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 operations 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.

“FUBAR op?”

“Yeah, we schedule a mission last minute, gather the team, and go wheels up to the shittiest rat hole we can organize and throw them into the viper’s nest. It’s how Sanderson earned a team leader position. I was thinking we’d run Graves through a gauntlet. Putting Wells on the crew would accomplish two purposes.” Dylan grinned at the thought. The bastard Fallon Graves was good, almost too damn good to believe.

Though the jealous monster inside him that’d been born because of Hailey’s bullshit didn’t care for Fallon Graves and his close friendship with Mary, he grudgingly understood why she’d called him a ninja. The son of a bitch was perfect Arsenal material.

Addy chuckled. “Okay, I seriously hope you’re going to put me on the team, because I want a front row seat to watch how Graves handles Wells when he blows.”

“Done,” Marshall declared. “What about Joseph Dillinger?”

Heat crept up in Mary’s cheeks as her shoulders shrank inward and her entire body melted. The strong confident Edge vacated the room, and she morphed into Mary. But not the calm, collected one he’d enjoyed the past few weeks. This one was...scared.

“Talk to us,” Nolan ordered.

Dylan glanced around, noted his brothers guarded stances.

“He...” She wet her lips and caught Dylan’s gaze, as if summoning his strength would help drag the words out. Jesus. He should’ve sat closer. He’d wanted to give her space, not hover.

“He creeps me out,” she whispered. “I spotted him when we had the burger day a few days after I got out of the hospital ward. One of your men had a little girl with him.”

Dylan clenched his fist, not liking where this was heading. “Bobby. He’s in Warrior’s Path, which is where Joseph is. Bobby’s wife brought their six-year-old, Hannah, to visit for the weekend.”

“Right. Well, the way he was with her...it creeped me out.”

“In what way?” Marshall asked.

Mary tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “I know it was wrong, but we had Betty out and stretching her legs, so I wheeled her in and recorded. I meant to get Vi and Addy’s read on it, because I figured I was being too oversensitive. It happens sometimes. Then everything happened, and it sort of fell by the wayside.”

“Show us,” Jesse clipped. “I’m not having a perv on the compound.”

“His record came up clean,” Mary offered. “It’s probably just me overreacting.”

“Show us, sweetheart,” Dylan said.

Tension coiled in his muscles as the footage started on the overhead. At first it seemed innocent enough. Joseph squatted down and whispered with the little girl, who hid shyly behind her mom’s legs. As the scene progressed, the body language was off. The camera panned around, showing the wild-eyed gaze and lecherous grin on his face when he thought no one was looking.

But Mary saw.

Recorded.

Recognized it so early on she’d had the time to record the interaction. He feared she spotted Joseph’s odd behavior because of a more personal experience. Damn.

“I grew up with someone who hurt girls,” she admitted. “My half-brother, Ralph. I was too old for his tastes, but I recognized the look, the approach.”

Jesus.

“Anyway, so there’s no criminal record,” she said. “That’s why I flagged him. I can’t consider men like him good enough to be on an Arsenal team. I know he’s here with Warrior’s Path, but I saw he’d made the cut into consideration for Arsenal.”

“Not anymore,” Nolan growled. “He’s out.”

“Yeah, he’s out,” Dylan emphasized.

“I’ll escort him out tonight,” Marshall said. “Thank you for trusting us with that, Mary. It means a lot that you’d put yourself out there to keep our teams secure. I hope you know you can always share anything with us, no matter what. We won’t ever judge you. We will always hear you out.”

Mary nodded.

“She’s exhausted. We’re heading out for San Antonio in the morning, doing recon on the burner phone. Are we meeting about that, or can we strike out when we’re ready?” Dylan asked.

“It’s your op, you two decide,” Marshall rose. “Maintain regular contact. Take Graves and Sanderson.”

His brother didn’t add a final suggestion, but everyone recognized the silence for what it was. An opening, a shot to mend the fence he’d left damaged for a while. Four-man teams were required, minimum, for high risk recon.

“Your schedule free, Dallas? I could use your help,” Dylan commented as casually as he could manage when a whole field of cotton appeared in his throat.

Shock registered on his little brother’s face. “Sure, man. I’ll pack the gear tonight. You and Edge go ahead and get some rest.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, brother. Anytime.” Dallas slapped him on the back.

Dylan’s heart thumped a bit harder when he noted the approval in Marshall’s and Nolan’s faces. Fuck yeah, that felt good. Mary’s soft smile surged blood southward.

“Vi can help with HERA’s field supplies. Fallon will want to know early enough to pack his own gear. No offense. He’s a bit...” Mary chewed her lower lip. “Protective of his toys.”

“Any good operative is,” Dallas commented. “I’ll give him a head’s up. Show him how we came up with our name.”

He flashed a mischievous grin and headed out of the room. Dylan shook his head and chuckled. Yeah, he could see tomorrow ending in a few explosions. Dallas had found an ordnance buddy. The Arsenal wouldn’t ever be the same.