Page 11 of K-9 Justice (New Mexico Guard Dogs #6)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“He’s targeting us one by one.” Ivy couldn’t forget the images of Jocelyn as she’d lain there. Left in the middle of her own yard. The message gouged into her back was the same as the one found on Dr. Piel.

There’s no escaping Sangre por Sangre.

Except Jocelyn had somehow survived. EMTs had managed to get a breathing tube down the logistics coordinator’s throat in time. Ivy’s operative was recovering in the hospital with Chief Halsey and Maverick refusing to leave her side. The dog had been taken down with a sedative but would make a full recovery.

It had been too close.

Too personal.

Ivy stared out the wall of windows in her office. The weight of her team’s attention pressed between her shoulder blades. She was supposed to keep things like this from happening. She’d been responsible for training them, for getting them through the hard assignments and out onto the other side. Now two of her operatives had been attacked, with one of them dead.

“I’ve sent Elena and the baby to her parents’ house.” Cash Meyers, Socorro’s forward scout, prided himself on seeing the threat from a distance, on knowing when an attack was coming. But there was no way for him to see this. His new family had been put at risk. Because of her.

This threat had come directly from Ivy’s past. Something she’d never shared with any of them. She’d never seen any value in being anything more than their fearless leader. Who would follow her if they knew she couldn’t face the nightmares she’d created, let alone send them out into the field to confront new ones? She faced what was left of her team and, in that moment, felt considerably under-experienced in finishing what she’d started two years ago.

Carson stood in the corner of her office, so out of place, and yet necessary. To this mission. To Socorro. To her. He hadn’t contributed to the discussion, and the truth was, she hadn’t expected him to. It was easy to imagine him shouldering the responsibility of what had happened, just as she had. Being crushed underneath it. The only way they’d get through this was together. He’d said that. “What about Maggie, Jones? Have you been able to get any information?”

Jones Driscoll—Socorro’s combat coordinator—wouldn’t take an attack on this team lying down. He’d risked his life to pull a war correspondent out from the cartel’s grip without hesitation and brought down a corrupt senator in the process. Of every operative she employed, he would be the one to burn everything to the ground. And maybe that was exactly what she needed now. “We thought Sangre por Sangre had gone to ground before—the entire organization is a ghost now. No chatter. No corner deals on the streets. I’ve been monitoring the smuggling routes, but all I found was a bunch of abandoned trucks with product still inside. The cartel’s been forced to cut back on operations over the past few months. Now it’s like they’ve given up entirely. Maggie reached out to a couple of her contacts, but all she’s managed to uncover is a couple of low-level soldiers who don’t know what the hell is going on. We’ve got them in one of the holding cells downstairs, but they’re not talking. Whoever killed those women and attacked Jocelyn is staying to the shadows. Feels like he’s waiting for something.”

“Not waiting. He’s compartmentalizing.” Carson unfolded his arms and raised his chin. Confident and ready to take charge. Ivy needed a bit of that right now. “There are protocols the cartel follows when it’s in danger. First, consolidate information. The fewer people who know of his plan, the less chances there are of a betrayal. Sebastian will only trust the people he’s known since he joined the cartel twenty years ago. Next, he’ll take an account of Sangre por Sangre ’s assets. Safe houses, cash, product and alliances. The cartel hasn’t had any luck attacking Socorro directly. Picking us off one by one is his only option, but he won’t do it slowly.”

“And you know all of this how? Who are you?” Granger Morais’s graveled advice had been Ivy’s voice of reason from the beginning. The former Department of Defense counterterrorism agent was the first operative she’d recruited, and he in turn had brought Socorro’s security consultant on board. He pushed for the logical decision in every scenario, questioning every turn and vetting every fact. Without him, Ivy wouldn’t have come this far.

“You don’t recognize him?” Scarlett Beam—Socorro’s security expert—studied Carson from head to toe. Her fiery red hair only gave a glimpse of the wild card underneath. Scarlett was the type of operative to make her own rules while still getting the job done and protecting the people she cared about. Her DEA partner and his son could attest to that after Scarlett had managed to uncover a massive shipment of cartel fentanyl and somehow managed to bring the boy home alive. She genuinely worked to protect and defend, and she took the safety of this team personally. “You’re in the presence of our very own undercover source within the cartel. The guy who’s been giving us all the good info on Sangre por Sangre ’s lieutenants, shipments, targets and assets to hit.”

“This is Carson Lang, though some of you may know him as Dominic Rojas. He’s been vital to neutralizing the Sangre por Sangre threat for the past two years,” Ivy said.

Except Carson was more than a tool Socorro had used to its advantage. He was Ivy’s partner. The man who’d saved her life. Twice. Who’d sacrificed everything he’d known and loved, to protect her and bring a killer to justice. He was passionate for their cause, carrying around a heavy heart that had lost too much over the years. A misfit who’d never really adapted to anyone except the chosen few he allowed into his life. He was creative and isolating and seemingly stuck in a never-ending cycle of loss.

And she loved every facet of him. Would give up this entire company if asked to keep him in her life. Because they belonged together. They were partners.

Granger seemed to grow in size as he crossed Ivy’s office and closed the distance between him and Carson. Max shook herself out of a deep sleep and got to her feet in response. At the ready for a confrontation. “You’re the one who told us the cartel was targeting Charlie Acker and using her extremist family to strike the state capitol building last month.”

“Yes,” Carson said.

The counterterrorism agent extended his hand. “Thank you. For saving her life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it to Charlie in time.”

The men shook, and an air of agreement wove through the office.

“Aah, I can feel the love.” Scarlett leaned back in her chair, smile wide. Pulling her phone, she skimmed her finger across the screen and raised the device. “Now hug. I want it for the company newsletter.”

“I will kill you and your little dogs, too.” Granger shot her a look that would send any cartel soldier running for cover, but it had no effect on this team. They were all well aware of when an empty threat wasn’t so empty.

“Good luck.” Scarlett snapped a photo and sat back in her chair. “I’m teaching the twins some new commands. Primarily how to break into locked rooms. You’ll never hear them coming, Granger.”

“As much as I hate to break up…whatever is happening here, we need a plan,” Jones said. “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not willing to sit back and let these sons of bitches pick us off. What’s the move, boss?”

The team looked to Ivy.

And she…looked to Carson. For a little bit of that confidence and maybe some assurance. She’d built this company from the ground up. She’d battled against corrupt congressmen and Pentagon officials. She’d coordinated with local law enforcement, her old FBI office and the DEA on assignments. There wasn’t a single battle she wasn’t willing to take on alone. And yet, right then, she felt the need to rely on him.

The shift rocked through her. Because he’d been right: she didn’t have to do this alone. Not anymore. Maybe she never had. She had an entire team willing and waiting to fight this war alongside her. But constantly living on the edge of survival had left her feeling isolated. Convinced her threats were everywhere even when there weren’t any, lied to her about who she could trust. Carson had seen through all of it. He always had.

“The man we know as Sebastian seems to hold a good amount of power within Sangre por Sangre .” Ivy filled her lungs to the point of stretching the stitches in her side. “He’s made connections and most likely built a few of his own he’ll be calling on to come after us individually. We’re not going to let that happen.”

She steepled her fingers on the surface of her desk, looking at each one of her operatives in turn. “We’ve been fighting this war through small assignments and conflicts up to this point. We’ve been shot and stabbed and tortured for information. There have been broken bones and explosions and entire buildings coming down on top of us. Our loved ones have suffered. We’ve lost team members and people close to us. We’ve watched entire lives be destroyed by the cartel. Homes gone, towns buried underneath mudslides, families ripped apart. Our K-9s have stood by our sides, risking their lives to please us. All of that has led us here. To the end of the line.”

She set her sights on Carson. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not responsible for what’s happening now. This killer is targeting each and every one of you to hurt me. To force me to watch as I lose everyone and everything I care about because I have declared war on the cartel. He won’t stop until he’s put every one of us in the ground and burned this building to the ground. So I’ll give you a choice.”

Ivy held herself a little taller. “You can walk away. All of you. You can go home, be with your families. I will write you references for your next job, and I’ll pay your severance for your service to this company and to me. I’ll provide new identities, if that’s what you require, and there will be no hard feelings. But I’m realizing now I can’t do this alone. I need you at my side. All of you. I need my team. Will you help me?”

Silence ate into her nerves as she dared study her operatives for a reaction. Seconds ticked off, excruciating and hard to swallow.

Until Scarlett shoved to her feet. “Looks like Hans and Gruber will get to test out those new commands we’ve been working on after all.”

Jones stood. “It’s about time we finish this.”

Granger nodded, sharp and curt. He was in.

Cash folded his arms across his chest. “I love seeing Bear take bites out of cartel soldiers. I’m in, whatever you need, boss.”

Ivy turned to Carson. The same speech applied to him. He could walk away from this. From her. No hard feelings. She would acquire a new identity from her contacts at the Pentagon and pay him the severance he’d risked his life for. But a large part of her needed him more than anyone else on this team.

Carson pulled his phone from his pocket and headed for her office door. “I’ve got to make a call.”

* * *

Carson picked up his pace toward the elevators.

The call was a ploy. To get out of that room. Away from Ivy’s team. Honestly, he had no idea where the hell he was going, but one of the operatives had said the cartel soldiers they’d brought into custody were being held downstairs. He’d find them sooner or later.

He hit the elevator’s down button with a little too much force and stepped back. Max caught up without so much as a huff. As though she was as disappointed in him as much as he was with himself.

Movement registered in the reflective stainless steel, and he turned to find Ivy standing there. She’d changed back into her slacks and blazer, washed her hair, scrubbed the dirt and blood from her skin. The woman he’d pulled out of that warehouse was buried beneath the armor she’d built for herself over the past two years. Never to surface again as long as she could help it. “Tell me what’s going through your head.”

He didn’t want to have this conversation. Not yet. Not here. Carson hit the elevator call button a second time, but the damn thing wouldn’t speed the hell up. “You did a good job rallying the troops in there. I can see why they’ve stayed on with Socorro as long as they have. You should start working on your strategy to track down Sebastian. Every second counts.”

“And what will you be doing?” The fabric of her slacks rustled as she moved in close, and a flare of heat shot up his neck.

It spread down his spine and wrapped around his rib cage, squeezing him in some invisible vise. “There’s something I need to take care of.”

“Would it have anything to do with the two cartel soldiers Jones brought in?” she asked.

He didn’t want to lie to her. She deserved better than that. The elevator arrived, doors parting, and Carson took a step into the car. Max followed, planting her butt at his feet.

Except Ivy was right behind him. She threaded her arm between the doors and prevented them from closing. “Just tell me what’s going on, Carson. After everything we’ve been through the past few days, everything we’ve promised one another, you at least owe me that.”

She was right. Of course she was right. That same sinking feeling he’d experienced before Sebastian had betrayed him at the salvage yard took hold. He was standing on the edge of a blade. Tip too far in one direction, make one choice, and he lost the family he’d found within the cartel. Tip too far in the other, and he lost Ivy. His cartel world and his personal world were mutually exclusive. He couldn’t have one without losing the other. The idea of helping Socorro slaughter and arrest the soldiers—the people—he’d come to know and rely on surged acid into his throat. There were good people in those ranks. Not just killers. People who’d had no other choice than to join the cartel to save their families, their friends, their way of life. At the same time, these were men and women he’d only known through becoming someone he wasn’t, and choosing them over Ivy threatened to tear his heart in half. “I think you already know the answer you’re looking for.”

Color seemed to drain from her already-pale skin. Her mouth parted on a strong exhalation, but it was the only sign she’d filled in the blanks. Like always, she was trying to hold herself together, to keep anyone from seeing her vulnerabilities. “You’re going back. To the cartel.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “There are people there who were just following orders, Ivy. They don’t have anything to do with calling the shots. They weren’t the ones who targeted Alpine Valley or retaliated for a missing fentanyl shipment. They were just trying to survive. Like me. They deserve a chance to get out while they still can.”

“If by survive you mean kidnap an eight-year-old boy to force his sister to turn herself over to their lieutenant.” Ivy’s voice lost the confused quality it had taken a minute ago, growing stronger. Puncturing him like a thousand needles. “Or when they abducted and tortured a war correspondent because she witnessed the cartel slaughter ten American soldiers in the desert. How about when they put a bounty on an innocent woman’s head because she refused to be connected to her extremist family of preppers? Was that your friends’ way of surviving? Was it yours?”

She could list a dozen more incidents. With good reason. A chill spread along his back as he realized the position he’d put himself in. If he wasn’t choosing Socorro—if he wasn’t choosing Ivy—he was choosing to become her enemy. Black and white. No going back. “That’s not the least bit fair, and you know it. I agreed to go undercover. We both knew what that would entail, what I would have to do to work my way up the ladder and gain the cartel’s trust, but I don’t expect you to understand what it means to be part of a team. All your former partners were right. You bulldoze anyone and everyone to get your way and solve a case, and I was fine with that for a long time. Because you provided justice to those who deserved it. You kept more people from getting hurt and you saved lives. But you’re so blinded by one man’s atrocities that you’re not willing to see there might be more innocent lives involved in this investigation than the ones you found in the desert.”

Silence built between them. Heavy and thick and unrelenting.

Ivy stepped over the threshold into the elevator, her heels on the verge of getting caught in the tracks.

“I have watched the cartel tear apart people’s lives. They’ve sold girls and women for profit. They’ve spread their drugs and killed children. They punished Dr. Piel and Jocelyn for simply having a connection to this company, and they’ll continue killing my team unless I put a stop to it. Do you know what that tells me?” Ivy didn’t let him answer. “That tells me that every single soldier, contracted killer, lieutenant and supplier is complicit in the cartel’s actions. You talk about the low-level soldiers, these friends you made while undercover, as innocent? There are no innocents inside the Sangre por Sangre cartel, Carson, and I will not let any of them walk away without answering for their crimes.”

“And that’s why I have to leave,” he said. “I have to give them a chance. Just one of them. Please.”

She smoothed her expression, as though he were a stranger. “From the moment I found you in my safe house four nights ago, there was a part of me that wondered where your loyalties really fell. Your insistence on hiding out in a cartel safe house was just the start, but I think it was your connection to Sebastian and your willingness to consult with a cartel soldier on this investigation that gave you away. I convinced myself I was being paranoid, that there was no way my partner could’ve been turned, but all of that paranoia was with good reason. Because you’re not my partner anymore.”

His heart shot into his throat with denial. But Carson only let her words hang between them.

She dropped her hand away from the elevator door sensors and allowed the elevator to start closing. “You have two hours before Socorro comes for your organization, Dominic Rojas. I suggest you get the people you’re trying to save as far from here as possible. Before you’re caught in the fight.”

The doors sealed between them.

Carson stared into his reflection as gravity shoved his stomach higher in his torso. An emptiness he’d managed to keep a rein on grew bigger, as he added more distance between himself and Ivy.

Max moaned at his feet, echoing the hurt and the pain doubling inside his chest, but there was no going back for them. He’d made his choice, and Ivy had made hers. Neither of them was willing to consider the other’s position, and everything he’d hoped for the future—for them—stayed behind in Ivy’s office.

Second by second, the Carson Lang he’d been over these past few days slipped to the back of his mind. The elevator doors parted on the level below, and he stepped into a black-on-black corridor. Every inch the cartel soldier he’d trained himself to become. Within minutes, this building would become enemy territory. A maze meant to confuse and trap him and keep him from getting what he wanted. He had minutes to locate the two soldiers taken into custody and get out.

Carson’s fingers tingled to unholster his weapon, but any threat inside the building was sure to alert the security system and the woman behind it. He and Max moved along the corridor with an abstract idea of how the building had been laid out, according to Ivy’s and the other operatives’ descriptions.

It was enough.

They made a right at the end of the main hallway, coming face-to-face with a wall of glass. Not so much a window. One-way glass that looked into a single interrogation room. Carson recognized the woman inside. Her dark hair had been braided back tight enough to pull at the frame of her face. She paced back and forth, stripped of her weapons. She’d never liked being put in a closed-off space with no exit. Always had a knack for finding the best way out of any given situation. It was one of the reasons he’d been able to get himself and Sebastian out of the cartel headquarters when the entire building had started coming down on them. She’d been the one to lead them out.

He went for the door and threw it open.

She turned on him. Every inch of her lean frame ready for a fight. Confusion creased her wide, heart-shaped face, and she backed off, lunging for the door. “Dominic? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Getting you out of here.” He didn’t wait for her response, moving on to the room next door. Carson threw the second door open, confronted with one of the younger recruits brought into the cartel within the past couple of months. The rookie didn’t have a lot of know-how about how things worked yet, but he’d been willing to learn from the beginning. “Come on. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“How did you find us?” the first soldier asked. “How did you know we were here?”

“I’ve got my ways.” They didn’t have time for twenty questions. There was no telling if Ivy’s two-hour head start would hold with the other operatives. They had to move. Right the hell now. “Do you want to get out of here, or do you want to wait to see what Socorro is going to do to you to get you to talk?”

“Right behind you.” The second soldier added a hitch to his step, and the three of them and Max retraced Carson’s steps. He hit the elevator call button, every cell in his body on fire considering the possibilities waiting for them downstairs.

But Ivy had kept her word.

Carson, Max and both cartel soldiers hit the parking garage, located an SUV with keys sitting in the front seat and sped out of the garage. Leaving Socorro—and Ivy—behind.