Page 6 of K-9 Justice

“Then we need to assume she was killed because of you. Because of your connection to her.” Carson pulled the SUV in front of the safe house. Well,safe housewas a bit modest of a description. This place was more like a compound. A baseSangre por Sangreupper management utilized in case of emergency. Only it hadn’t been used much in the past six months for the simple fact there wasn’t much management left, thanks to Ivy and her team. He switched off the engine but didn’t move to get out. Not yet. “Ivy, we knew this would be a possibility going in. You’ve spearheaded Socorro’s creation and this war against the cartel. You’ve rallied the entire United States government to back you without hesitation and putSangre por Sangrein a position of battling for survival. Dr. Piel’s death, the attack at the apartment… This is just the beginning. They will not stop until they’ve destroyed everything and everyone you love.”

“What is this place?” Ivy leaned forward in her seat, taking in the expansive landscaping, architecture and driveway leading to a three-car garage off to the left. She didn’t wait for an answer and shouldered out of the vehicle. Rounding to the front of the SUV, she turned on him as he climbed out of the driver’s side with Max following suit. “Did you bring me to a cartel safe house?”

“It’s the last place they’ll look for you.” He didn’t know how else to explain his decision. In his head, bringing her here made sense. Whoever had come for her at the apartment was well resourced, had access to military hardware and was not afraid to hurt bystanders. This was the best option to keep her safe. Right under the cartel’s nose.

“Or I’m walking right into their hands.” Her concern was valid. For as long as he’d been embedded withinSangre porSangre,there were still some things he’d been kept separate from. The head of the cartel’s identity, for example.

“I would never knowingly put you in danger.” Carson couldn’t take this distance between them anymore. Not just physically, but emotionally. He might’ve been on assignment for two years, but he was still the same man she’d fallen in love with during their last assignment. They were supposed to be a team. Not…whatever this was. “You know that.”

“Do I?” Her jaw set hard enough to cut glass, but there was still an edge of nervousness. As though she expected to have to make a run for it at any second. “Because it was easy to contact you those first few months, Carson, but you stopped contacting me altogether. After a while, I was the one arranging our meetings. I was the one having to pull intel out of you instead of you offering it. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work, or did you forget that while killing anyone the cartel pointed you at?”

Tension bled into every muscle along his spine. Every shot, every kill, had been ingrained into his head. There was no way he’d ever be able to forget the voices that had begged for their lives. No way he could ever forgive himself for the futures he’d stolen in the name ofSangre por Sangre. No matter their level of evil. But her accusation that he’d forgotten his purpose in all of this—that he’d defected into the enemy’s ranks—gutted him. “I couldn’t blow my cover. Every time I reached out increased the chances of exposing our operation and putting your life in danger. We knew what we were getting into when the special agent in charge approached us with this assignment, Ivy. You’re the one who stepped away from the FBI’s support and took it upon yourself to compartmentalize who was involved. You agreed to all of this.”

“I thought you were dead. Do you know what that feels like? To believe that your partner can’t get word to you that he’s in danger? That you’re helpless to do anything about it?” Ivyswiped at her face. She lost the battle of facing off with him, escaping back to the SUV. Except she didn’t stop at the SUV. She kept walking. Heading toward the main road.

Carson didn’t have an answer for her. Not the kind that would make her feel any better when exhaustion, adrenaline and anger were working to undermine her executive function. He trailed after her, keeping his distance. For now. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not just going to hide out in some cartel safe house and wait for the son of a bitch who killed my operative and came after me to make his next move. I need to know if the rest of my team is in danger.” She pulled a phone from her blazer pocket. The screen lit up around her as she pressed her phone to her ear. “I can have an extraction here in twenty minutes.”

Carson grabbed the phone from her hand. He tossed it on the ground and stomped it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. The metal and glass protested, but he couldn’t risk broadcasting their position. “Whoever killed Dr. Piel wasn’t responsible for what went down at the safe house tonight.”

“You needed to destroy my burner to tell me that?” She seemed to come back into herself, the anger bleeding from her expression. “How can you be sure they’re two separate incidents?”

Max whined between them as the tension thickened.

“Because the killer we’re looking for prefers a blade. He likes to get close to his victims and make examples out of them. A gun is too messy. Traceable through ballistics.” Any second now, he’d lose what little trust was left between him and Ivy. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her, too. “My guess? The ambush was a distraction. Something shiny for us to chase. And if I’m right, that means whoever killed Dr. Piel is already using it to his advantage.”

CHAPTER THREE

She felt as though she needed to wash off the evil.

It seemed to seep in from the walls, the floors, the top-of-the-line appliances and pretty tile. The bedding calling to her very sleep-neglected brain. She wouldn’t touch any of it. This entire compound had been bought with the blood of thousands of innocent lives. Lives she’d sworn to keep safe from the cartel. Most she’d been too late to save.

Carson must’ve come here before. During his assignment.

Their conversation wouldn’t stop replaying in her head. She’d accused him of losing perspective over the course of this assignment. She’d practically called him out as a cartel soldier who mindlessly followed his next order, and she hated herself for it. But worse, she hated her admission of how much she’d worried about him while he’d been undercover. Feelings weren’t her strong suit. They’d done nothing but betray her and had been used against her in the past. And some habits died hard.

“Hungry?” He was the only one who could breach her personal space without triggering her defenses. Carson offered her a bowl-like plate of something orange and creamy with beans. “Cannellini beans with garlic, cherry tomatoes and onions.”

“You just happen to have all the ingredients for my favorite comfort meal on hand?” She couldn’t resist the promise of food or the fact that he’d taken the time and consideration to cook for her after what they’d been through tonight. Was it tonight? She wasn’t sure how long ago a gunman had ripped apart the life she’d built separate of her crusade.

He withdrew the plate a couple of inches. “Is this your way of saying thank-you?”

A tendril of shame heated in her cheeks, and she took the plate. She was boxing him in as a potential threat when Carson had done nothing but fight beside her in the limited time they’d been thrust together. “Thank you.”

The heat felt good in her hand. Grounding and strong. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the plate and everything to do with the partner handing it to her. A partner she’d missed more than anything. Ivy took her time with the first bite, letting the combination of garlic and onion soothe her down to her very bones.

Carson backed off, giving her space in a seemingly endless expanse of emptiness surrounding them. “Better?”

“Much.” Calories had a way of making everything better, but she’d never gotten over his cooking. No matter how many times she’d tried re-creating the recipes in the old recipe book his mother had put together for him when he’d gone off to college, it wasn’t the same.

“Still think I’ve been brainwashed by the cartel?” he asked.

The soup lost its taste, and suddenly she wasn’t as hungry as she’d thought. “You’ve been invested in learning everything you can aboutSangre por Sangrefor the past two years. You’ve done things for them. Gotten to know the men and women that make up their ranks. Is it so hard to believe you may have started coming around to their way of thinking?”

“Going so far as to serve you up on a silver platter?” He was right there. No longer concerned with her need for personal space. The heat of his body drove through her T-shirt and soothed the aches of hitting the railing.

Ivy directed her gaze to the plate of food in her hand. He knew her better than anyone else in the world—inside and out—and there was a part of her that wanted to convince herself he woulduse that information against her. Only that part was lying to her. “We’ve been fighting this virus for so long, sometimes I start seeing threats where they don’t exist.”

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