by Cara Carnes
Blood Vows
Cara Carnes
Heartscape Publishing
Sight Lines © 2018 Cara Carnes
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Cover Model: Josh McCann
Photography by: Shauna Kruse @ Kruse Images & Photography
Cover Design by Freya Barker at RE&D
Content Editor: Heather Long
Copy Editor: Jax Garren
Proofing: Ink It Out Editing
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Contents
Acknowledgements and Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
About the Author
Acknowledgements and Author’s Note
It might take a village to put out a book, but when it comes to The Arsenal I’m beyond blessed to have an army behind me. I wish there were enough pages to thank everyone individually.
Thank you to my fearless editors, who never fail to knock my words into shape. And my fabulous cover designer for always, always providing gorgeous covers that bring the world to life.
Thank you to all the experts I’ve reached out to throughout this series. I have learned so much from your expertise, and I thank you for your time and insight. Any errors are entirely mine.
And to The Cohorts and all the readers who have reached out about this series…You all are beyond fabulous. Your passion for these books, the characters within and the romance genre itself is why I love writing so very much. I hope that I can do justice to the world you’re enjoying.
***While The Arsenal series is a romance at its heart, the fiber, blood and bone of this series is a gritty, sometimes dark, and daunting rollercoaster ride of suspense, family, team and honor. Love isn’t ever an easy road to navigate. While I’ve made every attempt to warn readers of possible triggers, please know there may very well be subject matter within this series that may be difficult to read.***
Blood Vows contains references to date-rape, PTSD, adult illiteracy, mental illness, animal cruelty, and domestic violence.
1
Another dead end. Dallas Mason kicked the rotted boards along the entry wall, but stifled the curse rising in his throat. They’d searched every shack, lean-to, and campsite they ran across and had yet to find any credible lead.
“We’ll find him.” Viviana Chambers had turned the promise into a mantra, one she’d whispered to him shortly after she’d risked her life to get him and her now-fiancé out of The Collective’s grasp.
She was a hell of a back-office operative, one of the most sought after in the business. In normal circumstances he’d take her promise as a statement of fact. There was nothing she, aka Quillery, and her partner Mary, aka Edge, couldn’t do. Their recent presence at The Arsenal had thrust the covert paramilitary organization he and his brothers had started to a new level of intense—one that left him and every other operative determined to do whatever it took to keep the two women safe.
Drones whirled around him and cast bright lights across a swath of otherwise pitch-black night. They’d been hauling ass since before daybreak. He looked over at the silent group waiting out his rage. Big brothers were a serious pain in the fucking ass. The fact that he had five of them and they were all capable of knocking his ass into the new millennium if he didn’t keep his shit together was the only reason he was trying.
They had no idea what’d gone down back then, back when he’d been so desperate to leave The Collective he’d willingly bedded a viperous bitch. He hadn’t known what Marla had intended to do. Even as desperate as he was, he wouldn’t have…
“We’ll find him,” Vi repeated through the com. “Come home. We’ll reconvene in the white boardroom in the morning. We’re narrowing the search areas. There aren’t many left.”
Right. Assuming Marla hadn’t lied when she’d expended her last breath mentioning the Wyoming Wilderness. The woman who’d been his handler at the Collective had made him do lots of twisted shit, but none quite as foul as bedding her to earn an out from the black ops group. He should’ve known she’d had an ulterior motive. Maybe then he would’ve made a different decision. Then again, probably not. Back then out was better than the alternative—dead.
Dallas had survived more than his fair share of hellholes, but none had presented the challenges of the rugged outdoors they’d spent the past eight weeks tearing through to find his kid.
A kid he hadn’t even known existed.
He rubbed his chest and forced the rage down, letting it simmer and brew. Big brother number one, aka Marshall, was one curse away from tossing his ass out of the mission altogether. Said pain in the ass crossed his arms and glanced in annoyance at his counterpart, Nolan. The fucker nodded. So did Jesse.
“Come on, man. We’ll make another round in case we missed something. Light’s total shit right now,” Gage Sanderson commented. Sanderson was a hell of an operative, one who’d clearly been appointed his chief babysitter since the fucker hadn’t left his side for more than an hour at any point.
“We’re wheels up in two hours, which means we leave here in twenty. Don’t make me hunt you down,” Marshall said. “Vi’s right. We’ll find him.”
Him. Everyone assumed Marla’d had a son because that’s what she’d taunted him with before she died. Truth told, it was just a pronoun assigned because they’d yet to find a damn thing to indicate the crazy bitch hadn’t lied about it all. No evidence of a birth. Nothing.
What if her death confession had been a final up yours as she bled out on the warehouse floor? Dallas wouldn’t put anything past the woman who’d handled him and the rest of the operatives within The Collective like they were her personal play toys. Truth told, he had been. He’d been the dutiful operative, doing whatever she and the other shadowy leaders of the black ops organization ordered him to. No job was too dirty or under the radar. No kill was too far.
“How much acreage is left in this area? How much didn’t we check?” Dallas growled the question into the com and waited.
“You’ve been hauling ass through rugged wilderness for seventeen hours, brother. We’re flagging this leg of the mission. Take one last scout with Sanderson, then you’re on your way back to the plane,” Dylan said.
Dylan and Cord, his other two pain-in-the-ass brot
hers, had remained at The Arsenal compound to keep it secure. They’d learned the hard way what happened when they all left. The Collective had attacked. Fortunately, Vi’s fiancé, Judson Jensen, had kicked their asses. He was a hell of a lethal operative, the best assassin around. As if summoned by sheer thought, his voice rumbled through the com like spent mortar rounds.
“You’re done. The women are done. They’ve taken two piss breaks in eighteen hours and haven’t eaten a full meal since you left. Mary has a puke bucket beside her. You’re done.”
“You don’t get to share that level of detail with people, Judson Jensen.” Vi’s voice held more exhaustion than anger.
“Dallas. I’m tired.” Mary’s confession stifled the last of his refusal.
His brother’s woman was pregnant and had been puking into a bucket for eighteen hours because he wouldn’t give up.
She’d endured a hell of her own back when their paths first collided. God only knew how she’d survived. There was nothing she and Vi wouldn’t do. They had a one hundred percent success rate because they never gave up. They never surrendered.
Which was why she’d been retching into a bucket while he dragged a team through a week’s worth of wilderness in a day. They hadn’t stopped to rest, which meant she hadn’t.
But she’d just admitted she was tired. Dylan’s woman didn’t admit defeat, but that was too close for Dallas. He’d driven her to that finite point where surrender might very well become an option because, as much as it pained anyone to admit, there was more at stake than finding his kid.
She was pregnant.
The Arsenal had more fires burning than they should, most of them fallout from declaring war on The Collective. Sometimes to win you had to retreat, regroup, and strategize. Vi and Mary knew what the next move was. Marshall had already declared as much, but the two women had yet to close down the coms because they had his back.
They’d always had his back, Mary more than anyone.
Which was why, for now, he’d have to man up and do what neither woman would.
Admit defeat.
For now.
Because no matter what, he had their backs.
“We’re done.” He clicked off the com, yanked the headset off and charged out of the remote cabin. The sooner they got back to The Arsenal, the faster they could come back.
And they would.
Failure wasn’t an option. His kid was out there somewhere.
Dallas headed directly to the operations theater when he arrived at The Arsenal. Though they were exhausted, he doubted either woman had stopped their grid search just because Dallas and the team with him had gone wheels up. Data was power, and the two women never rested their reign because HERA never rested.
The kick ass security defense system they had designed was a thing of beauty, one which defied explanation or identification. It defended operatives in the field, performed instantaneous facial recognition, surveyed hundreds of square miles of wilderness in perfect grid patterns and identified heat signatures and structures.
Simply put, it was amazing because the women who had designed it were.
Jud loomed in the entryway, a silent sentry more lethal than a pissed off gargoyle. “You’re done. So are they.”
“They should be in bed,” Dallas commented. “Figured they wouldn’t be.”
“No, they aren’t.” Dylan muttered from behind Jud as he leaned down until his lips were to Mary’s ear. “Whatever you’re doing can wait, sweetheart.”
“We’re almost done,” Mary said wearily. “If we get new search parameters established, HERA can work while we sleep and identify the next patch.”
“Why the fuck can’t the new girl do this?” Jud asked.
“Because she’s too busy helping Cord run the missions,” Vi said. “And stop growling, Jud. It’s not going to make us type any faster.”
“Wake Jacob up. He can do this,” Jud said.
“Your nephew is exhausted. You had him crawling up and down every inch of Marville the past two days putting in cameras. Oh, and he and his dad are wheels up for a huge fundraiser in Boston. Remember?”
“Better him than me,” the man responded in a husky whisper. He prowled toward Vi and sat in the chair beside her. “We’ve gotta make headway on the Marville situation, and I keep hitting brick walls.”
Marville was a piece of shit town fifteen miles east of Resino. The Mason family had lived on their ranch land outside Resino for generations. Dallas’s ancestors had helped found the town, which was one of the reasons he and his brothers had all agreed to locate The Arsenal there. No one was willing to ignore their familial responsibilities.
Dad may have passed, but it didn’t mean the Mason dream of running cattle had died with him. Mom wasn’t ready to let go. None of them were.
Or so Dallas had thought. His little sister Riley had recently declared that they were out of the cattle business and taken the initiative to make it so in a big way. Their longtime ranch foreman had taken more responsibilities while Dallas’s mom coordinated selling off more than eighty percent of their cattle. They’d keep just enough to keep Dad’s dream alive. Juan and his crew could more than manage alone.
And Little Sister had opened up shop with Judson. A private investigator. Dallas couldn’t help but smirk at the fact that the lethal assassin had undertaken training Riley. His sister didn’t have any idea how deadly Jud was or what all he’d done while at The Collective.
She had no idea Dallas was more like Jud than he cared to admit.
“You with us?” Dylan asked as he slapped Dallas on the back hard enough to make him take a step forward.
“Thanks for today,” he said into the room. Both women halted their typing.
They turned in unison. Blinked. Jesus. It was creepy as hell to see how in sync the two became, how disconnected from reality they were while in the zone. He often wondered what went through their heads. No wonder Jud and Dylan hadn’t left their side.
The women had no clue what went on around them while they worked. All that existed was the op, the data.
The mission.
And he’d put them through the ringer the past few weeks. Attempt after attempt.
They’d searched so much wilderness Dallas couldn’t imagine there was more left. They’d fanned east and north. Oregon. Idaho. Washington. Canada. Land records had been run against the database they’d seized from The Collective. Even though they’d gotten a few hits, they hadn’t had any success.
The women couldn’t keep running themselves into the ground. Mary was carrying Dallas’s niece or nephew. He couldn’t jeopardize their health by running full throttle any longer. They needed to ease off the gas.
Which meant he needed to ease off the gas. HERA would keep chasing leads, culling the data, and establishing new search grids. He’d chat with Marshall and divide the new grids up. There wasn’t any reason for them all to go out. He trusted his brothers and everyone at The Arsenal. They were all the best trained soldiers and operatives around. They were all as emotionally invested in finding Dallas’s kid as he was. It was time to work smarter, not harder.
“You okay?” Vi asked as she stood. Pain flashed across her face a moment. Jud growled and wrapped her against his side, supporting her weight before she teetered over.
“Let HERA run stuff. We’ll reconvene tomorrow, figure out when and where to hit next.” Dallas settled a hand on Mary’s shoulder when she didn’t stand. She continued tapping on the keyboard. “Mary.”
The woman still had trouble disconnecting from her ops persona. He understood how a mission could overtake your life—he’d survived for nothing but the next op while in The Collective. Disconnected from family. From life.
“Mary,” he repeated, his voice firmer than before. She blinked, peering up at him.
“We’ll find him.” She repeated the promise every time she saw him, as if there was nothing more to discuss until she’d made the statement a fact.
The woman had no idea she�
�d burrowed into Dallas’s soul and breathed life into him by claiming Dylan’s heart. People like her were the reason he’d fought and bled for his country, why he’d sacrificed even more while in The Collective. The good he’d done there had far outweighed the bad.
Or so he hoped.
“Big brother needs his beauty sleep,” Dallas whispered as he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Go tuck him in, and let my future nephew get some sleep.”
“Or niece,” Vi corrected.
“Or niece.” Dallas smirked.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find him,” Mary whispered. “I thought for certain this was it.”
“We’ll find him.” Dallas accepted the hug she offered when she rose. His gaze cut to Dylan, who stood nearby but remained far enough away to show he had no issues with the embrace or the personal conversation.
Before Mary, Dylan had been a much different man and brother. Dallas’s relationship with him had improved radically over the past few months, and he had his future sister-in-law to thank for the change.
The two couples headed toward the exit, but Jud hung back after Vi left the room. The door sealed shut.
“Problem?” Dallas asked.
“A few.” Jud motioned toward a file. “Marshall said you knew the players in Marville better than anyone out here. We need your input on what we’ve got so far.”
“You’ve made progress.”
“No, but someone thinks we have. Riley’s tires were slashed outside the bar in Marville.”
