Page 37 of K-9 Justice

Just as Sebastian closed the distance between them.

He slammed into her. The knife grazed the outside of her arm as the cartel founder pinned her against the desk. She latched on to his wrist to gain control, but he was a hell of a lot stronger than he let on. Her shoulder screamed for her to let go. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

Time seemed to slow.

Seconds distorted and stretched into minutes. Scarlett took a fist to the face as she tried to reach the laptop dislodged in the chaos. Cash blocked one attack while attempting to dodge a blade to the gut from the opposite direction. Granger had been pinned against the wall by no less than three soldiers. Granger’s bellow filled the entire room as Jones used one of the cartel soldiers as a shield to avoid getting shot.

And Carson. He’d shoved one of his captors off but failed to account for the soldier at his back. The butt of a weapon slammed down onto his skull. His legs collapsed out from underneath him.

They were losing. They were going to fail. Because of her. Because maybe her stepfather—maybe Sebastian—had been right. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to win this war. But she wouldn’t stop trying.

“Look at them, Agent Bardot. See them suffer.” Sebastian struggled to bring the knife down into her heart. Sweat dripped from his forehead and splashed onto her face. “I can make it all go away. All you have to do is give in.”

The tip of the blade penetrated through her tank top. She couldn’t hold him off much longer. A pinprick of pain registered just below her collarbone. “I gave my word to those women.”

Ivy arched her hips off the desk and threw his weight to one side. Sebastian had no choice but to follow. She hiked his wrist upward, then straight down onto the edge of the desk. The crunch of bone pierced through the sound of gunfire and screams. Along with his scream. He stared up at her with nothing but violence and death.

“I was going to make you pay for what you did to them.” Ivy kicked Sebastian’s legs out from under him. Fisting his collar while he was down, she ignored the pain in her shoulder. And launched her fist into his face. Once. Twice. His head snapped back. Years of being told she wasn’t strong enough to fight created a new energy that sizzled through her. “I keep my promises.”

Sebastian’s body went limp in her grasp. His eyes rolled back in his head. Unconscious. Ivy let him sink to the floor. It was over. The loss. The pain. The fear. Straightening, she left the cartel’s founder there to suffer the consequences that had led them to this room.

The gunfire seemed to cease all at once asSangre por Sangrecame to terms with the end result. Jones ripped out of a soldier’s hold, then pinned his attacker against the wall. Granger shirked off the three men trying to bring him down. Scarlett didn’t seem to notice any change in her surroundings, her focus on the C-4 ready to explode at the touch of a button. Cash shoved one of the soldiers forward.

And Carson raised his gaze to hers through the blood seeping into his eyes. They’d done it. Together. As a team. It had taken so much longer than she’d planned, but they’d—

A gunshot exploded from behind.

Then came the pain. Ivy lowered her attention to the stain spreading across her tank top, then back to her team.

Right before the world went dark.

* * *

Socorro’s operatives fellinto action.

Each running to catch their boss before she met the ground.

Carson could only watch Ivy as she fell. The past superimposed the present as he simultaneously saw her collapse in the salvage yard warehouse and hit the floor now. Sebastian lowered his gun hand. A smile creased the outer edges of his face.

Carson’s head pounded in rhythm with his increasing heart rate. He could barely see through the blood dripping into his eyes, but struggled to his feet. The soldiers on either side of him fought to keep him down. Under control. It wouldn’t work. A fire had started burning in him, and there was nothing anybody could do to put it out. No one but Ivy.

Carson rammed his shoulder into the nearest captor, throwing the son of a bitch off-balance. His female companion he’d gotten out of Socorro holding rushed at him. She didn’t make it. He buried his heel in her stomach and took the air right out of her. Her knees dropped as she gasped for breath. Movement registered in his peripheral vision. Carson ducked to avoid the butt of the weapon coming at his face and swung around in time to let the soldier’s momentum carry him into another moving in to subdue him.

A third attacker came straight at him. The bastard hiked his foot up as though to land a solid kick. Only Carson managed to capture the soldier’s boot between his bound arm and rib cage. One tight jerk and the soldier’s ankle practically broke off in Carson’s grip. He forced the attacker to hop on one foot, angling the gunman right into another threat.

Pain spidered down Carson’s back as a fourth soldier swung his weapon down. It gaveSangre por Sangrea chance to gang up on him. Two more attackers grabbed for his shoulders and arms. He took down another coming from the front and took out the soldier’s knee. Carson ducked out from the son of a bitch on the left and crushed his head into the soldier’s temple. Then had to quickly dodge a knife aimed straight for his spine. The bladesman overcorrected his momentum. But not in time to avoid Carson’s knee to his face.

Men and women groaned at his feet. But the fight wasn’t over.

Ivy’s operatives were dragging her off the battlefield, toward the exit. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t opened her eyes. Even if she managed to survive, there was no telling when Sebastian would come for her again. Come for her team.

Carson had to end this now.

He caught sight of the cartel’s fearless leader making a break for a door he’d once mapped as a secret escape from the building. Low-level soldiers had been kept in the dark. It was just like upper management to sacrifice the men and women they’d used to do their dirty work while keeping their own hands clean. “Sebastian!”

Carson crouched to pick up a fallen knife and sliced through the rope at his wrists. Blood rushed back into his fingertips as he followed after the man responsible for so much death. He’d been an idiot to believe there was an ounce of good within the cartel, that the people at the bottom were simply following orders. He’d been manipulated, used.

And now he was going to make sure it never happened to anyone else.

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