Page 13 of K-9 Guardians (New Mexico Guard Dogs #4)

Her heart hurt.

It wasn’t the shame of her past that pinned her to the back of the seat. It was King. His parting words circled her brain until they blurred together in one long streak. She’d meant nothing to him. After everything they’d been through together. After risking her own life—and the lives of her K9s—for him. She was nothing but something to be used for his own gain.

Just as she had been for her former commanding officer.

“You want to tell me what happened back there?” Granger slid his palms along the steering wheel’s frame as he checked the driver side mirror. “Last I checked, Elsher is the one who brought us into this mess.”

Scarlett forced her gaze out the window as the tears burned. Dirt kicked up alongside the SUV and pinged off the metal frame as they carved through the desert. The suspension failed to absorb every bump in the road, knocking them around in their seats, but the internal beating was so much worse. “I told him the truth. About what happened overseas.”

“How much of the truth?” A small inflection in his voice was the only evidence Granger Morais had an opinion about any of this. It warned her to choose her words very carefully. Because what she’d done on tour didn’t just involve her. Her teammate could be brought up on conspiracy charges for hauling her off base to that hospital if the army identified him.

“All of it.” She saw the mistake now. Trusting a federal agent with information that could put her behind bars for the rest of her life. “He didn’t take it well, and I don’t know what he’s going to do now.”

“Damn it, Scarlett.” Granger’s disappointment burrowed beneath the hurt and the invisible pain suffocating her second by second, stealing the last of any remaining self-compassion she had. “We had a deal. I risked everything to save your life, and the only thing I asked in return was for you to keep the details of your involvement in the smuggling ring between us. You’re less than a year from your discharge. The army can still court-martial you. They can come after us both.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just... I wanted to fix this.” She didn’t know what else to say, what to think. Tears escaped her control. Humiliating and hot and uncomfortable. She swiped at her face to get rid of the evidence of her grief and triggered the underlying pain of her broken nose.

This wasn’t her. She was the one who was supposed to keep Socorro safe. She was the one who held it together for the sake of everyone else on the team. That was her job. To remain logical and strong and perfect so as to keep the people she cared about alive. But she wasn’t any of that. Hadn’t been for a long time.

Had she ever?

“Munoz was the only one keeping King’s son alive. With him dead, there’s no telling what the cartel will do with a ten-year-old kid. My gut is telling me they’ll sell him as soon as they get the chance. I thought if I could reach out to my former CO—”

Granger slammed on the brakes, and the SUV jolted forward.

She threw her palms out first to keep herself from hitting the dashboard as the entire vehicle groaned to a stop.

“Tell me you didn’t.” The counterterrorism agent faced off with her from the driver’s seat. “Tell me you didn’t put us both at risk for a DEA agent you’ve only known for three days.”

Her stomach felt as though it’d shot up into her throat as the dust settled around them. Three days. Was that really all it had taken for King to convince her the past couldn’t hold her back anymore? That she could make up for all the wrong stacked against her by bringing a little boy home to his dad and solving a case he so desperately needed to end? That she was good enough?

Didn’t seem like any time at all, and in the same moment, an entire lifetime. Of her prodding him with jokes and getting a glimpse of that off-center smile in return. Of his hands on her waist as she dared to reveal the darkest parts of her soul. Three days had slipped through her fingers and into the void. She’d wanted more. So much more.

Mornings of waking up to him in her bed. Foot massages after hard days. The scent of him filling her lungs. King watching her back in the field. Him. It was all him. The one man who’d convinced her she could be the good in the world. Gravity suctioned her deeper into the seat and stole the air from her lungs. She hadn’t just left King back at that crime scene. She’d left her heart, and she wasn’t sure she could ever get it back. “No. You’re safe. I’m the only one who’s at risk. And if the army court-martials me, I’ll make sure your name never comes up.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Pulling onto the road, Granger pushed the SUV through a dip and maneuvered them back on track. The hum of the engine and crunch of rock under the tires settled between them. “You want to know why I pulled you out of that hanger after your CO tried to gut you?”

“It wasn’t out of the goodness of your heart?” She’d meant it as a joke, a way to get rid of the heaviness constricting her chest, but the memories were there. Just waiting for her to give them the attention she’d fought against for close to a year. It’d been easier the past few days. Believing once she and King brought Julien home that she’d never have to think about them again.

“I clocked your operation while running my assignment for Socorro. I knew you and your crew were skimming from the resources the rangers confiscated from the other side.” Socorro’s headquarters—tucked back into the mountains with gleaming sharp black lines—came into view, and Granger hit the overhead button to signal the gate. The crowd of picketers had thinned over the past few days, but the ones left swarmed the gate with their neon signs and harsh words. No sign of added security though. Ivy must’ve decided a few protestors weren’t worth the extra effort. “And I followed you that night so I could use you to lead me to the others. It worked.”

Surprise pulled her attention from one of the protestors. A man wearing a thick coat in the middle of the desert. All this time, she’d imagined Granger Morais as the knight in Kevlar who just happened to come across her broken body and save her life. Not the one who could’ve put an end to it. “You could’ve turned me in. Why didn’t you?”

“Because of all the moving pieces in the smuggling operation, you were the only one who was doing what your CO told you everyone else was.” He locked that crystal clear blue-green gaze on her as the SUV dipped into the underground parking garage. “You were the one giving back what you took to the people in the region who needed it. Yeah, you were stealing cash and guns and drugs, but that money made it into the hands of women having a hard time feeding their kids and to organizations who were trying to help conditions in the villages.”

Her throat threatened to close in on itself.

“I heard you that night. Telling your CO you were going to expose them for the human trafficking.” Her teammate pulled the SUV into his assigned spot and cut the engine. Only he didn’t move. Shadows carved across his face, like he was some kind of villain trying to hide in the dark. “I saw the knife. I still remember the sound of it cutting into you. How you seemed so surprised. And I knew right then what kind of person you were.”

Pain flared through her midsection, and a rush of nausea pushed up into her throat. “What kind of person am I?”

“Broken.” That single word punctured through the pounding in her head, aggravated by the evenness of Granger’s voice. “Like the rest of us. The only difference is you don’t want to accept that being broken is what makes you stronger than anyone else on this team. You put everyone’s needs ahead of your own for that exact reason. Because you don’t want them to end up broken like you.”

“It’s still not enough.” Her lungs felt too tight. Like they’d somehow overfilled and emptied at the same time. “No matter what I do—how hard I try—it doesn’t work. I’m still the woman that got conned into believing I was making a difference.”

“That’s the woman I recommended for this job, Scarlett,” Granger said. “The one who fought to fix her mistake. And I know for a fact that’s who Agent Elsher believes in—”

An explosion rocked through the entire garage.

“Get down!” Scarlett brought her hands to her head as though she could stop the entire parking garage from coming down on top of them. Debris slammed against her side of the vehicle and cracked the bulletproof glass. A tingling sensation swept from crown to toe as cement dust cleared.

Shouts penetrated the SUV’s glass as she watched the armored garage gate hit the floor. She unholstered her weapon. “We’re under attack. I can’t see how many, but they brought more than guns.”

“Get to the elevator.” Granger pulled his weapon, keeping his head well below the window. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can and get them away from the civilians.”

“I’m not leaving you down here alone.” Trying to gauge the manpower waiting outside the vehicle was useless. There was too much debris. “You have no idea how many of them are out there.”

“Yes, you are. You’re the only one who knows how to trigger the building’s backup defense system.” Granger shouldered his door open and motioned her over his lap. “Go. Now.”

The structure’s alarms pierced through the garage. Red lights circled in distress to inform the entire team they were under attack. “You better be alive at the end of this.”

“Ditto. Now get out of here before this place collapses on itself.” Granger backed out of the driver seat, using the SUV as cover to get a count of how many attackers waited at the entrance.

She followed his retreat. Only she kept moving, past the back of the vehicle, weaving between the SUVs parked between her and the elevator. A light outline stood out against the black backdrop. She was almost there.

Gunshots popped in succession. A bullet whizzed past her ear, and Scarlett lunged for the keypad as Granger returned fire. A groan broke through the drone of lead. She punched in her security code and turned to face the onslaught of the attack as the elevator doors took their time. Weapon raised, she caught sight of movement to her left and took aim. She compressed the trigger. The gun kicked back in her hand a split second after the round found its mark. The man she’d noted outside, dressed in a coat. The cartel was among the protestors. Using them as cover. Damn it. The attackers were inside, maneuvering behind Granger’s position. One wrong move, and she’d lose a member of her team.

The elevator announced its arrival.

Two more shots. Another moan of pain.

“Move it, Beam!” Granger retreated behind his vehicle and repositioned. He fired another round of shots. “Get out of here!”

Scarlett stepped backward into the elevator against her heart’s will. He was right. She was the only one who could put a stop to this attack before it had a chance to reach the others. The doors started to close.

Just as Granger took a bullet and hit the ground.

K ING HAD THE CIPHER . Now he just needed Eva and Adam’s notes to test his theory about Munoz’s involvement in the case.

Except smoke was spiraling up from Socorro’s headquarters a mile out. Black and wispy. Like the place was on fire.

“Step on it.” King held on to the dashboard and the passenger side door as the Albuquerque PD officer hit the accelerator. His heart rate rocketed to dangerous levels as the last curve onto the one-lane dirt road gave him a straight view of the building. “Call for backup. Albuquerque, Alpine Valley. Everyone. Socorro Security is under attack.”

The officer detached the radio from the dash and called in the orders to any available officers in the vicinity as King mapped out the source of the damage.

“Head for the garage.” He pointed to the west side of the structure, automatically leaning forward as though he could somehow make the patrol vehicle go faster.

“Sir, we need to wait for backup and fire and rescue. There’s no telling what we’re walking into,” the officer said.

“Then wait, but I’m going in there.” His leg be damned. There was only one organization stupid enough and with enough resources to attack a private military contractor like Socorro. The cartel wanted whatever intel Munoz had given up to the DEA and ATF. They wanted the case file King had left in Scarlett’s possession.

His ass left the seat as the patrol car throttled over the uneven landscape. Unholstering his weapon, King released the magazine and counted the ammunition inside. Hell, he’d gone through it all while trying to give Scarlett and Julien an escape in the warehouse, and he hadn’t slowed down long enough to restock. He couldn’t go in there without a weapon.

“Drop me here. Wait for backup and tell whoever’s in charge that Sangre por Sangre is inside, armed and highly dangerous. Oh, and if you have any extra 9mm Luger ammunition, that would be greatly appreciated.”

The car skidded to a stop, threatening to throw him through the windshield, but King didn’t have time for any other injuries. Scarlett was in there. He had to go. King kicked the passenger side door open. He reached back in and threw a thank-you to the officer who handed him a box of fresh ammunition. “Reach out to the supervisory special agent of the DEA in Albuquerque. Tell him Agent Elsher is on the scene. He’ll know what to do.”

King slammed the door behind him, effectively putting an end to any change of mind. He packed the magazine of his weapon and jammed the heavy metal casing into place. Intense desert heat beaded sweat at the back of his neck, but it was nothing compared to the heat coming off the building. Flames licked at the garage entrance he and Scarlett had slid beneath two days ago. She’d spent her entire career with Socorro building defenses against attacks on this place. He wasn’t going to be able to walk through the front door.

He had to go straight into the belly of the beast.

King tested his weight on his bad leg and regretted the choice immediately. But there was no other option. No other way for him to get inside. And he had to. He had to get to Scarlett.

She was the only reason he was standing here.

The past three days had blurred into a chaotic stream of bullets and blood and loss, but all the while, she’d been the one to keep him grounded. Their ridiculous debates and jabs at one another had kept him from spiraling. For the first time in years, someone had made him laugh, but it was her determination to leave the world better than how she’d found it that had convinced him she could bring Julien home.

And he wasn’t letting her go. Not yet.

Scarlett’s personal mission to make up for the past by giving her all—including her own life—for a kid she hadn’t even met outweighed everything she’d told him about her involvement in the smuggling ring overseas. And he’d been an idiot to think a single cell in her beautiful body could be corrupted so easily. That she could hurt anyone.

All she’d done was prove over and over again that he needed her. Back in the warehouse. In this case. In his life. And, damn it, he wasn’t ready to give that up.

Because he loved her.

In a matter of days, Scarlett had broken through the wall he’d built around him and Julien over the past two months and given him something to look forward to. A reason to keep going.

“I’m coming. Just hang on a bit longer.” King added weight to his leg and took that first step toward the garage. Adrenaline raced to block the pain in his nerves, but it wouldn’t be enough. The stitches around his wound screamed for his crutch. No. He could do this. He had to do this. His heel caught on a rock and worked to tip him off balance, but he was stronger now. Because of Julien. Because of Scarlett. Everything they’d been through had led him to this moment.

A gunshot echoed from the garage entrance.

He took a second step. Then another. His body adapted to the barbed wire curling through his thigh muscle, and he picked up the pace. He had no idea what he was walking into, but it didn’t matter. His future was in that building, and he wasn’t going to turn his back on it anymore. They were going to get through this. Together.

Two SUVs angled inward on either side of the entrance ahead.

King took position behind the one on the left, scanning the interior for movement. Instead, he found an arsenal. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Grabbing for the hatch release, he let the cargo door swing upward on its hydraulics and exposed an entire selection of automatic weapons, grenades and ammunition. He tucked a flash grenade in each pocket, cutting his gaze around the vehicle to keep an eye out for anyone left standing guard. Then grabbed for the nearest rifle. “I’ll just ignore the fact it’s illegal to drive around with all this.”

Leaving the cargo area open, King maneuvered to the front of the SUV along the driver’s side. Fire raged mere feet from the bumper and flashed hot along the exposed skin of his arms, face and neck. The longer the flames burned, the more unstable the building would get. He couldn’t wait for fire and rescue. He had to go now. “It’s just a couple arm hairs. They’ll grow back.”

King took two deep breaths, then held the third. And took the leap.

He hauled himself over the threshold of the entrance, barely missing the reach of flames. Colliding with a wall of human muscle on the other side.

The cartel soldier stumbled forward and slammed into another SUV parked a few feet ahead. King tried to get his strength back into his legs, but the added gear was holding him down. He dropped the assault rifle as the soldier turned on him.

A fist connected with the left side of his face and sent King spiraling toward the cement. Fire licked at the back of his neck. He rolled to avoid the flames and took out the soldier’s legs in the process. The two-hundred-pound attacker landed directly on top of him, shoving the air from his chest.

King grabbed for one of the grenades stashed in his pants pocket, pulled the pin and shoved it between the soldier’s Kevlar and rib cage. He kicked the son of a bitch out of reach and, plugging his ears, he scrambled out of the blast radius as fast as his leg allowed.

A panicked scream was cut short as the device exploded.

Smoke drove into King’s lungs as he forced himself to his feet. He collected the assault rifle and set the butt of the weapon into his shoulder. “Who’s next?”

A gunshot burst from his right, and King turned the rifle on the shooter. His bullets cut through the thick smoke pouring down from the garage ceiling.

Something heavy hit the ground. No more gunshots.

King kept moving, working his way through the maze of parked vehicles. The elevator access into the building had to be close. He pressed forward, putting everything he had into staying on his feet. He rounded the final vehicle.

And faced off with a gun pointed directly at him.

Granger Morais’s hands bobbed with every exaggerated breath. One second. Two. The counterterrorism agent seemed to think better of pulling the trigger and let his arms collapse into his chest. Lying back, Granger stared up at the ceiling. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Outside.” King noted the dark puddle of liquid pooling beneath the operative’s right side and took another step forward. “You don’t look so good.”

“You think I’ll be ready for my date later tonight?” A half scoff, half laugh seemed to aggravate whatever wound Granger had sustained in his shoulder. Pain contorted his expression and tightened the muscles along his arms. “It’s just a scratch. She won’t notice, right?”

“You might want to reschedule. Or, hey, hospital food isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. It’s not every day you get to visit a cafeteria. She’ll certainly remember it.” King swung the rifle to his back, the strap digging into his shoulder. He offered Granger a hand. “What happened here?”

Granger didn’t hesitate and slid a calloused palm into King’s. A groan escaped the operative’s control as King hauled him to his feet. “They blew through the gate. My guess is with C-4. Never saw them coming.”

Dread pooled at the base of King’s spine as he scoured what he could see of the garage. Wide cracks splintered across the ceiling. The weight of this entire building could drop right on them without warning. They had to get everyone out of here. “Where is Scarlett?”

“I sent her upstairs. We needed her to call the shots.” Granger rolled his shoulder back, pulling a scream from his chest a split second before he doubled over. Not even the most experienced operators could outrun a bullet.

“Have you heard from her since?” They got to the elevator, and King swept the area one last time as Granger set his key card against the reader. Seconds ticked by—slower than he wanted.

“I kind of had other things on my mind.” The counterterrorism agent collapsed against the wall near the key card panel. “Not dying, for one.”

Movement registered from the crumbling gate.

An armored vehicle tore through the mess and rammed into the first two SUVs in its way. The crash threatened to trigger an avalanche of steel, cement and wood and bring the entire building down on top of them.

King checked the elevator’s progress, swinging the rifle into both hands. “We’ve got company.”

“We already had company,” Granger said.

The elevator pinged before opening its doors. King fisted the operative’s shirt and dragged him inside the car as an army of cartel soldiers spilled out of the armored truck. “That was just the first wave.”