Page 15 of K-9 Justice (New Mexico Guard Dogs #6)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Three days later

She was supposed to feel some kind of relief, wasn’t she?

Ivy moved the paperwork that had stacked up over the past week to the other side of her desk. This office had been her command center. She’d stood at this company’s helm, given orders and developed strategy to keep her operatives safe and a drug cartel from spreading across the state.

And now? Now she didn’t really know what she was supposed to do. A nervous energy urged her to review the dozens of threats that had crossed her desk and pick one to focus on. The Pentagon, of course, was appreciative of her and her team’s effort in neutralizing Sangre por Sangre , but the cartel had merely been a drop in the bucket. There were a handful of other cartels the DEA, the FBI and the ATF were trying to get a handle on, and not just in the drug arena.

At the same time, the muscles in her shoulder were protesting, and the stitches in her side had torn during the fight three days ago. She hadn’t been sleeping since walking away from the cartel’s headquarters after Scarlett had finally brought the whole structure down on itself, and her team… Well, they all had families to go home to. Lives to maintain.

She had a bullet-ridden safe house or the couch in her office. She’d gone for the couch the past few nights. The regret had started instantly. Ivy stretched the muscles in her neck on either side. She should replace it with a pullout until the building owner could patch up the holes in her walls. Which, according to him, wouldn’t be for another two weeks.

The state prosecutor had made the argument to try Sebastian—actually identified as Silvio Juarez, according to his fingerprints taken in early arrest reports from two decades ago—on a federal level. The US Attorney General was inclined to cut out as many obstacles in the case as possible. Though Ivy was sure Sebastian’s lawyers would do their best to slow everything down.

The low-level cartel soldiers who’d managed to survive the final minutes of Sangre por Sangre ’s demise had been offered deals. Testify against Silvio Juarez or face a life in prison. Most of them had taken the deal. They’d given their statements and signed affidavits negotiating their sentences down to two to three years. It was the best they were going to get. The shooter who’d ambushed her and Carson that first night had admitted to being ordered to shoot Carson if he came into contact with any operatives from Socorro. And considering her partner had waited inside her apartment, the shooter had taken it upon himself to follow through.

Two Sangre por Sangre soldiers had admitted to replacing the couch in Dr. Piel’s home after Sebastian had killed her. A deep dive into the physician’s background, another pass at her references and interviews with others within Socorro had convinced Ivy of what she’d known from the beginning: Nafessa Piel had not been involved with the cartel. She’d just been the target of a man devoted to making his enemies suffer.

As for the gunman who’d shot Max, his or her identity had yet to come up in Alpine Valley PD’s interviews. Whether out of fear or because the cartel soldier hadn’t survived, she didn’t know. Either way, they would get what they deserved. Max herself was recovering nicely in Socorro’s vet clinic. She’d been pampered with top-of-the-line meals, round-the-clock care and all the attention she could possibly want or need.

And Jocelyn was recovering just as well. Though slower than Max. Chief Baker had sent regular updates, but if Ivy knew her logistics coordinator at all, Jocelyn was most assuredly enjoying the time off.

Three knocks pulled her out of convincing herself she should take a look at the case files the Pentagon had sent her way. They wanted her and her team on the next assignment. But something inside of her needed the breather. Two years without a vacation or so much as a night off of being on call had compounded into this…exhaustion. It was something she’d never allowed herself to feel before. But her body wouldn’t heal unless she gave it the chance.

Ivy brushed the imaginary wrinkles off her blouse and raised her gaze. And locked on Carson. “Oh. Hi. I wasn’t…” A rush of heat stole her train of thought. “I didn’t know you’d been released from the hospital.”

The bruises he’d sustained from Sebastian’s assault had gone from swollen and dark to a little lighter. The shape of his face had changed slightly, mostly in his nose. Possibly broken. Though she hadn’t followed up with him since he’d been taken in one ambulance at the site and she in another. With his wounds fresh, the EMTs had determined the clinic wouldn’t be enough. He’d been brought to one of the hospitals in Albuquerque to recover. Fortunately, no one else on the team had been injured. They’d somehow gone up against an entire army and come out the other side unscathed. Apart from the bullet graze along her ribs.

“I checked myself out.” Carson stopped at the door. As though he was on his way out. “I couldn’t sit there anymore.”

“I know how that feels.” She traced her fingers over the stack of proposals. Stories of Sangre por Sangre ’s defeat had hit the media within hours. Mostly thanks to Maggie Caldwell, Jones’s partner. Per Ivy’s past agreement on all things cartel, the war correspondent had written an exclusive and sold it off to the highest bidder. From there it was just a matter of time. Companies from all over the country, some international, wanted Socorro’s expertise in their security needs. “I was going to come visit once I got through these proposals. Not sure if you’ve heard, but things have been a bit crazy around here.”

“I’ve been watching the news.” He took a couple of steps into the office. Studying it while trying not to look at her in the same way he did when faced with a stranger. Was that what they were now? Strangers? A lot had changed in the hours he’d chosen the cartel over siding with her and Socorro. But there had to still be some kind of feeling for her in there, something worth keeping. “Though I was surprised you weren’t the one running the press conference.”

“I would have been, but I’m still recovering from Sebastian’s work. There isn’t enough makeup in the world to cover this up.” She was trying to make light of the events they’d suffered over the past week, but the humor failed to make her feel any better. Ivy tried to distract this…incompleteness from taking over by moving the files back to the center of her desk. “Granger did well. He’s a natural. We’ve got more contract proposals than we know what to do with. Seems Socorro Security has made a name for itself this week.”

Carson seemed to lose his will to keep his distance. In a matter of three steps, he’d rounded her desk. “I didn’t come here to talk about Socorro, Ivy. I came here to talk about us.”

“Us.” The word thrilled her and yet felt so foreign at the same time. There had been a gaping hole in her heart since their conversation in the elevator. The edges were still raw and pulsing, preparing for the next injury. “I contacted the special agent in charge of your undercover assignment. The FBI has closed the investigation into the deaths of the three women we were looking into two years ago. Now that we know Sebastian—Silvio Juarez—killed them and Dr. Piel, your assignment is complete. You are officially released from federal duty, if that’s what you want. You’re free to go.”

“Where am I supposed to go, Ivy?” The regret and heavy dose of sadness deepening his expression pulled at her insides. But this wasn’t a decision she could make for him.

She tried to keep her voice light. Tougher than it should’ve been. Ivy sucked in a deep breath to steady herself and turned back to the files she didn’t actually want to go through. To detach herself from the emotion working through her. To give herself a chance to keep the upper hand. “Anywhere you want.”

“And what if the place I want to go is home with you?” he asked.

She jerked at the possibility, catching her knuckle on the edge of a piece of paper. The paper cut stung more than the freaking stab wound she’d sustained in the salvage yard. Not really. But close. “Damn it.”

Carson was there. Folding her hand between both of his. He swiped the blood rushing to the surface with the pad of his thumb. “I was wrong to believe I could save anyone from the cartel alone, Ivy. I…I thought I’d had something with them that I’d lost with you, and before that with my mother, but it turns out I was being lied to the entire time. I’ve been seeking this sense of family since my father walked out on us when I was a kid. I wanted that connection with my Hispanic heritage, and I thought I found it with the people I was in the field with. I convinced myself they were just following orders like I was, that they didn’t have a choice. I was trying to re-create that feeling of having a support system that I missed since going undercover, and I’m sorry.”

Her heart sank at the thought of how lonely and isolated he must’ve felt during his time with the cartel. Just as she had been on the outside. “I’m sorry, too.”

Confusion etched three distinct lines between his eyebrows. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Yes, I do.” The paper cut didn’t hurt so much in his hands. “I chose to delegate intel exchanges between you and Socorro over the past two years. I was afraid if I saw you, I would ask you to give up your assignment and come home. And I knew you would do it because you were my partner, and then all of this would be for nothing, and people would keep dying. So I distanced myself from you. I fed into my isolation to complete this mission, putting everything I had into this company and my team, but all I ended up doing was hurting you. I kept you on the outside the same way I keep other people out, because that’s what was easiest. But you deserved so much better. Because I love you.”

“I love you, too.” His smile broke through the hurt and started to piece her back together, one step at a time. “We’re messed up, aren’t we?”

“A little bit,” she said. “But if I’ve learned anything over the past week it’s been that I need a partner. I need a team. I can’t do all of this on my own. I need you. Here, with me, and at home. Where you belong.”

“Is that a job offer?” he asked. “Because, to be honest, I think I’m unemployed—”

She kissed him. Totally and deeply. With everything she had. A fury of relief coursed through her veins as Carson secured her in his arms. The graze on her side put up a little bit of a fight, but she didn’t care. He couldn’t hurt her. Not as long as they were on the same team. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Agent Lang. From here on out, Dominic Rojas is dead. Think you can handle that?”

“With you at my side, Agent Bardot?” He kissed her again. “I can handle anything.”

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