Page 24 of K-9 Justice

It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to relax, he wasn’t sure he knew how to anymore, but right now, here with Ivy, he saw their future. A future he’d killed for, had nearly died for and sacrificed for.

In an instant, guilt—thick and hot and acidic—burned in his gut, eating away at his stomach lining. He’d built a life within the cartel. Dedicated himself to protecting the people he served with. They’d become his team at a time when he’d needed them the most.

But choosing Ivy meant abandoning them. Delivering them up to the slaughter when Socorro brought down the final judgment.

His fellow soldiers. The people he’d laughed with around bonfires in the middle of the desert while they waited for their next orders. Who’d pressed their backs against his in the middle of a firefight with the DEA. Who’d stood watch over him so he could grab a couple of hours of sleep out in the open. For the first time since he’d lost his mother he’d had a family of his very own.

Sebastian had been included in that group. Now there wasn’t anything Carson wouldn’t do to keep him from putting his hands on Ivy again, but his insides still raged as the two lives he’dcreated battled for dominance. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for food.”

He set to work on inventorying the cabinets. Lucky for him, the previous owners had left a good amount behind. While he’d never been anything but a ramen chef as an FBI agent, there were some skills he’d been forced to rely on within the cartel. Being able to create a densely nutritional meal out of few ingredients, for one. Within minutes, Carson plated a sizable helping of homemade macaroni and cheese complete with hot dogs and brought two plates to the couch.

Max eyed him scornfully as he handed off Ivy’s plate.

“Yours is in the kitchen. Try not to make a mess,” he said.

The K-9 took that as permission to fly off the couch and skid across the tile floor. Only she failed to stop in time, crashing into the lower cabinets.

Ivy’s laugh interrupted her initial bite, and she had to cover her mouth to keep the macaroni from falling back onto the plate. “Happy to see she’s held on to some of that puppy excitement. It’s nice, knowing she’s still the same troublemaker I brought home so long ago. I missed that.”

He had to remember that. That as much as Carson had missed of the real world over the past two years surviving and thriving within a drug cartel, Ivy had missed a lot, too.

“You should see her when I manage to get my hands on those special chips you used to eat.” He took his first bite, and his entire body clung on to that single influx of calories as though he’d gone weeks without food rather than twelve hours. “You think she’s hyper now. She practically flies on that stuff.”

“Salt-and-vinegar chips aren’t special.” Ivy took another bite and seemingly melted as quickly as the cheese. “Kind of a delicacy for a cartel soldier. Apart from the fact the one time I offered you one, you threw it into the neighbor’s backyard.I think you said something like vinegar isn’t meant to be consumed.”

“Yeah, well.” He couldn’t help but smile at the memory. A sliver of time when they’d been allowed to be nothing but themselves. “I might have changed my mind a little.”

“Good to know.” She speared her next bite of macaroni onto her fork, only didn’t bring it to her mouth. In fact, Ivy let the fork skid along the outside of the plate. “Is there anything else you might’ve changed your mind on I should know about?”

“Yeah. There is.” Carson set his unfinished plate on the coffee table. He’d been putting this off long enough. Unwilling to let go. But there was no future for him in the cartel. Not anymore. “I’m ready to come home.”

CHAPTER TEN

Carson rolled into her from the other side of the bed, jarring her back into the present.

She’d been awake for hours. Replaying Sebastian’s claims. That he’d killed Dr. Piel and those other women, that he’d been biding his time, proud of himself for taking up so much of her life. Every cell in her body wanted to live in denial, but none of it did his victims a bit of good. And that was all that mattered. The victims.

Ivy turned her attention to Carson. It hadn’t mattered before, but she needed to know. Had Dr. Piel been involved withSangre por Sangre, or had Sebastian used Socorro’s physician as bait? To lure Ivy out into the open. To take someone she cared about away. To hurt her. The last few seconds before she’d collapsed into unconsciousness played at the edges of her mind. Of seeing Carson in the middle of the warehouse. Of not knowing which side he would choose in the face of her death. Would he have gone back to the cartel given the chance? Or had he meant what he’d said earlier about coming home?

Her mind was playing tricks on her again. Trying to create a threat when she was positive one wasn’t there. It did the same thing every night, keeping her awake for hours. Imagining scenarios in which everything she loved was taken from her. Where the Pentagon refused to re-up Socorro’s contract, leaving her team ungrounded and scattered. And where she learned of Carson’s death. Two years was a long time to give her anxietythe playground it needed to thrive. But, at the same time, had prepared her for the worst.

There was no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight. Dr. Cavill’s orders to get as much rest as possible could go to hell. Ivy slipped from the bed she and Carson shared, careful not to wake the mound of fur at the end. Her go bag had supplied everything she’d needed to survive for up to two weeks, but somehow she’d forgotten to pack something to sleep in. As though she’d tried to convince herself that survival didn’t require sleep. Instead, she’d taken one of Carson’s extra T-shirts. It was too big and drapey and exactly what she’d needed. Something comfortable that didn’t scratch at the dozens of bandages keeping her from falling to pieces.

She tiptoed to the bedroom door, looking back to ensure she hadn’t woken either Carson or Max. And froze. She’d come close to losing them back in that warehouse. She never wanted to feel that way again.

Ivy navigated through her old house as easily as she had done years ago. Muscle memory. This place… It had been her safe haven. Not just a house. She’d come to think of it as home. The first place she felt comfortable enough to be herself, to let go of the hurt and the pain and the defenses she’d weaponized on the job. Something entirely hers. Not connected to her past or her origin. Though there were times when those memories penetrated these walls, they didn’t have as much hold on her as they had back then. This was where she’d become her own person. Separate from the trauma and abuse and sexism.

It hadn’t been until Carson signed on as her partner that she’d imagined this home as anything more than her own personal barricade against the world. It had become something more. He’d somehow maneuvered his way into her life and made himself at home. As though he’d always belonged here, and, in a way, he had. He’d even made it easy. And when she’d broughtMax home to meet him, it had felt like they’d become a family of her own creation. A team.

But when he’d accepted the assignment to go undercover withinSangre por Sangre, everything had changed. She’d no longer had the option to fantasize about the future. She had to give all that up in an attempt to keep him alive.

Ivy couldn’t help but run her fingers the length of the hallway as she headed toward the kitchen. This home was supposed to be theirs when the time was right, but that didn’t feel possible anymore. She spotted her go bag by the door where Carson had left it and dragged it to the kitchen counter. He’d made it clear she couldn’t contact her team or use any of the devices registered in her name, but she wasn’t going to sever herself from the intel she needed either. “Thank goodness for VPNs.”

Her operatives were equipped to handle any situation, including disappearing off the grid. While she preferred to use the resources available, she couldn’t risk bringing the cartel down on Carson and Max. Ivy unpacked a clean laptop, formatted and wiped thanks to her security operative for situations just like this. The subscription and credit card she’d registered the VPN under was set to an alias she’d used while in the FBI. Still active the last time she’d checked. The payments were made through an endless loop of shell corporations set up to keep anyone trying to track her going in circles. To give her the time she needed to drop off the radar. Just in case.

“Show me what you’ve got.” Ivy took a seat at the kitchen counter and logged in to her Socorro email. Hundreds of unread messages filled the queue. But she was only looking for one. “Bingo.”

She tapped the bolded message from Chief Halsey. Incident report: 914 NM-516, Aztec, New Mexico.

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