K-9 Security, page 3
Cash had had run-ins with the cartel before. Part of the job he’d signed up for, but he’d never wanted to hurt them more than he did right then. Intercepting drug runs, raiding compounds, seizing assets—none of it was good enough. He swallowed the welt of rage clawing up his throat. “Punishment for what?”
“For leaving him,” she said. “I don’t live with my parents because I don’t have ambition or a job or because I don’t know how to take care of myself. After we separated, I didn’t have any other choice. I had a whole life before I met him. I was a different person before him.”
“You were married.” The thought shouldn’t have bothered him. They weren’t friends. Hell, they were barely acquaintances, but the fact rooted deep through muscle and aggravated his insides.
“For a whole three months. That’s when I started seeing the man he kept hidden while we dated. Little things, really. The battery on my phone kept overheating. I took it apart and found some device installed in the back. I think he’d been listening to my calls and following my movements.” She picked at her thumbnail, as though trying to distance herself from the conversation, from having to relive what she’d been through. “After that, he moved us to Albuquerque. Wouldn’t let me call my parents or make lunch dates with friends. Another time, I thought someone was following me, so I ducked into a shop, and one of his buddies I’d met a few weeks before walked by. After a few weeks, the small things started adding up, but until then I never even realized what was happening.”
“He was isolating you.” Standard protocol in an abusive relationship. Dominant versus submissive. Weak versus strong. But Cash had no doubt in his mind—based on the defensive marks on her hands and face—that Elena Navarro didn’t let anyone have a rule over her. Leaving a relationship such as hers took an unfathomable amount of determination and courage, and, hell, if that wasn’t the most admirable thing he’d ever seen. “Did he hurt you?”
Her gaze went distant and sad beneath the swelling around her eye. Elena grabbed her opposite arm, the scrapes and bruising fully exposed to him. “I checked the mail. Something he’d told me not to do when we first got married. Inside there were bills addressed to a name I didn’t recognize. Several. To the point I didn’t think the mailman had made a mistake. When he left for work the next morning, I had my friend in the police department run the name. Deputy McCrae told me who I’d really married. I don’t know how, but he found out.”
Tension flooded through him.
“I escaped. I drove to Alpine Valley, and I never went back,” she said. “I needed to start over and to be around the people I care about. Now those people are either dead or hurting, and he’s not going to stop until I come back.”
“Do you want to go back?” He didn’t know why the question held as much weight as it did. There was nothing more despicable than a man who mistreated a woman or children, and she’d managed to escape of her own free will. Not all of them did. Cash knew right then and there he would do whatever he could to help her. Help her brother. Help her town.
“Not to him.” Her expression broke under a scoff. “But if it comes down to my life or Daniel’s, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my brother.”
Cash whistled low to wake Bear, who’d apparently gotten tired of waiting around and collapsed on the stuffed bed the doc kept in the corner. He grabbed for his keys. “All right. Then we’ll find him.”
“What?” Those dark eyes that’d glimmered with fire and deliriousness held him hostage.
“I’m holding up my end of the deal. You told me why the cartel wants you. I offered a ride back into town in return.” He’d already made up his mind and was heading for the door. “We’ll start with that.”
“Just like that?” Suspicion bled into her voice. “You don’t... You don’t know me. You said it yourself. The cartel is brutal. They don’t live by the same laws as we do. There are thousands of them and two of us. We’d be better off going to the police. Even if they can’t help directly, they know people who can.”
“Actually, it’s more like thousands of them and seven of us. Not including Socorro’s K-9s.” Bear followed on his heels. The distrust radiating off Elena centered between his shoulder blades as he headed down the hall. He didn’t blame her. Everything she’d been through and feeling the physical result of her choices guaranteed trust issues, but she wasn’t at fault. The blame was on him. For not seeing the threat before it was too late. For not getting there fast enough. But he’d make this right. “I need to brief my team before we go. Until then you’re welcome to crash in my room. Comes with a shower and a king-size bed, and the kitchen is just down the hall. Fully stocked.”
“No.” A strong hand latched onto his arm and managed to pull him to a stop. “You said you were taking me back into town. I don’t want to sleep or shower or eat. There are people counting on me. I have to go back now.”
“I know what you’re feeling, Elena. I do. You feel responsible for your family, for what happened to them. You feel like you’re the only one who can fix it. But racing back into Alpine Valley is exactly what the cartel is expecting. They took your brother as leverage, to turn you into something pliable and obedient.” He couldn’t help but pick up on her fear, almost like a solid barrier between them. From their limited interactions, he figured Elena was the kind of woman to stand up to any challenge and stare it down until it broke in front of her, but this wasn’t something she could take on herself. No matter how much she wanted it or how strong she thought she was. His arm burned where she splayed her fingers across his skin, and in that moment, it grounded him more than anything else ever had. “If you go back now, half-cocked, without backup or a plan, you’ll be walking right into their hands. Is that what you want? Is that what you want for Daniel? Because I guarantee you, even if you do turn yourself over, they won’t let him go. They’ll keep using him to get you to cooperate, and you’ll both be nothing but pawns used against each other.”
Her mouth parted on a steady exhale, the force of which brushed the underside of his jaw. She slipped her hand from his arm, and an imagined tendril of cold raced to replace her touch. “No. I don’t want that for him. Or me.”
“Then let me do the job I was sent here to do.” A force he didn’t recognize bubbled up inside of him. Something alive and instinctual. “And I’ll give you my word—I will get your brother back.”
Elena seemed to steady herself. The pulse at the base of her neck thudded hard against the thin skin there, but at a more even rate. “Why are you doing this? Why risk your life and the lives of your team for someone you just met?”
“Because cartels like Sangre por Sangre are like a virus. If they’re left unchecked, the infection spreads and kills everything in its path.” Especially those radicalized and funded well enough to do some major harm. “My room’s just down the hall.”
He didn’t wait for her to follow. His instincts told him he’d made his point. She wouldn’t try to leave on her own. But he could see her walking down this mountain and through the desert to get back home if she put her mind to it.
“You live here?” Her voice had lost some of its gusto. That was the exhaustion kicking in, maybe the concussion, too. She needed a heavy dose of rest. “It’s so...”
“Sterile?” That was one way of putting it. Cash motioned her to the third door on the left of this hallway. He automatically angled in after her, noting the scratches across the back and side of her neck as she took in the room. It was weird. Her being in here. This was his space. Well, his and Bear’s, and sometimes it ended up being more of the dog’s, but it served its purposes. Gave him a place to decompress after an assignment, to recover with his hand in Bear’s fur. In here, he wasn’t a soldier. Cash was allowed to just...be. “Socorro has to be able to mobilize at the first sign of trouble. We’re a security company. We go where we’re told and follow orders to a T. No frills. No comforts. If needed, we’ll leave this place and set up somewhere new. Although I’ll admit I like the view.”
Elena didn’t answer, seemingly taking in every inch of the room.
From the floating nightstands, to the dark gray walls and wooden headboard of his bed. To the floor-to-ceiling window looking out across the barren landscape. He’d never had any need for something more. Rather, he’d been told what he needed most of his life and accepted it at that.
She closed in on the window and set her hand against the glass as though she could reach out and touch the smoke plumes rising over what was left of Alpine Valley. “You can’t fight the desert. All you can do is survive it.”
Chapter Three
The smoke plumes had thinned throughout the night.
Fire and Rescue had gotten the blazes under control. Or let them burn themselves out.
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, willing the air to clear hour after hour. Helpless and angry and tired. A headache dulled the vision in her left eye. From staying up all night or the concussion, she didn’t know. Maybe a combination of both. Didn’t really matter.
She was stuck here until Cash and his team decided what to do with her. He hadn’t said as much, but she’d known there wouldn’t be any welcome party in her honor. Too much risk to let just anyone walk—or be dragged—through those heavy doors.
But Cash had brought her here.
Which didn’t make sense. She could be lying about who she was. She could’ve made up her entire story, but he’d trusted her. He’d kept her from being abducted by the cartel for no reason other than she’d needed him, and brought her to the one place he considered safe.
But she didn’t feel safe.
The cartel would know Cash’s face now. They’d know what he’d done, that she was with him, and they’d find a way to get to her. Cash had to know that, too. “They’re not going to stop.”
The sun broke over the horizon in the east. The sky bled from purple to hints of blue and orange and worked to unravel the knot of anxiety inside. In vain. Cash hadn’t come back for a few hours, but his Rottweiler had given up watching Elena with those dark eyes and finally gone to sleep in her cushioned bed.
She couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.
Not while her parents were missing, possibly hurt. Not while Daniel was being held hostage. She’d done as Cash had asked. She’d waited until morning and given herself a chance to recover, but she didn’t work for Socorro. She didn’t have to follow orders.
Elena shoved to her feet. Cash was military. While the cartel only served their own agenda instead of a government’s, they considered themselves soldiers. And soldiers liked to hide things. In the final weeks before she’d escaped her husband, she’d found thousands of dollars in cash, keys to apartments, identities she’d never seen before, and communications between him and other lieutenants throughout the organization. And weapons. So many weapons. She hadn’t been able to use any of it, but it’d taught her a valuable lesson. Never take anyone at their face value.
Not even a handsome knight in Kevlar.
Bear lifted her head, a low huff of frustration clear.
Elena ran her hands over the back of the bed’s headboard, then down into the frame. “If you’re just going to rat me out, you might as well help me.”
She dropped to her knees and searched beneath the bed. Her stomach growled at the sight of a package of Oreos stuffed up between its frame and the mattress. She unburied it with anticipation. Peanut butter. Her favorite. Wouldn’t hurt to get something in her stomach before slipping back into the garage for one of the SUVs. She pulled the package free and sat back on her heels. The ecofriendly wrapping could be heard through the door and down the hall.
Bear shot to her feet in a scamper of anticipation, her back feet nearly sliding out from under her.
Elena hugged the package to her chest. It was almost empty. Probably no more than a couple of cookies left. “If you think I’m going to share with you, you’ve got another thing coming, Cujo.”
The Rottweiler cocked her head to one side with the best plea Elena imagined a dog could give. And it was working.
“Fine. Just one.” She peeled back the sticky tab on top of the package. She’d been right. Only two left. Although the frosting didn’t look like the peanut butter she was expecting, and the cookies themselves were cracked down the middle. Glancing at Bear, Elena let the dog take the cookie from her hand as she bit down into hers. “Breakfast of champions.”
The bedroom door clicked on steel hinges.
Cash scanned the room a split second before settling that compelling gaze on her and Bear. A hitch at one corner of his mouth released the tension that seemed permanently set into his face. “I see you found the Oreos.”
“I was hungry.” She tried to ignore the slightly chemical taste swirled throughout the frosting. That wasn’t right. These cookies must’ve expired. Her stomach was ready to revolt as she chewed, but she was so hungry she didn’t want to spit it out. “How old are these? They don’t taste like peanut butter anymore.”
“Couple weeks.” His heavy boots thudded over the floor before Cash took a seat on the end of the bed. The mattress dipped with his weight, and it was then that she realized just how...big he was compared to her. Not intimidating. Not forceful. Just mountainous. “I think that’s Bear’s allergy medicine you’re tasting.”
“What? No.” Elena dropped what was left of the cookie back into the package. The chemical taste coated her tongue and slid down the back of her throat. “Excuse me?”
“Bear’s allergic to sagebrush, and she loves Oreos.” He was trying not to laugh. She could see it in the slight tick of his eye, and right then she wanted to shove the rest of the Oreo down his throat. “The only way I can get her to take her medicine is by disguising it in a cookie, and from the look of it, she’s already got her dose for the day. Thanks for that.”
Elena tossed the package across the room and climbed to her feet. She needed water. No. Wait. Alcohol. No. Bleach. She needed bleach to get the taste out of her mouth. It was the only thing that would help. “But you...you hid it under the bed like a late-night snack.” Her stomach threatened to revolt. She was going to throw up in front of him. Again.
“Yeah. She’ll eat the entire package if I put it somewhere she can get to it.” Cash grabbed the remnants of her cookie just as Bear took a step to scoop it up. Tossing it in the garbage, he pulled open one of the cabinets she hadn’t gotten around to searching and produced a bottled water. “Good news is, you’re not going to have seasonal allergies today.”
She twisted off the cap and drank as though she’d been stranded in the middle of the Sahara for three days. It helped. But Elena couldn’t help but think the aftertaste would stick around. “And the bad news?”
“You might experience excessive panting and an upset stomach.” Cash settled against the built-in desk, massive arms folded across his massive chest. The man would claim the attention of any woman with a pulse with that strong jaw and the promise of reckoning in his body language.
But that smirk was back in place, and she wanted nothing more than to wipe it off by dumping the rest of her water on him. But then what would she use to get rid of the taste of dog medication?
“Ha ha.” Elena clutched her water tighter. “I hope you know what you’ve done. You’ve officially ruined my love for peanut butter Oreos. Of which I’ll mention was an impossible task until now. My mother would be very proud of you.”
Her mother. It hit her then, that they’d stepped away from the urgency of the situation and had started talking as though they’d simply met on a day that didn’t include a town-wide slaughter of her friends and family. The lightness she’d gotten lost in the past few minutes—the banter and easiness—drained. Leaving her empty.
Cash seemed to realize it, too. The uptick of his mouth was gone.
“You said you had to brief your team on what happened last night.” Her mouth dried then. So much for excessive salivating and panting. “So what’s the plan? How do we get my brother back?”
“You don’t.” Two words. That was all he was going to give her? After everything she’d been through?
Her heart threatened to explode straight out of her chest. The fire that’d driven her to fight back against those soldiers simmered beneath her skin. Pain arced through her head. Specks of black shifted in her vision, but she wasn’t going to let it stop her from going home. “Then what have you been doing these past few hours? You said you would help me. You said—”
“I gave you my word I and my team would bring him home, and I intend to do just that.” He pushed away from the built-in desk as though the conversation was finished. Wrenching open a cabinet door, Cash hit a keypad with a six-digit code. A safe door popped, and he collected a weapon, ammunition and what she thought was a shoulder holster from inside. He discharged the magazine from his pistol and started loading rounds. “I didn’t say you’d have any part in it.”
Wait. Elena rounded into his peripheral vision, almost stepping on Bear. She got a low growl in response, but the dog’s interruption in beauty sleep wasn’t high on her priorities right then. “This is my brother. This is my family.”
“And how do you expect to help them, Elena? We’re trained for this. We’re good at this. Each of us has a specialty we’ve spent years honing. The people in this building—the ones who have my back out there in the field—they’re masters of war and are willing to risk their lives for the greater good.” He slowed then as though sensing she’d finished his real implication in her head.
