God Ariana sleeps hard when she finally gets down,” Sara commented as she glanced up the stairs. She set a monitoring device on the coffee table and hugged Zoey. “What’s up?”
Zoey wasn’t sure how Jud, Riley, and Kamren had kept Sara from knowing about the dustup with Weathers’ crew, but she was grateful. The last thing the young woman needed to worry about was someone attacking the compound to get her.
“We arrested a lot of your father’s associates last night,” Zoey said as she sat and took Sara’s hand. “I’m hoping we can prove his involvement with some of that so the prosecutor can bring more charges against him.”
“The abuse charge isn’t enough, is it?” The young woman paled. “I asked Doctor Sinclair, but she focused on the fact that I’d done the right thing. He’s not gonna get time, is he?”
“I’m not a lawyer, Sara. And I’m so proud of you for pressing charges.”
“I wish the media didn’t have those pictures,” Sara said softly.
“Those pictures were the biggest blow in our war against him, Sara. They’re irrefutable evidence of what he did. He’ll never, ever escape them. They don’t define you, but they do show the world the real Edward Cherling.”
“That’s what Doc said.”
“She’s a good woman, one of the best psychologists available. Marshall and his brothers wanted the best to help everyone out here,” Zoey said. “She’s helped a lot of people who trusted her with some really hard stuff.”
“Some stuff is too awful to share,” the girl whispered. “You know. You’ve seen lots, I bet.”
“I did. When I first started the network, one of the first women I helped wasn’t much older than you. She was a Russian girl who’d been kidnapped from an orphanage.”
“But you saved her.”
“I did, but she’d already been sold once before she was rescued at her second auction,” Zoey said, keeping the information as vague as possible. “She wouldn’t share much about where she’d come from, and she didn’t want help. Not at first. All she wanted was to be left alone, but I couldn’t do that because I knew she needed help—even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.”
“But you helped her. Right?”
“I did. It took a while before she finally trusted me with the fact that there’d been more girls there the night she was rescued. She’d managed to distract the guard long enough for them to escape. The pandemonium from the takedown helped her. It helped them get free, but she was worried about them.”
“Because they were
n’t safe. Not really. You couldn’t keep them safe because you didn’t know about them.”
“I didn’t. But once I found out about them, I trusted Nadia to decide what I needed to know about them and I let her decide what help they needed. All she wanted was new identities and enough money to start their new lives.”
“That’s how you started.”
“I’ve always wished I’d done more. I sensed she needed more than she wanted to admit, and I let her go anyway because I didn’t want to push,” Zoey said. “I’m worried you need more, Sara.”
The girl’s eyes watered. “I’m safe now. That’s what matters.”
“Trust someone with whatever you think is too ugly to share.” Zoey squeezed the girl’s hand. “I swear it’ll be okay.”
“I’ll think about it,” Sara said. “H-how long do I have before I have to go?”
“Go?”
“I can’t stay here long now that Dad’s…”
“The Arsenal is your home as long as you and Ariana need it. Once you’re ready, there’s a community college in Nomad. Or if you’re ready to go somewhere else, we can figure it out. This is your life, Sara. You’re in charge.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve all your help. I was such a bitch when this started.” The girl hugged Zoey. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Zoey’s heart swelled. Moments like these made all the long nights and the sacrifices worth it. “Now I need your help. I’m thinking you, Kamren, and Momma Mason can help me with a very special project.”
“Name it. If I bake and eat any more cookies, I’m never getting my baby weight off,” the woman said.
19
Gage glared at the perky blonde who’d dragged him out of bed before dawn. The fact that it’d been Zoey’s bed made it even more irritating. Riley was lucky he’d had one hell of a great night with Zoey or he wouldn’t be here.
Here was the edge of a large corn crop outside Marville. He looked around at the drones circling overhead and stifled a curse as a herd of females came out of the corn cackling like witches. Blood surged southward when his gaze landed on Zoey, who was at the head of the geek squad.
“They’re up to something,” Dallas commented. “Kamren snuck out at about three.”
“Zoey sprang up out of bed the second Riley knocked. Didn’t even grumble about it.”
“Pleased as fuck you finally got off your ass and did something about that,” his friend teased.
Gage smirked and motioned toward the operatives unloading from two school buses driven by Bubba and Momma Mason. “Any clue what this is?”
“Nope. I’m just thankful it’s not a paintball blasting my head without warning.”
Gage laughed. Kamren was a hell of a shot. In less than twenty minutes, she’d instilled a lesson no one had forgotten. He’d even seen some of the operatives take their weapons into the shitter.
Unease pricked the back of his neck as unknown vehicles parked in the bar ditch along the narrow highway on both sides. Locals. The Marville residents converged as a group, as if needing safety in numbers. Gage grunted as the rest of the Mason brothers formed a semi-circle with him and Dallas.
“No clue what this is,” Dallas said.
“Your woman’s in the thick of it,” Jesse said. He glared at Gage. “So’s yours.”
His heart swelled. Zoey was most certainly his.
“Riles and Rhea raided the supply area earlier. Bree was in tow. They’ve got enough makeshift paintball guns to arm a third-world country,” Nolan muttered.
“Fuck. We’re about to get our asses handed to us, aren’t we?” Marcus asked as he arrived.
“Probably,” Marshall said. “But we’ve learned from the last few games. This time we won’t be messing around.”
“Like we were messing around the last three times? I still twitch when I walk into the cafeteria,” Gage said. He’d taken more electrical shocks trying to storm that damn mess hall than any person should. Back then none of them had known what HERA and the brilliant women who designed it were capable of.
“Okay, everyone, huddle up,” Vi shouted into a microphone. Speakers had been set up a couple hundred yards in both directions.
The women were a force to be reckoned with when they put their minds to something. There had been a planning session at some point, maybe when he’d been busy with Schmidt.
The man had sung like a canary when they’d threatened his family. Zoey’s plan had worked. It’d taken a bit of pain to incentivize him to offer more details when the debriefing started, but Gage had gotten enough to make the alphabet soup happy.
They were handling the cleanup. Strike teams would round up the rest of the assholes Ian had named. The only one they’d failed to get dirt on was Cherling. Ian had sworn the congressman had nothing to do with the Collective and had never participated in the illegal auction activities. As much as Gage hated to admit it, he believed the bastard.
But the time for thinking about that wasn’t now. He focused on the makeshift stage of pallets as Zoey climbed up beside Vi and took the microphone.
“Okay, I know you commandos get anxious when you have to stand around for long, so this will be brief. You’ve all been kicking some serious ass the past few days, so the women and I thought you could use a little fun.” Zoey paused and swept her gaze to Gage. She smiled. “Thank you for everything. You’ll never know how many lives you impacted with all you’ve done. But that’s how we know we kicked ass, right? No one ever knew you were there.”
Loud shouts and cheers rose as the operatives and locals cheered. The latter had no clue why and never would. But it didn’t matter. There was barbecue cooking across the narrow road and coolers as far as the eye could see.
“How the hell did they get this all together so quick?” Dylan asked.
“Mom,” Jesse said as he pointed to where the woman and Bubba were heading across the street. “They’ve been mighty chummy lately.”
“It’s about time,” Dallas muttered. “She could do worse.”
Marshall grunted.
Gage ignored the banter between the brothers and smiled as Zoey continued rattling on. “Orphan operatives are up first. You’ll remain in the teams you were in for the ops we just completed. The mission is simple. Round one is a hunt. Catch Kamren, Riley, Bree, TJ, and DJ. This is a flag exercise only. Hurt the targets and Dallas will kick your ass.”
“We’ll help,” Jesse shouted.
The operatives laughed.
“Each team will have fifteen minutes to track and run their quarry to ground. Kamren asked if she could mount defenses. I told her she could only use what was in the field. Consider yourselves warned.” Zoey motioned to the three large-screen projectors sitting along the edge of the road. “The images are going to be a bit difficult to see once the sun comes up, but the drones are circling to provide everyone with a visual of what’s happening.”
“The three teams with the highest scores enter round two,” Vi said. “You will each be allowed to add two new members to your teams if you wish. Teams of three to five will go against one of the Arsenal teams. The draw will be random. This time you will be evading capture. This will be a full-contact exercise with Bree’s paintball guns. I believe you all recall those.”
Everyone groaned. Gage couldn’t help but chuckle.
“The highest scoring team from both the orphans and the Arsenal teams will get one week off at a time of their choosing,” Zoey said. “Erm…assuming the bosses approve because we sort of came up with this without permission and then Momma Mason said we needed to feed everyone and—”
“They get the point, Z,” Vi whispered.
“Right.” Zoey sighed. “Then we get to have some fun. Listen up all you Marville and Resino residents, there’s a cornfield back here that’ll be a maze in a week or two, so make sure and come back to enjoy it. But tonight…it’s going to be a bit different. You’ll get to put your prowess to the test against the Arsenal operatives.”
&nbs
p; “Do we get the fancy paintball guns?” someone shouted.
“Crap,” Nolan muttered.
“Yep. But there’s a big, long waiver you’ve gotta read that Ellie drafted up ’cause she said we were all nuts with a side of whacko to do this,” Zoey said. “Apparently she thinks you all are going to enjoy this a bit too much.”
Everyone laughed.
“The grub should be done by the time this is over. Bubba’s cooking. Momma Mason’s helping. Lots of folks have brought stuff out as well. It’s all free, but donations are being accepted. All moneys today and for the maze in a few weeks are going to a college fund for Hank’s kids.”
“His wife died a couple years ago. Suicide,” Jesse explained, likely for Gage’s and Marcus’s benefits. “Hell of a man.”
“I’m thinking Kamren must’ve mentioned it to them. She’s been worried about him,” Dallas commented.
Zoey snickered as the last of the orphan teams left the corn fields as dejected as the others. While everyone’d had varying successes at finding Riley, Bree, and TJ, only one had found Kamren.
None had found DJ.
Dallas had stood and watched over Zoey’s shoulder as his fiancée and eldest son coated little DJ in enough dirt and mud to mask his entire existence. Then the little sneak had crawled into one of the large pipes toward the eastern edge of the field.
Zoey glanced back at Gage, then Dallas. Both men wore proud expressions on their faces, but the latter’s entire face lit up as both of his boys exited the field with Kamren. Little DJ was filthy and laughing hysterically along with his big brother, who high-fived him.
“It looks like the bar’s been raised high,” Zoey said. “You can’t get shown up by a five-year-old.”
Zoey smiled as Gage drew her against him with a chuckle. “Fuck, I love you, woman.”
She froze. Blinked. He hadn’t just blurted that he loved her out for everyone to hear, standing on the side of the road at a cornfield in Marville. “What?”
“I love you,” he whispered as he cupped her face and kissed her.
Whoops and hollers filled the air around them. Zoey wrapped her arms around him and deepened the contact. If he was gonna be crazy enough to blurt something so personal for everyone to hear, she wasn’t going to care if they saw her response.
