Page 33 of K-9 Confidential

Granger stared after her.

“I can alert Scarlett. She can use the security system to shut down the building.” Dr. Piel lunged for the phone at the desk shoved into the corner of the exam room. Raising the handset to her ear, she hit one of the buttons. “Charlie isn’t going to make it far. She’s—”

A tearing Granger had become all too familiar with clawed through his chest. It had nothing to do with the shrapnel in his shoulder and everything to do with the woman who’d left him behind. Again. “Let her go.”

“We can stop her.” Dr. Piel turned to face him. “She needs medical attention. If she doesn’t get fluids, she might experience seizures, swelling in her brain and possibly lapse into a coma.”

“Hang up the phone. Alerting security won’t do any good.” Granger headed for the door. “It doesn’t matter how far she gets. We can’t keep her here against her will.”

“You survived a forest fire to find her,” Dr. Piel said. “You risked your own life to pull her out of that burning vehicle. She just watched her father kill himself. She’s obviously not in her right mind, and you’re just going to let her go out there alone?Sangre por Sangrewill find her, Granger. Doesn’t that concern you?”

Granger didn’t bother turning back. He’d spent years trying to locate a woman who didn’t want to be found. And damn it, he was tired of the chase. He had a job to do: stopSangre por Sangrefrom regaining their broken power. “Charlie made her choice.”

Working through the maze of Socorro’s headquarters, he made it to his bedroom and shoved inside. Zeus bounced off the bed and approached the door. Waiting. “She’s not coming.”

Granger unlocked the gun safe, pulling a weapon from inside. Acker’s Army had taken his preferred sidearm, and there was a chance he was never going to get it back. He grabbed a few more pieces of gear and ammunition, including his Kevlar vest, and rammed it into one of the duffel bags he pulled from under the bed. The zipper scratched at the scabs along the back of his hand, tearing a hardened chunk of skin free. Blood dripped down his wrist, but he didn’t have the patience to bandage the wound.

Sangre por Sangrehad attempted to build an underground headquarters on twenty-two acres of land owned by one of its lieutenants, now long dead. There wasn’t much of the building left after one of Socorro’s operatives had literally torn the place down searching for the woman he loved after her abduction, but Granger couldn’t think of a more fitting safe house for the few remaining members of the cartel. Off the grid, decommissioned and too dangerous to occupy.

He’d start there.

A trail of dust cut across his window. Granger straightened, watching as one of Socorro’s SUV’s sped across the New Mexican landscape, heading east. The entire team was grounded from assignments until the details of Henry Acker’s death could be related to the local police. Which meant the driver was Charlie.

Granger shouldered his gear.

The bull terrier didn’t seem to get the message Charlie wasn’t going to walk through that door and grace Zeus with her presence. “Come on. We’ve got an assignment.”

The K9 didn’t budge.

“Zeus.” The call came out harsher than Granger meant it to, and the dog turned on him with a whine. His heart—finally starting to piece itself back together these past few days—fractured at the sight of Zeus’s sadness. He slipped the duffel strap off and let the bag hit the floor, lowering himself to the K9’s level. “I know. I’m going to miss her too.”

Granger allowed himself this moment of peace. Of him and Zeus hurting for the same loss. In a matter of days, Charlie had slipped back into his life and upended his world all over again. He didn’t know how, and hell, it didn’t really matter. Because there was no going back. “Come on, bud. We’ve got some cartel members to sit on.”

But the truth was, he just felt tired. And watching Charlie leave hurt more than the bullet shard in his shoulder, except this one had gone straight through his heart. He was bloody knuckled, battered and bruised. Because of her. Because of his need to keep her in a life she never intended to stay in. It seemed no matter what choice he made or how he tried to make up for failing Charlie in the past, he would always be second best.

To her need for freedom.

Her need for justice.

And her need to prove herself as an individual rather than a soldier.

Granger collected his bag and headed for the door. Only to be stopped by the journal sitting on the edge of his bed. Erin Acker’s journal. Charlie had broken into her father’s house for it, risked her life for it. It didn’t seem right to leave it here. He slipped it into one of the side pockets of his duffel and hit the hallway with Zeus on his heels. He took the stairs, uninterested in becoming another victim to the dark images and pressure in his head waiting to ambush him on the first floor. He mentally worked through the layout ofSangre por Sangre’s battered headquarters as he entered Socorro’s garage.

To find Ivy Bardot standing in front of his SUV.

Understanding hit. “You gave her the keys and let her leave.” Granger should’ve known. All this time, he’d wondered if his superior allowed herself to consider anything but the mission. Now he had his answer.

Socorro’s founder didn’t bother denying it. “You know as well as I do she’s the key to the cartel’s entire plan. There’s something about her thatSangre por Sangrewants, and we need to know what that something is.”

“So you gave her an SUV and sent her on her way.” Son of a bitch. Ivy was going to use Charlie as bait. “You want her to lead us straight to the cartel.”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same in my position?” she asked.

Rage exploded through his chest and shot up his throat. Granger closed the distance between them as the last of his control slipped away. “I would’ve taken one look at her and realized she isn’t ready for the fight she’s walking into.”

Ivy stared up at him, so damn calm. She wasn’t the least bit intimidated by a man twice her size. She knew as well as he did she could put him on his ass faster than he could process the threat, and she wasn’t afraid to prove it at the slightest provocation. “And yet you didn’t stop her when she ran from Dr. Piel’s exam room.”

The accusation neutralized the fire in his veins, but it wasn’t strong enough to quiet the concern pushing him to act. He wasn’t strong enough. Charlie was gunning for a fight she wouldn’t win alone, and there was nothing he could do to convince her otherwise. The night of the Alamo pipeline attack, he’d felt useless. Wondering where he’d gone wrong and how he could’ve changed the course of events. Losing his job at Homeland Security as a consequence of defying orders to let Charlie loose as his CI had only shored up that crack in his confidence.

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