Battle Scars Read online

  Battle Scars

  Cara Carnes

  HeartScape Publishing, LLC

  Battle Scars © 2019 Cara Carnes

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  Cover Model: Dominic C

  Photography by: Paul Henry Serres

  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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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  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

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  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 talented photographer and 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.***

  Battle Scars contains topics of PTSD, domestic abuse, cancer, and sexual dysfunctional issues. Jesse’s and Ellie’s romance journey is an emotional rollercoaster which may trigger some readers.

  1

  Afghanistan

  Three years ago

  Jesse Mason crouched behind a stack of U.S. government rocket-propelled grenade launchers and bit back the rage rising within him. Piyale, the so-called translator who’d been his sole partner in the off-book training of village locals, conversed with a group of heavily armed insurgents.

  Jesse recognized more than a few of the assholes. He’d spent most of his time in the sandbox hunting for them. Someone under a Pentagon’s directive had dragged him away from the Delta team he led, however, and deposited him in the middle of nowhere with no coms. No support.

  The so-called training was a joke. None of the locals wanted anything to do with the American military’s ways. He’d picked up enough of the local dialect to recognize trouble when he heard it.

  “One thousand.”

  “Two fifty,” the insurgent countered in his native tongue, one Jesse barely understood. He’d kill for Cargo’s translating skills right about now.

  “He’s well-trained, high-level American military. The best. He’ll know much,” Piyale countered.

  Son of a bitch. Anger and revulsion rose within Jesse. The bastard was selling him like a prized cow.

  The weapon he had wasn’t the elite, Delta semiautomatic he preferred. Those were locked up every evening in an undisclosed location per the village chief’s request—a demand Jesse had refused until the bastard Piyale explained local customs.

  Piyale.

  The bastard was a plant. Someone high up had either been conned or had opted to sell Jesse out.

  To what end?

  Coms had gone down three days before. No one on his Delta team knew where he was.

  No matter. Jesse had been in worse situations. He’d handle it alone, exfil to a safe extraction point, and figure out how to get coms back.

  The loose plan formed in his mind as Jesse surveilled the surging enemy force mounting outside the small village. He’d keep the firefight contained to the exterior of the clustered huts. No reason to kill innocent women and children—assuming they were innocent.

  Forty-one heavily armed combatants. That excluded the villagers he’d been training. Were they part of this? If so, that brought the number to sixty-eight.

  Running away into the night and drawing the enemy out of the village seemed like the smartest move. But they’d rip through the village and likely kill everyone for a chance at an American military prisoner. Thank fuck Piyale didn’t realize Jesse was Delta and had far more classified intel stored in his head than the average Army grunt.

  Jesse eyed the weaponry he’d stumbled across and realized the insurgents had brought it with them. Was the village one of their unknown hideouts?

  Likely.

  Gunfire ricocheted off the crated weaponry around him. A curse escaped him as he returned fire. So much for the element of surprise. Adrenaline surged within him, but he regulated his breathing and focused.

  One target at a time.

  Each bullet counted. He didn’t have the luxury of unlimited ammo and a well-trained team at his six. He was alone and deep within enemy territory with no exfil, six rounds of ammo, and no idea who he could trust when he got out.

  Jesse sprinted to a new location behind a broken-down truck. The firefight ignited the night with the stench of carbine and blood. Fiery booms exploded shrapnel and debris into the air as Molotov cocktails and grenades were lobbed toward him. Laughter filled the area, signaling to Jesse that they were toying with him because they expected him to be captured.

  That’s when he heard them. The cries. Whimpers.

  Jesse cursed as dread seeped within him—an untended wound that’d get him killed.

  Or worse.

  “Come out and surrender or they die!” Piyale shouted. “You will get caught. There’s no need for them to die.”

  Jesse peeked around the vehicle and cursed. The village’s children were lined up. Weapons aimed at their small bodies kept Jesse still. Fuck.

  Capture wasn’t an option, but neither was allowing innocent children to die. Hating the only possible decision he had, Jesse vaulted from his position and fired. Three of the five armed men near the children fell. The other two fired.

  Small bodies fell to the ground. The others screamed and scattered.

  Jesse rolled. Aimed. Fired.

  Two more down.

  Gunfire from the side drew his attention. Seconds later he heard a soft thunk and looked over. Grenade.

  He processed the threat and lunged away, but the explosion threw him backward. His head struck something hard. Blackness assailed him.

  * * *

  Pain woke Jesse. The intensity demanded attention as his left thigh throbbed. Pinpricks of light above punctured the pitch-black darkness. Urine and fecal stench filled his nostrils as he shifted.

  Dirt.

  His head ached as though someone had taken a hammer to his brain.

  He’d been captured.

  Movement to the side halted Jesse’s
breathing. He wasn’t alone.

  “You’re awake,” a gruff voice said. “I patched you up best I could. Their supplies were almost as pathetic as my skills, though.”

  “Where are we?” Jesse asked.

  “The hole.” The voice paused. “Once you’re down here long enough, you’ll see shadows if you pay close attention.

  His pulse quickened as he filed away the new information. Intel was power, and he needed as much as he could get to escape. He’d assess his injuries, then form a plan.

  “What are you? Army?” the voice asked.

  “Yeah.” Jesse kept answers short, concise. Trust no one. That was the rule when captured.

  “You’re lucky to be alive, Army. Most insurgents would’ve killed you or left you there to bleed out. But these are nasty fucks. They’ll damn near kill you, then patch you up and start all over again. You must have something they want really bad.”

  Jesse seethed.

  Someone had set him up.

  “You can call me Marine, Army.” Something landed beside Jesse. The man must’ve been trapped within the darkness a while for his eyesight to be so good. Unease rolled through Jesse at the thought. His pulse quickened.

  He’d get out.

  One way or another, he’d get out.

  “Drink. Tastes and smells like shit, but it’s as clean as we’ll get.” Silence ticked by for a few moments. “They’ll offer you cleaner, Army. Everything has a price. You talk, you earn stuff.”

  “I’m not a talker.”

  “Everyone says that, but there’s always a breaking point. They’ll find yours.”

  Jesse peered up at the small holes of light. Fifteen, maybe twenty feet up.

  “Welcome to hell, Army. Your ticket to breathe another day comes from what you’ll say or endure.”

  Jesse Mason bolted awake and gasped as remnants of pain ran down his right arm. Light splayed through…

  A room.

  Home.

  He wasn’t in the hole.

  He was home.

  The punch to his shoulder he’d felt ripped him from the past like it always did. Pain shot along his left leg as he sat up and put his feet to the floor. Elbows on his knees, he ran his hands through his hair and breathed.

  In for four.

  Hold.

  Out for four.

  Repeat.

  Silence filled the room even though he wasn’t the only one there. He looked over at Levi, then slid his gaze to Sol. Damn. “It was bad?”

  “Getting worse,” Levi admitted, his expression grim. “The others are in the hall. Worried.”

  Howie, Lex, and Brooklyn knew very little about the night terrors that had tormented Jesse since his rescue. He lectured them all about keeping no secrets, that team members knew everything about one another.

  He was a goddamn hypocrite.

  “I’ll let ’em know you’re awake. See you in drills,” Sol said as he slid out the door.

  Jesse rose and donned a pair of tactical pants and the T-shirt on the bed. The man still in the room remained silent, but the unspoken concern threaded within Jesse’s pulse. “I’ll talk with Sinclair. She’ll get me sorted.”

  “She’s done a damn good job with you,” Levi admitted. “I’m not a head shrink, but your mom’s accident started this. You hadn’t had an episode in months before that.”

  “I’ll get it under control again,” Jesse said. “Keeping the woman who birthed me from bleeding out must’ve done a bigger number on me than I realized.”

  “Right.” The man crossed his arms and stared at Jesse.

  “Say it.”

  “Her name’s not the one you’re screaming every night. She wasn’t the only one in the vehicle.”

  Jesse’s jaw twitched. Ellie. She’d become a constant in his thoughts, a ghost of what could have been if he hadn’t chosen to follow his brothers into military service. Bitterness, anger, and outright hostility had fueled him the first few weeks she’d worked at The Arsenal.

  His little sister, Riley, had no business hiring her as the office manager. But his ex-girlfriend was firmly entrenched in his life again whether he wanted her there or not.

  She’d saved his mom’s life. If she hadn’t slowed his mom’s bleeding before he’d arrived…

  Jesse rubbed his chest. An ache plagued him whenever he thought of Ellie.

  “Do you talk to Sinclair about her?” Levi asked.

  Nosy bastard. Jesse glared as he sat down and dragged on socks and his boots. “She’s not up for discussion with anyone. Ever.”

  “It’s time you alter your thoughts on that.”

  Jesse owed the man everything. Levi had led a team in a rescue mission for Jesse against orders. They’d stumbled across the encampment where he was being held and had refused to leave him behind.

  Six months, thirteen days. He’d endured hell for six months and thirteen days. He’d wanted to die many times. Very few things were worth living for. He’d used them all as escapes—ways to retreat from the torture. The pain. The starvation.

  His stomach growled.

  Hunger plagued him after episodes—as if his brain hadn’t gotten the memo that he wasn’t in the hole any longer. He stayed quiet and exited the room. The long, darkened hallway offered him a bit of time to form a plan.

  “Jesse.”

  Or not. He turned. Levi closed the distance and held out the black journal Jesse had forgotten.

  “If you won’t offload on me or one of the others, at least be consistent about writing it down,” Levi said. “You should talk to your brothers. They’d want to help see you through this.”

  He didn’t want to risk being sidelined. The nightmares weren’t as frequent as they’d once been—not by a long shot. He no longer suffered from flashbacks—where he’d randomly slip into the past while wide awake. That shit was the worst.

  Jesse expended a weary breath. Insomnia still rode him hard, but he’d refused medicine. He’d seen too many soldiers become addicted to medications to chance it unless absolutely necessary.

  “Thanks,” he said. The gratitude was for more than the journal. He had no clue how the kind of debt he’d run up with Levi could ever be repaid.

  “For what it’s worth, she’s a hell of a woman, Jesse.”

  “That won’t ever happen. It can’t.”

  “Can’t isn’t in our vocabulary.”

  Ellie Travers reached under the sink and turned off the valve. Water dripped from her hair and adhered her pale pink blouse to her like a second skin. Great. She yanked it off and headed into the small bedroom off the kitchen.

  Mornings weren’t ever easy, but this one was starting off particularly difficult. She snagged the first shirt in the drawer and drew it over her head. One great thing about working at The Arsenal was they didn’t care what she wore as long as she showed up and did her job. Her pulse quickened like it always did when she thought about The Arsenal—or more specifically, Jesse Mason, one of the six brothers who ran the private paramilitary organization.

  “I’ll phone Brant and get him over to fix the pipe,” her mom said.

  The sun rose and set around Brant Burton as far as Ellie’s mom was concerned. The doctor had been one of the few they’d trusted with her mom’s condition—a fact which had left Ellie in numerous rough predicaments since her mom’s cancer diagnosis years prior. But family handled their own troubles, and Ellie was all the family her mom had.

  “That’d be good,” Ellie said. A call to Brant’s brother, who actually knew how to plumb pipes, would be quicker, but Mom was having a good day. Anything she wanted to do to help out would be great. “I’ve gotta run into Nomad after work to pick up supplies and your meds.”

  “You gonna grocery shop, too? I’ll text a list.”

  “I’ll do that in a couple days,” Ellie said. Mom didn’t need to know her medicine was all they could afford until payday, which was thankfully the following day. “Lunch is in the fridge. Connie should be by later this afternoon.”

>   “That woman has no business around here.” Her mom’s lips thinned as she shifted her frail body. “If you spent more time here and less time out at that place, we wouldn’t need her at all.”

  “That place pays the bills,” Ellie responded. Tension struck the room as it always did when anyone mentioned the Masons. “I’ll see you tonight. I love you.”

  “You ain’t gotta lie, Ellie-belly. I know I’m a burden,” her mom said.

  “You’re never a burden, Mom. I love you.” She leaned down and kissed her mom’s cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Guilt chewed away at Ellie as she left the small, one-bedroom rental and headed for work. Work was a military-like compound on the Mason ranch on the other side of Resino. Resino sat fifteen miles west of their place in Marville. Nomad, the largest town by far, was twenty miles north of both and the final location in what locals called the tri-county.

  Except for a few deer here and there, the drive itself was simple. Even though Ellie had never broken a traffic law, nervousness crawled through her every morning until she crossed the county line into Resino every day. Ten miles.

  The first ten miles of her commute every morning and the final ten every evening were the most stressful moments of her day. She clenched the steering wheel and silently wished for an uneventful trip into work today.

  Ellie was four miles into her fourteen-mile trip when a loud pop sounded and the vehicle shook.

  A blow out.

  Damn.

  The Arsenal vehicle she drove daily was new, but bad tires happened. She fought to get the vehicle to the side of the road. Her heartbeat thundered in her chest.