Page 39 of K-9 Justice

Carson dragged Ivy to stand, maneuvering her behind him. “It’s over, Sebastian. There’s nothing left of your cartel. Give yourself up, and you might live another twenty years.”

Sebastian unpocketed some kind of device. A small black box with an antenna. A detonator? “Say goodbye to your team, Agent Bardot.”

He hit the button.

Except nothing happened.

Carson waited. One second. Two. Sebastian pressed the button again, then once more. And the tension eased out of Carson’s shoulders.

“Looking for this?” Scarlett Beam rounded the corner and into view. Tossing a brick of white…C-4? Jones, Cash, Granger and their K-9s followed. Each taking aim with guns in hand. “You can thank Ivy for that. She noted the C-4 wired into the structural beams of the building. I took the opportunity to reprogram your detonator. To mine.”

The security consultant showed off her phone. Then tapped the screen with a smile not meant for life-and-death situations.

The explosion started within, bringing the building in on itself in a series of blasts but containing it at the same time. It was the perfect system.

“You’re finished,el jefe.” Ivy rounded into Sebastian’s vision, seemingly memorizing his realization that he’d lost. He’doutmanned and outgunned Socorro, but he couldn’t beat them. Because they were a team. “Sangre por Sangreis dead.”

Sebastian sank to his knees as he watched his headquarters collapse in on itself.

Sirens echoed off the sides of the man-made bowl. A patrol cruiser skidded to a stop behind Carson, and Chief Halsey pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket.

“Sebastian Aguado, you are under arrest for a whole lot of shit.” Halsey pinned Sebastian’s arms behind his back and hauled the cartel founder to his feet to install the cuffs. “Namely, coming after my partner, but that one will be the least of your worries. Because you get to ride in the back seat with her German shepherd. We’ve got two years of charges you’ve earned. And I’m going to make sure every single one of them sticks.”

Carson couldn’t help but etch this scene into his brain. To convince him it was real.

Alpine Valley PD shoved Sebastian headfirst into the back seat of the patrol car. Chief Halsey secured the cartel founder inside with a nod in Ivy’s direction.

“It’s finished.” Ivy stared after the cruiser, the sun highlighting the bruises and scrapes along one side of her face. “After two years, we finally took downSangre por Sangre.”

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 neutralizingSangre 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 buildingowner 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 ofSangre 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.

TwoSangre por Sangresoldiers 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 pamperedwith 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.

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