Page 38 of K-9 Justice

He dodged another attempt to slow him down. A second soldier pointed a gun at him, but one of Socorro’s K-9s—a husky—intercepted and took the gunman down. Fierce growls let him know these dogs weren’t in the mood for playing. They were hereto protect their handlers. Well, except maybe for the one sitting on top of a cartel soldier off to his right. The bull terrier simply grinned at him as Carson cut across the body-strewn space. And, hell, he couldn’t blame the K-9 for adding a bit of fun to this mess. Sometimes that was the only way to make it through the hard stuff.

Ten feet. Five.

Sebastian ducked through the door and secured it behind him.

Just as Carson lunged. His shoulder made contact, but the door had locked from the inside. He slammed both palms against what was meant to look like cinder block, but the exit wouldn’t budge. “Sebastian! You coward! You can’t run forever! I will find you!”

This was no time for caution. He had to get in there.

“We can help you with that, Lang,” a voice said from behind.

Carson turned to find two Socorro operatives, armed to the teeth and not an ounce of exhaustion etched into their faces. To be fair, they hadn’t been tortured for a couple of hours. He motioned them forward. Though he wasn’t sure of their names, they each had the look of determination of seeing this through to the end. The same determination that had possessed him since coming back to the cartel. “By all means, be my guests.”

The one he was fairly certain was called Cash—Socorro’s forward scout—raised his weapon and took aim. Then fired. Once. Twice. The second operative—Jones, maybe—rammed the heel of his boot and forced the exit open. “You come for one of us, you come for all of us. Ivy says you’re one of us. So go get that son of a bitch. We’ve got everything covered here.”

One of them. Three words shouldn’t have held so much weight, but Carson felt the beginnings of the support he’d been searching for all this time. First, with his mother, then through Ivy, and when he’d been required to distance himself from her, from the cartel. Only the people he’d fought beside in the fieldhadn’t ever really felt the same for him as he had for them. It had all been a manipulation. An order. He saw the truth now. He knew what the future held and whom he wanted in his life, and it sure as hell wasn’tSangre por Sangre. The haze of revenge and rage lowered to a simmer as he processed the body count. Every Socorro operative was still standing. Apart from Ivy. “Thank you.”

“Hey, Lang, hold up,” Jones said. “There’s something you should know about Socorro. We never go anywhere without our partners.”

Both men parted, letting a stubborn, bleeding, protective Ivy through. She held on to her side. Blood seeped between her fingers.

“What the hell are you doing? You were shot.” He reached for her, unsure if she would appreciate the contact. “You need medical attention.”

Somehow she’d lost even more color since she’d confronted him in Socorro’s headquarters. “When have I ever let a wound slow me down? Besides, I may have played up the seriousness of the shot.” She pulled her hand away, revealing a stained tank top. “There was no way I was going to be able to fight Sebastian on my own with a dislocated shoulder and a stab wound. So I let him take me out of the equation.”

Disbelief stole the air from his lungs. “But the bullet—”

“Was very real.” Her laugh took the tension out of his shoulders. She was alive. She was okay. Ivy lifted the edge of her shirt, showing off a line of blood and burned skin. “But it was just a graze.”

“You guys know the longer you stand here, the farther our suspect gets, right?” Cash pointed toward the door.

Ivy set clear green eyes on Carson, and the entire world seemed to make sense again. As though for the first time in two years, he’d given himself permission to make his desires knowninstead of bowing out to everyone else’s. “Are you ready to end this?”

“Let’s do this.” Carson shoved through the door. His heart rocketed into his throat every step he stumbled in the darkness. Grief charged through him at the realization he didn’t have Max to help guide him with her higher senses. Except he wasn’t entirely on his own.

He had his partner.

“I’ve never been through this corridor before.” Carson felt his way along the wall, following the sharp turns that seemed to never end. “This must’ve been how the cartel was still able to operate over the past few months.”

“Where does it go?” she asked.

He didn’t have a chance to answer as sunlight pierced into the darkened space up ahead. “I’m guessing outside.” Carson offered her his hand. Which she took. “Come on.”

Ivy unholstered her weapon—the same one she’d handed off to one of her operatives earlier—as they ran. They left the protection of the building and scanned the open desert. “Where did he—”

An engine revved from their left.

And shot directly at them.

Carson pulled Ivy with him, just as she’d done that night in her apartment when they’d been under attack. Saving his life. They hit the ground as one, and he tucked her into his body. Dirt worked into his mouth and nose with each roll, but they’d avoided dying. For now.

The vehicle crashed into the exit, sealing it off. Sebastian shoved free of the driver’s seat, armed with what looked like a long piece of rebar.

Ivy was the first to get to her feet. And took aim. “Drop it, Sebastian. Or I will shoot.”

“You took everything from me!” The cartel founder brought the metal weapon down on her forearm. The gun went off. A bullet shot into the wall of the building and spit dirt.

Ivy fell forward. The gun fell from her hand, out of reach, as she cradled her arm against her chest. Sebastian raised the elongated metal for another strike, and Ivy rolled. The rebar thudded into the cracked earth. “Now I’m going to take everything you love from you.”

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