Dylan entered a war zone, Logan and Mark hot on his heels.  Gage Sanderson and all five of his brothers knelt, hands behind their heads with the business end of weapons trained at their heads. It was who held the guns that made him laugh.

“Jesus, y’all were taken down by GI Jane wannabes.”

A blonde with red, wire-rimmed glasses glanced up from a laptop. She looked over at the redhead, the only trained one among the four females, and motioned her head toward him, eyes wide and expressive.

“Bree, point your gun at the new Rambos. Pull the trigger if they twitch,” the redhead ordered.

Bree was a busty blonde dressed in head-to-toe black with huge lines of face paint beneath expressive blue eyes, which gleamed with excitement. “Seriously? I can shoot?”

Dylan would be worried, but she was holding a tranquilizer gun of some sort. Drones flitted about in the air. One shot past his head and darted down the hall. He glared at Mark. “Go shoot it down.”

“Stay where you are, or I shoot,” the redhead threatened. “I’m coming off a seriously messed up op with no rack time. Try me.”

Yep, she was definitely the only threat in the room. Dylan studied his brothers, noted their drooping eyes and barely upright stances.

“They’re drugged,” Logan growled. “What’d you use?”

The blonde looked up. Eyes wider than saucers stared at them a moment. “Logan? What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re a part of this.”

“Is this the hot doc who Mary helped rescue, the one you said was trying to get in her pants?” The brunette at the end looked back and forth between Logan and the blonde. “Wow, he’s hot.”

“Rhea, not now,” gritted the redhead.

“Oh, Addy, you’re never any fun. Seriously. Vi has this under control.”

“Quillery didn’t just go ten rounds with six black ops soldiers before that shit in the drones kicked in.” Addy motioned at Dylan with her gun. “Come closer, hands behind your back. This’ll be over quick as long as you all cooperate.”

“Huh.” Vi tapped at the keyboard with one hand. “That’s odd.”

“What? Are there more men in the back?” Addy asked as she looked over at the busty blonde. “Bree, refill the drones with the knockout juice.”

“On it.” Bree looked pointedly at Dylan. “But I can still shoot fast, so don’t get any ideas.”

Quillery set the laptop on the reception desk and charged toward his brothers. Dylan tensed, ready to strike, but she bonked Cord aside the head before anyone could react.

Dallas snickered.

Nolan outright laughed.

“What the hell was that for?” Cord demanded with an expression he’d used many times with their little sister when she got violent—which was fairly often since she had six overprotective big brothers.

“Where the hell did you get your hacker training? From a Cracker Jack box?” Quillery’s voice rose, shrill and shaky with anger. “You could’ve gotten everyone killed!”

“What the hell?” Cord repeated.

“What was the message you buried in my feed?” Quillery’s voice softened, a velvety seduction more like the tone she used with operatives.

“We have Edge. Come to Texas.”

Dylan cursed. Marshall growled. Nolan and Dallas laughed. Jesse knocked Cord aside the head.

“What the hell?” he sputtered. “You got the message.”

“Oh, yeah. We got the message, idiot,” Addy retorted. “Take a look around. Do you have any idea what Quillery could’ve put in those drones? They’ve only been used on two ops before this, and both times everyone was carried out in body bags.”

“Never, ever, ever, ever send vague codes through a hack. Brevity is good, but only if it has detail.” Quillery got closer, leaning in until her face was up against Cord’s. “Edge secured in Texas. That was what you should’ve said.”

“Shorter, assures safety and our position in the situation,” Dylan explained.

“Shit,” Cord groaned.

“Does this mean I can’t shoot the thingie?” Bree asked.

“Well, this is all shades of awkward,” Addy commented as she secured her weapon and looked around. “Addy Rugers. Nice to meet you all.”

“Mark, check the perimeter. Verify everyone’s okay,” Dylan ordered.

“We didn’t hurt anyone,” Quillery commented. “Much.”

Addy unshouldered a backpack and handed it to Mark. “Their weapons and coms.”

The man grunted and headed out, a glower on his face. No one liked to be bested, especially by a kick ass female soldier. Addy Rugers was as trained as her legendary older brother had been, or so he’d heard. Marshall approached the woman.

“Sorry about Peter. He was a great soldier.”

“I told Vi there wasn’t any way you all were in on whatever this was. Peter always said the only last name more trustworthy than Rugers in the field was Mason.” Addy looked around. “What happened?”

“We’re still piecing it together. Edge was taken, interrogated.” Dylan settled his gaze on Quillery. There was no easy way to finish. “She thought you were there.”

“What?” The blonde paled and headed to her laptop. “Where? How long ago?”

“Vi, let’s tend Mary first, then go from there.” Addy settled a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

The other two women paled, huddled close to the redhead like she was their lifeline. Dylan cocked a brow at Marshall. What was up with all the women being here, and should they ask?

Everyone shook their head. Fine. It’d wait. For now. He didn’t like so many unknowns hanging around, especially with Mary at risk. These were her friends though. They’d stormed The Arsenal and won.

“We need to overhaul our security if four GI Jane wannabes kicked our asses,” Dylan replied.

“Don’t feel bad. I actually worked up a sweat. That’s not normal for most penetrations,” Addy commented.

“All penetrations should make you sweat,” Dallas replied with a smug grin.

Bree and Rhea chuckled. Heat rose in the redhead’s face as her words took on a new meaning. She gaped like a fish out of water at Dylan’s brother, then muttered something about men and apes and headed down the hall.

Dylan hung back with his brothers, letting Logan lead Quillery and the other females to their friend. Addy limped slightly, but otherwise wasn’t injured as far as he could tell.

“How did she get the jump on all of you?”

“Those drones,” Nolan muttered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“No shit. I’d take flash bangs all day compared to what just happened.”

“What did happen?” Marshall asked. “Addy knocked me out before I realized we had a breach.”

“Two drones whizzed through the door. One shot out a gas compound, the other emitted a sonic pulse. My ears still aren’t working right,” Jesse commented.

Everyone halted in the hallway outside Mary’s room. Dylan settled into a lean against the nearest wall, within striking range if needed. Vi had crawled onto the bed on Mary’s good side. Tears fell from both their faces. Addy hovered behind Vi, leaned in to join the conversation. The other two women huddled close, crying hard enough for their shoulders to shake. Logan stood near them, glowering. No one liked women crying.

The whispered conversation went on longer than he wanted. Mary needed rest, not a rehash of what had happened. The tone quickly shifted. Vi sat upright, her gaze narrowed, her voice too low to hear, but her body tightened the longer they spoke.

Dylan watched, fascinated as Edge’s did as well. The two friends fed one another, fueled each other’s emotional processes. He’d seen the symbiotic-like dynamic in the field enough to recognize it.

“Can she be moved?” Vi asked.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Dylan growled.

“We need to read you in, but not in this room. We need a secured area,” Addy replied. “We’ve all walked right into the trap, just like they wanted. Let’s go.”

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” Mary complained.

“Get over it. I agree with Dylan. You shouldn’t be out of bed at all,” Rhea spat. “But she does have a point. This is a bit too cloak and dagger, don’t you think?”

“You’re only here because you’re in as much danger as Bree, Mary, and I are. So shush,” Vi ordered as she headed over to the operational center’s console like she owned the place.

Cord stood beside her, hands crossed, eyebrows in a permanent glower. Vi ignored him and everyone else as she crawled beneath the counter and established contact between the laptop and The Arsenal’s system.

She flashed Mary an uncomfortable smile. This was all Mary’s stuff. Vi was the voice. The one who everyone knew as Quillery. Mary was the how, when, and where. The Edge.

“Why don’t you start the explanation, if you’re up to it,” Vi suggested.

The men gathered in a semi-circle. Everyone ignored the plush leather seating along the back walls of the massive room. Mary faced the computer monitors and willed her pulse to slow.

Everyone was safe. Secure.

“Peter’s murder six months ago left Hive firmly in Martin Driggs’s incapable hands, at first. He’s the money man, the face behind the business side. He can’t run an operation as massive as what he now controls.” Mary looked at Addy sympathetically. “Peter was Hive.”

“Driggs brought in an outside ‘partner,’ someone he said would remain silent. I only found out because he insisted on buying out my share of Hive, which turned over to me when Peter died.” Addy’s voice broke at the end. “That’s when things started going wrong for Driggs.”

“He assumed he would gain full control of Hive,” Vi added from beneath the console. “Bastard didn’t bother reading the paperwork.”

“Needless to say, I tossed the new partner out on his ass and maintained ownership. That’s when things started getting shaky,” Addy said. “Peter added a clause to the will stating that while I owned half the company, Driggs would maintain field control until I’d had fifteen years of experience, collectively.  That’s in four months.”

“Then you assume full field control, like Peter had?” Marshall asked.

“Yes. I’d accept all missions, assign all personnel, and run operations. He would go back to the quiet money man in the background.”

“Driggs started pushing the envelope on what contracts we accepted. Suddenly, we were going into areas Peter never agreed, taking on the shadier business we’ve always steered away from,” Mary added. “Missions became riskier, downright impossible sometimes.”

“Then the bastard focused on Mary and me, forcing us to pull eighty hour weeks so he could charge top dollar by offering us up as the back office handlers. We both refused, of course. If we’re not in top condition, the field suffers,” Vi said.

“Then he started pressuring us to hand over HERA, even went so far as to threaten our jobs if we didn’t agree.” Mary shook her head, then grimaced as pain shot down her neck. “He said he’d blacklist us in the paramilitary arena. We’d never work again.”

Dylan and his brothers all laughed. Warmth seeped into Mary’s clenched belly when she caught his lazy grin and amused gaze. Heat stained her cheeks.

“And HERA...” Jesse trailed his voice off on an expectant tone.

“It stands for Heuristic Engagement Recovery Apparatus,” Rhea supplied.

“Wait. I thought the ‘R’ was Reconnaissance. You know, because she’s a badass and she’s covering badasses,” Bree argued.

“She?” Marshall asked.

“Well HERA couldn’t be a guy,” Bree snapped with a duh tone. “She thinks for herself, learns from her mistakes, and is impenetrable.”

The men looked at one another in a mixture of confusion and concern. Bree got a bit too emotionally invested when she talked about HERA. While Mary and Vi had done the bulk of the work on the program, Bree and Rhea had been instrumental in so many invaluable ways.

“Bree, let’s let Vi explain HERA, okay?” Mary suggested.

Crimson rose in her friend’s face as she looked around, then nodded.

“It’s an offensive and defensive intelligence system that provides real-time feeds to the field. Surveillance cameras attached to the network also do live facial recognition scans and flag any threats in a variety of measures, including limited offensive measures,” Vi began.

“It does everything but the kitchen sink,” Addy finished. “The two computer geniuses coded the entire thing, started in their dorm rooms back at MIT, where they met Bree and Rhea here. Bree provided the savvy, new age power source, one which is completely self-contained, impenetrable, and totally kickass. Rhea, the innocent-looking one, created not one but three different biochemical agents and two gases to weaponize the drones you saw today and the surveillance cameras.”

“Christ,” Dallas muttered.

“And those are only the high points. The system has been our baby for a long time. It started off as a hacking tool, one aimed at trolling the asshats on the Dark Web. The intelligent facets of the program not only hack into a target’s systems and networks, it copies all data and provides real-time, instantaneous analysis based on pre-programmed parameters,” Mary explained. When the men looked at her blankly she added, “It reads what it copies and summarizes the data immediately.”

“Damn,” Cord whispered.

“Like I said, there’s nothing the system can’t do,” Addy repeated. “Edge and Quillery here even designed a field assessment portion of the program, which allows team leads to provide feedback and reviews of the team’s physical, psychological, and skill readiness before, during, and after a mission with a few keystrokes. I got to test that one, and I’ve gotta say it’s pretty sweet.”

“How does that help?” Nolan asked.

“It gives us and HERA the data we need to accurately assess possible solutions and provide the best recommendations. A team is only as strong as its weakest member. Sometimes that changes, and knowing could have a huge impact on how a mission is handled,” Mary explained.

“And you’ve managed to keep that out of Hive’s grasp,” Marshall commented.

“Peter understood the ramifications if it fell into the wrong hands. He trusted our judgment, so we used it on a few more complicated missions, where we had full control and trusted all the field operatives implicitly.” Vi sat and rolled the chair to the console. “Driggs only caught wind of it because the blowhard entered the control center without permission, and we were neck deep in baddies.”

Mary’s gut clenched. They’d almost lost an entire Delta squad because Driggs interrupted the operation. “That was two weeks before Peter died. Things didn’t end well.”

“Edge showed how she earned that name and knocked his ass out.” Vi chuckled. “I have it recorded. It’s awesome.”

“So HERA is probably what he’s after,” Colt surmised.

“Or Addy’s portion of Hive,” Jesse added.

“Not to be the naysayer, but how do we even know this is Driggs? Could it be someone else?” Logan asked.

Leave it to a spook to point out something no one else had considered. Mary had been so focused on Driggs and Hive being the problem that she hadn’t considered anyone else.

“The timing’s too right for it to be anyone else. We’ve been gathering data proving Driggs’s corruption. Mary’s even established links to key government personnel,” Vi argued. “I can’t see anyone else with the motive Driggs has to keep us quiet.”

“Then why didn’t he kill her?” Dallas asked. “And he had you in a jungle. Why not put two in your brainstem and move on? Or in Addy’s if he was after controlling interest in Hive?”

Mary looked at Vi and felt sick. Good question.

“Watch it,” Dylan threatened.

“No, he’s right. That’s why we need your help. We’re too close to see all angles,” Mary whispered into the thickening silence. “The short answer, the only one I can reason out, is that we’re the only ones smart enough to run it. There’s no operations manual. More than half of it is a shortcut code only she and I know. It’s still in very early beta stage.”

“He needs you,” Marshall said.

“Yeah,” Vi replied. “So that’s what we know in a nutshell. What are you going to do about it?”

“There’s another reason they kept you alive,” Dylan commented as he approached them. “I’m thinking they didn’t know who else was involved with HERA, Bree and Rhea.”

My God. Of course. Mary hadn’t realized the obvious. Driggs had no way of identifying the power source or bio weapon creators. Now they were exposed. In danger. “This is all my fault.”

“Hey, look at me.” Dylan’s voice boomed near her. Firm hands grasped her chin. “No one’s hurting you or them. We’ll find Driggs.”

“She needs rest,” Logan said.

“Agreed. I’ll get the ladies secured in a bunker, and then we can all get some rest.” Marshall looked around the room. “We’ll start hunting tomorrow.”

Even though Vi hadn’t shown off HERA or any of the evidence they’d gathered, Mary was relieved the debriefing session was over. Pain coursed along her side and down her back. Sitting up was exhausting.

Another part of her wasn’t ready to return to the hospital bed and rest. Fear crawled up her throat. As long as she was awake and focused on something else, someone else, the memories stayed away. Once they all left, though, she’d be vulnerable, defenseless to the chaos and terror of what’d happened.

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Bree whispered as she kissed her forehead.

“Love ya,” Rhea called out.

“See you before dawn with coffee.  I know you wake early,” Addy said.

“You want me to crash with you?” Vi asked.

“No, I’m okay.” Mary forced the words despite the unease swelling in her chest.

She clenched her good hand into a fist and bit her tongue as Logan wheeled her away from her friends and the guys. All except Dylan, who remained steadfastly at her side.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

“You will be.” He held the door open and swept his gaze across the yawning landscape as they exited the operations building and headed toward the other large structure next door. They really should’ve enclosed the walk areas between for security purposes, but she didn’t mention it. There’d be time to comment on security measures later, when she’d rested more and she didn’t have a madman trying to get her and her friends.

“Here we are,” Logan commented moments later.

Mary peered into the clean, quiet room. The entire area was graveyard silent. Maybe they had a remote for the television she could turn on when everyone left. Logan wheeled her near the bathroom first. Grateful for the chance, she grasped the doorframe and hauled herself in before either man offered to help. Talk about mortifying.

The bathroom was more like a personal one than a hospital, but there were handlebars on each side of the toilet, which helped Mary haul herself up and down with her good hand. Wrestling the gown had been a bit problematic, especially since it wasn’t one of the open in the back ones.

She wondered where it’d come from for a few moments, then realized it didn’t really matter. With this many men around, there were probably tons of women. Love interests. Wives. Did Dylan have someone in his life?

Probably.

Men like him never went long without a woman in their bed, important or otherwise. Women like her, on the other hand, learned to rely on no one. She’d spent her entire life helping others, doing what was needed. That was her calling, though, and she wouldn’t do anything differently.

The men she’d dated never understood the secret life she couldn’t share. The too frequent emergencies in the dead of night, the unexplainable cancellations for dinner dates, the travel to undisclosed locations.

None of the men lasted long, except Dean. Dean Strickland had been a sweetheart, an accountant at a big four firm. He was the suit and tie-wearing, middle-income man seeking a suburban housewife to raise their two children. He even had the requisite family dog, a Golden Retriever named Darth. Dean was just enough of a geek to make Mary feel accepted.

Sadly, he couldn’t handle the abrupt departures and unforeseeable problems. I need to be your number one in life, Mary. I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. 

Really, she couldn’t blame him. She hoped he’d found his pretty, ordinary wife because he deserved happy. So did she, but sometimes you didn’t always get what you wanted. You accepted what you had and moved on.

Mary washed her hand and opened the door. Dylan grabbed her about the waist and hoisted her into his arms before she could utter an argument.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting you in bed where you belong.” He set her gently in the middle of the bed and covered her up. “Doc went to get a couple things. You need anything? Water? A snack?”

“Water would be good.”

Dylan reached over and poured some from a pitcher. He stuck a straw in the cup and brought it up to her lips.

“I’m not an invalid,” she whispered.

“No, but you’re hurt, exhausted, and weak. Drink, then you can get some rest.”

Mary complied with the gruff order and ignored the intensity in his gaze as it remained on her. The man was just too...everything. Fortunately, he settled into the recliner across the room when Logan entered.

The doctor pulled a couple syringes from his pocket and smiled at her. “I know you aren’t a fan of drugs, but these are mild. One’s the antibiotic we have you on. It’s working with what’s in your IV drip to keep infection away. The other’s a mild sedative to help you sleep.”

Thank God.

“Thanks, Doc.”

“If you need anything at all, I’m crashing in a room at the end of the hall. Push the buzzer on the side of your bed, and I’ll be here in a few. Or have Dylan grab me.” Logan left before she could comment.

Or have Dylan grab me. Mary’s gaze flashed to the man in the recliner. He’d hauled a blanket from somewhere and kicked off his combat boots. His sock-covered feet peeked out from the edge of the blue covering. She swallowed, her throat suddenly too dry as she studied the man lounging in the corner of her room like he belonged there.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not leaving you alone here, Mary. Go to sleep.”

“You don’t have to...” Mary bit the argument off. She wanted him here. Well, anyone, but Dylan being here felt...

Right.

Secure.

“Go to sleep, Mary.”