by Cara Carnes
“Show of hands in the cone of silence. Answers given here don’t leave the room, but I think it’s important to establish a reality for Kamren since she doesn’t know us. Apparently, Riley doesn’t either, so we’ll hop on that right now, too.” Vi held up her hand. “Raise your hand if you have directly or indirectly killed someone.”
Mary and Dylan’s hands went up. Kamren raised hers, not that it mattered since everyone knew the answer already.
Addy raised two hands with a shrug. “I’ve been busy.”
Dallas did the same. Mary nudged Bree and glared at Rhea.
“What?” Rhea asked. “I haven’t killed anyone.”
“The drones.”
“Oh.” The woman’s nose kinked up. Her and Bree’s eyes met and widened. “Oh, wow. Okay, yeah.”
Their hands darted up, leaving Riley and Rachelle as the only ones without their hands up.
“Think the point here is simple — don’t judge. We’ve all done things out of necessity rather than desire,” Mary said. “This process isn’t about judgment; it’s about problem resolution and getting answers.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley offered. “It was a bitch thing to say. I’m rattled and pinned in a corner, so I came out punching. I don’t trust you being back, not after the things you’ve put Rachelle through. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
“Fair enough,” Kamren responded. “I’m glad she has you in her corner.”
And she was. Riley had been the best thing to ever happen to her little sister.
“Okay, so back to the topic at hand.” Vi put a pair of red wire-rimmed glasses on. “HERA’s in for a good feeding day. Let’s get started, girls.”
Vi divided up the piles of folders between her and Mary. Photographs were passed over to Rhea and Bree, who scanned them in using a cool interface of some sort on the table top. Kamren sat back, enthralled and intimidated by the process in equal measures.
Awareness tingled up her arm when Dallas squeezed her hand. She looked over and noted his soft smile and the glimmer in his gaze.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, honestly not sure what the answer was. She noted Mary saying something about reinforcements, then Vi picked up a phone and started typing out what Kamren assumed was a message.
Several minutes later, the room filled to capacity as the rest of the Mason brothers entered. One of them shoved in between Vi and Mary and got to work on a laptop he’d brought in. He looked up and winked.
“I’m the cute Mason. Cord.”
Kamren couldn’t help but smile.
The level of testosterone in the room was a bit overwhelming. The final entrant was Jud, who looked like he snacked on nails. He walked straight to Vi and claimed her mouth.
The kiss was downright sordid in its intensity. Several of the women whistled. Nolan and Jesse laughed.
“Why are all of you in here mucking up our routine?” Vi asked.
“Curiosity,” Nolan replied. “Dylan and Addy said it was a sight to behold. We’re beholding.”
Mary and Vi leaned near one another and started talking. Though Kamren couldn’t hear the words, she read their lips easily enough. She chuckled to herself when Cord growled, no doubt not appreciating the conversation shift as they started discussing their upcoming shopping adventure to San Antonio for honeymoon wear.
Vi wanted edible underwear and was hoping Jud would be okay with wearing a g-string so she could “experiment.” Kamren covered her mouth and glanced away when Mary started sharing her latest experimentation with Dylan. Yowza, reading lips was seriously a pain in the ass sometimes. Overhearing, or in this case overseeing, people’s private conversations made her feel like the lowest scum of the earth.
The hum of the machinery around them likely kept everyone else from hearing what they yammered on about. The four brilliant women worked well together, seamlessly adding Cord to the process. Marshall and Nolan walked about the room as images were thrown up onto the walls in what seemed like random patterns at first. Then Bree and Rhea started pulling out colored yarn.
“So two senators and three state supreme court justices share a lease? I’d imagine they could afford individual leases,” Mary commented.
“That’s not how hunting works, not for guys like them,” Dylan commented. “It’s amusement and camaraderie more than a sport. That’s why the guys running the chopper hunts over in Nomad are doing so well.”
Kamren nodded. “They’re adding more exotics for this next season. I consulted for them not too long ago.”
“What kind of consultation?” Bree asked.
“They hired some company to study breeding patterns and migration routes and stuff, but one of the guys didn’t trust the results, said they wanted a second opinion from someone with more hands-on experience.” She fiddled with the frayed bottom of her T-shirt. “I went in and recommended locations for feeders, stuff like that.”
“She did more than that,” Rachelle defended. “I remember that assignment. You lived out there for two weeks because you were worried about the amount of coyote tracks you saw. They paid her a big bonus for clearing out the excess predators in the area. That’s how we got the barn fixed.”
“You did a hell of a job tracking the twins,” Jesse complimented. “We were talking about needing to take the noobs out for some survival testing.”
“You’re all going? Even you, Nolan?” Mary smirked. “There might be flesh-eating maggots out there.”
The man growled. “Not cool, Edge. Not cool.”
Dallas leaned over and drew Kamren’s attention. “A few years ago, Mary saved Nolan and his team. They were in a jungle and days from an exfil. She taunted him every night with flesh-eating maggots and nasty stuff to keep him mentally alert.”
Kamren chuckled. “Sadly, there aren’t any of those around these parts, but fire ants can sure ruin your day.”
“Do you have an ETA on this being done?” Marshall asked.
“It’ll take a few more hours,” Vi answered. “There’s a ton of data here. HERA’s pulling phone records on all these guys she’s been tracking, and that’s opening up records for everyone they’ve spoken to. Some of them have been very busy boys.”
“What’s up?” Dallas asked his brother.
“I’m thinking we can go be a bit more productive. We’ve got some new potentials to vet on the shooting range. I’m thinking Kamren might prefer playing out there.”
“A gun range might not be good with her ears,” Dallas argued.
Heat spread through her insides. She wasn’t used to someone worrying about her. She tamped down any response as the men talked. Jesse said something about the doc. She hoped that was Logan and not Brant.
“She’s clear as long as we use headgear,” Jesse said with a grin. “Let’s get out of this geek fest.”
Kamren was down with escaping while she could. She looked over at the women who’d welcomed her so easily and listened to what she had to say. “Thank you for your help. I’m sorry if this is a huge waste of your time.”
“Any chance we get to stretch HERA’s legs is never a waste of time,” Mary said. “We just overhauled some stuff, so it’s a great exercise either way.”
“Let’s go,” Addy said. “I’ll get her outfitted with gear. You boys assemble the candidates. I say they all walk if our girl outshoots them.”
Dallas smirked. “I’m down with that.”
“We might want a more rigid standard,” Cord commented. Vi walloped his head. “What the hell was that for?”
“For being stupid.” Vi looked over at Kamren. “He hasn’t seen the footage yet.”
“That was a lucky shot,” Kamren argued.
“Sure it was,” Dallas commented. “Come on, Lucky. Let’s go have some fun.”
10
Addy found the most ridiculous headgear imaginable for Kamren, but Dallas found it adorable. The thick red-and-black earmuffs dwarfed her head. Her long, light brown hair was drawn back and up in a
braided bun at the nape of her neck, like Princess Leia but way sexier.
The black cargo pants hugged her ass snugly and accentuated her long legs. Her plentiful breasts pushed out against the Army green T-shirt she’d stuffed into the pants. Knives stuck out of two of the cargo pockets. She’d yet to give them up?
Interesting.
The two women were laughing and talking as they stopped near the weapons Dallas had hauled out from the munitions cache downstairs. Kamren reached out and touched one of the newer rifles added to their arsenal.
“It’s a new design, one that’ll switch between urban and tactical settings,” he offered.
“Very cool,” she commented. “I’m not sure what I’m doing out here. It’s kind of like the kid playing around before all the adults get busy.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Dallas commented. “How old were you when your dad taught you to shoot?”
“Four or five. I followed him everywhere, like a shadow. Cliff and Rachelle never showed much of an interest, so he spent any spare time he had teaching me everything he knew.” She smiled. “I’m more comfortable out there than anywhere else these days.”
“Most of us feel that way sometimes. When I got back, it took me weeks to acclimate to all the people and inside lights and…” He lifted one of the rifles and offered it to her. “Go ahead, get used to it. Fire off a few practice shots if you want.”
“You’re serious? I can shoot it?” Anticipation shimmered in her eyes.
“You sure as hell better. We’ve got a pool going,” he commented.
“Come on, let’s get you practicing with the headgear a while. It takes some time to acclimate to,” Addy commented.
Dallas watched the two women head off toward the target range someone had set up for today. Nolan moved to stand beside him.
“We’ve got a trip scheduled to Huntsville tomorrow,” Nolan said. “We’re doing this one without Dani. We’ll take her later, after we’ve sorted things out.”
Dominic DeMarco had been Dallas’s idol growing up. Dom had always been a bit wilder than Nolan and his brothers. Dom had fed his wild side with fast cars and even faster women. By the time Dallas hit seventeen, he’d been running hard with Dom’s crew. He and Dom’s younger brother, Ricardo, had been inseparable.
Then Dom had gotten arrested for murder. Folks didn’t know what to believe or who to trust. Dallas had been alienated from Ricardo, and the crew once dedicated to fast cars and street racing turned their sights onto more dangerous enterprises. Disenchanted, Dallas had entered the service like his brothers had.
“I don’t think the Marville Dogs got your message,” Nolan said. “Marcus spent the evening at the Sip and Spin. Things aren’t calming like we hoped.”
Marcus was a hell of an operative they’d recently brought on. He’d earned his team leader stripes when he helped Jud defend The Arsenal compound while everyone had been overseas on a mission.
“Dom will handle it once he hears that tape. Javier threatening Dani the way he did sealed his fate,” Dallas commented. “There’s nothing he and Ricardo wouldn’t do for her.”
“I’m wondering why Ricardo isn’t around running the MD’s,” Nolan commented.
“He headed out around the same time I did. I never knew where, but I figure he was as sick of Marville and small-town Texas as I was back then.”
“Glad you’re back,” Nolan commented. “We’ll get them all, brother. Everyone who touched your kid is dead.”
Dallas remained focused on the two women.
The way they talked about The Collective cut too deep. Dallas was more like the bastards they hunted down than anyone realized. He shook off the thought and forged on. He couldn’t look back on what he’d done and regret anything, not when it’d kept innocent civilians like his sister alive, living a happy, wholesome life.
“Dylan’s worried.”
Ah. Dylan had sent big brother number two after his ass. Dallas grunted. Anytime one of them was concerned about another, Nolan or Marshall was activated. The two eldest brothers were the closest thing they had to male confidants since their dad passed.
He rubbed his chest, massaging away the ache that’d settled in. “Her hunting down her dad’s killer, it feels like something I’ve gotta help with.”
“Yeah, feels like that for us all, but he wasn’t a good man. Jesse got to talking last night. Cliff was in his class growing up.”
Dallas filed the tidbit away. Rachelle had been in Riley’s class, Cliff in Jesse’s. So where the heck had Kamren been? He looked over at Nolan, who wore the same confusion on his face.
“Something about this stinks,” Dallas guessed.
“Yeah, and we aren’t going to like what we dig up.”
Kamren clutched the rifle Addy and Dallas had loaned her and smiled through her unease as Marshall and Dylan stood before the gathered group of commandos. A couple of women stood interspersed with the predominantly male hoard of muscled badasses. She’d yet to figure out how she fit into all this, but at least she was outside.
She breathed in the fresh air and exhaled the tension from earlier. The earmuffs were obnoxiously large but eased the ache and had prevented any unwanted reaction when she’d shot a few test rounds earlier. She wished Addy had told her how she’d done. The targets were crazy distances away, and even though the redhead had watched through binoculars, she hadn’t offered any feedback at all.
“Today’s objectives are simple. You’re here to prove you have what it takes to handle long-range targets for an Arsenal team. This isn’t the military where you have a guaranteed spotter to handhold you through the data, so we’re doing today in two stages.” Marshall’s mouth moved slowly, as if he formed each word precisely to help her through understanding.
“The Quillery Edge is part of The Arsenal now, as you are all aware.” Dylan looked around. “You’re going to get to play with their latest toy during this first round. HERA will be your spotter. You’ll each be given headgear, which will provide you with wind speeds, distances, and enough data to where a monkey could make the shot. That’s what my fiancée said, so I expect precise hits every time.”
“The second round is old-fashioned downrange shooting. No spotters, no data. Clean shots to see who can shoot the best,” Marshall said. “That’s where we’ll cull the herd.”
“Everyone get in position, three to a station. Addy, Jesse, Nolan, Gage, and Fallon are helping us out today. Listen to what they say,” Dylan ordered.
Kamren waited until all the real commandos were situated. By the time everyone was in position, there was one spot left at Jesse’s station. Her pulse quickened and her heart thudding in her chest. He smiled warmly as she walked over.
She had no business shooting at the station of a man like him, a hero. The compulsion to drag him into a hug was hard to beat down but she did, because he was a good man. And she felt more than a little guilty that she’d “heard” a piece of his hell, a piece he’d shared to get his little brother to give a piece of his.
Likely for Jesse, that’s what family did. She totally got him because that’s precisely what she did. Gave and gave and gave for blood.
“Excellent. I was hoping you’d land at my station. The boys and I have a little competition going—whose team shoots the best. Winner gets a steak dinner,” he commented. “I think I might go ahead and make the reservation right now.”
Her stomach rumbled its protest at the thought of food. She hadn’t eaten much before arriving at The Arsenal, so the small amounts she’d managed since then hadn’t fully sated her. She smiled through what she suspected had been a loud sound because his gaze swept to her belly.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Kamren shook her head. He shook his head and smiled, as if he’d suspected the answer. Fortunately, he didn’t ask anything more. He reached into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a nutrition bar.
“Eat. It tastes like dog shit, but it’s better than an MRE.” He pushed the ba
r into her hand. “I’ll make sure Dallas shows you where the cafeteria is again when we’re done here.”
As if summoned by their conversation, Dallas appeared. His gaze narrowed as she inhaled half the nutrition bar in one massive bite. The two brothers did an awkward grunt, chin lift thing, then Jesse moved away to tend to his other two teammates. Dallas turned her to face him fully.
She chewed the vile bar. Jesse hadn’t lied. It tasted like mud, saw dust, and grass. Blech. Dallas flashed a panty-smoldering smile, one so big and warm it damn near incinerated her. He removed the earmuffs Addy had given her, put a headset on her head, then put the muffs back on. She blinked as he essentially dressed her head like it wasn’t a big deal.
But it was. He gave a damn about her hearing.
Her.
“Between this and the earmuffs, you look like an astronaut,” he muttered. “The display shows you wind speeds, distances, and a bunch of other data to make shots. Just do your best and have fun, okay?”
Translation—he didn’t expect her to do well. Wind speeds and distances were trajectory information. Math. Idiots like her didn’t do math and trajectories. Her stomach soured at the thought.
No. Dallas didn’t know about her uneducated self. Even if he did, he wouldn’t care. He wanted her to have fun. That’s what he’d said and meant. She watched her teammates take a few practice shots.
She matched their poses, belly down on the ground. Easy enough. She peeked through the sight via the headgear and…
Holy smokes, those were a lot of numbers streaming by. She watched them march by, unsure what the heck she was supposed to do with all the data. Really, what the ever-loving heck? She looked over, noting how everyone was tweaking doo dads on the fancy-ass rifle.
Yep, way out of your league, girl.
Should’ve stayed in elementary school where you belonged.
She breathed through the frustration and aimed, ignoring the displays. “Why the hell can’t the display give me an arrow or something useful? Seriously, this is bullshit. If you’ve gotta take a shot in the heat of battle, all those numbers are useless. No one’s got time to whip out a calculator in the field. You want to impress me? Give me colored arrows that make every bullet a kill shot. Talk about a waste of a brilliant tech opportunity.”