K-9 Security
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Nichole Severn
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Chapter One
“It’s going to be okay.” Elena Navarro tried to keep her voice low. It was hard to make sure her brother had heard her over the screams penetrating the windows and doors.
Another burst of gunfire contracted every muscle she owned around Daniel’s small frame. She clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his sobs. They’d hidden beneath their parents’ bed, but there was no sign that her mom and dad were ever coming back. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?”
Daniel nodded, the back of his head pressed against her chest.
Alpine Valley was supposed to be safe. With only two hundred and fifty people in town, the cartel that’d slowly started consuming New Mexico shouldn’t have even glanced in their direction. They should’ve been left alone. Instead, Sangre por Sangre had come for blood and recruits.
And Daniel was the prime age to get their attention.
She had to get him out of here. Had to get him somewhere safe.
“Listen to me. If we stay here, they will take you. I need you to do exactly what I say, and we’ll be okay.” Elena kept her gaze on the closed bedroom door while backing out from underneath the bed, her hand never leaving her brother’s side. Carpet burned against her oversensitive skin, but it was nothing compared to the realization that her parents were most likely dead. “Come on.”
He didn’t move.
“Daniel, come on. We’ve got to leave.” They didn’t have much time. The cartel soldiers would start searching homes to make sure they hadn’t left anyone behind. By then, it’d be too late. “Let’s go.”
“Quiero mama.” I want mama. He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave.”
She didn’t have time for this. They didn’t have time for this. Elena fisted her brother’s shirt and dragged him out from beneath the bed. His protests filled the room, and she struggled to get his flailing punches and kicks under control. He didn’t understand. He was too young to know what the cartel would do to him if they got their hands on him. “Para. We have to go.”
Hiking Daniel onto her hip with one arm, she quieted his cries with her free hand. She hugged him to her, his bare feet nearly dragging against the floor. She wasn’t tall in any sense of the word, and Daniel had shot up like a beanstalk over the past years. He was heavy and awkward, but she was all he had left. She’d do whatever it took to get him out of here.
A flashlight beam skimmed over the single window of her parents’ bedroom. Elena launched herself against the wall to avoid being seen. The jerking movement dislodged Daniel’s black-and-red unicorn dragon, and he cried out for it.
The beam centered on the window.
“Shhh. Shhh.” Her breath stalled in her chest. Time distorted, seconds seemed like an eternity and she couldn’t seem to keep track of what must have been only an instant. That beam refused to move on. The sound of gunfire had quieted. All she could hear was Daniel’s soft cries, but no matter how hard she held on to him, it didn’t comfort him.
Shouts pierced through the panes. “I can hear you in there.”
The flashlight arced upward. A split second before the window shattered.
Daniel’s scream filled her ears.
They didn’t have any other choice. They had to run.
Elena hauled him against her chest and pumped her legs as hard as she could. Glass cut through her heel, but she couldn’t stop.
“Dragon!” Her brother’s sobs intensified as he locked his feet to the small of her back, trying to wiggle free.
“We’ve got to go!” She ran down the hallway and headed for the front door. It burst open within feet of her reaching it. A dark outline solidified in the doorway. The soldier’s flashlight blinded her, but she kept moving. The back door. She just had to get through the kitchen.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Heavy footsteps registered from behind.
Her fingers dug into her brother’s soft legs as she raced across old yellow decorative tile. They nearly collided with the sliding glass door. Elena clenched the handle to wrench it open.
It wouldn’t move.
Panic infused her every nerve ending. The broomstick. Her parents had always laid a broomstick in the door’s track to deter break-ins. The flashlight beam gleamed off the reflective glass behind her.
“Nowhere to go, señorita,” a low voice said. “And what do we have here? Daniel, right? That must make you Elena. Such a pretty name. Your parents are just outside. Give me the boy, and I will take you to them. Easy.”
Easy? No. Her instincts told her every word out of his mouth was a lie. Elena turned to face the shadowed soldier, the light mounted on his gun too bright. She pressed her shoulders into the glass door and crouched. Her thighs burned as she tried to support Daniel’s weight. “It’s going to be okay,” she told him.
“That’s right.” The shadow moved closer. “You know you can’t win. Give me the boy. He’ll make a fine soldier.”
“Over my dead body.” She found the thick broomstick with the broken handle. She swung it into the soldier’s shin with everything she had.
His scream punctured through the roaring burst of gunfire. Flashes of light gave her enough direction to grab for the door handle, and she and Daniel fled into the backyard. Echoing shouts and pops of bullets closed in. She hiked Daniel higher up her front, his sobs louder now. They couldn’t take her car. The cartel would have already set up roadblocks. Their only choice was the desert. Alone. Without supplies. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d meant that for Daniel or herself.
“You’re going to pay for that!” The soldier who’d cornered them in the kitchen tossed the broomstick onto the back patio. His beam scanned the opposite end of the yard, buying her and Daniel mere seconds.
Elena pried a section of chain-link fence free from the neighbor’s cinder block wall. The opening wasn’t big enough for both of them. She maneuvered Daniel through. “Go. Run, and don’t stop. Don’t look back. I’m right behind you.”
“Come with me, Lena. Come on. You can fit.” Another sob escaped him. He tugged at her hand to drag her through after him.
She shoved at him through the fence while trying to make the opening large enough to fit her, but it wouldn’t budge. “Daniel, go!”
The beam centered on her from the back door. Another burst of gunfire caused cinder block dust and chunks to rain down from above. She ducked to protect her head as though her hands could stop a bullet. “Run!”
Her brother ran.
Movement penetrated her peripheral vision. Followed by pain.
A strong hand fisted a chunk of her hair and thrust her face-first into the wall. Lightning struck behind her eyes. Her legs collapsed from beneath her, but the soldier wouldn’t let her fall. He pulled her against him. “You’ve got more fight in you than I expected. I like that. After we find your brother, I’ll come back for you.”
“No.” A wave of dizziness warped his features. She couldn’t make out anything distinctive, but his voice... She’d never forget that voice. The ground rushed up to meet her. Rocks sliced into the back of her head and arms. The shadow was moving to climb the fence as she tried to press herself upright. Daniel. He was going after Daniel. “You can’t have him.”
Her head cleared enough that she shot to her feet. She jumped the soldier as he tossed his weapon over the fence to the other side. She locked her arms around his throat and held on for dear life. She didn’t know how to fight. That didn’t matter. She’d do anything to stop these men from getting hold of her brother.
“Get off.” Those same strong hands that’d rammed her face into the wall grabbed for her T-shirt and ripped her from his back. Air lodged in her chest as she hit the ground. A fist rocketed into the side of her face, and her head snapped back. “When will you people learn? You’re not strong enough to fight us.” He grabbed her collar and hauled her upper body off the ground, ready to strike again. “We are everywhere. We are everything.”
She couldn’t stop the wracking cry escaping up her throat as she cradled one side of her face. She spread her hand into the rock-scaping her parents had put in a few years ago. Her fingers brushed the edge of a fist-sized rock. Securing it in her hand, Elena slammed it into the side of his head as hard as she could.
The soldier dropped on top of her. Tears flooded down her face as she tried to get herself under control. She shoved him off, relief and adrenaline fusing into a deadly combination. This wasn’t over. The man who’d come after her and Daniel was just one of many. There would be more soon. She had to go. “Daniel.”
Elena clawed out from beneath the man’s weight and stumbled toward the fence. She managed to squeeze through, but not without the sharp fingers of steel leaving their mark across her neck and chest. Darkness waited on the other side. No sign of movement. No sign of her brother.
She tested the sting at one corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and started jogging. Dead, expansive land stretched out in front of her. Only peppered with Joshua trees, cacti and scrub brush, the desert made it hard to tell where the sky ended and the earth began. And Daniel was out here alone.
“Lena!” His cry forced ice through her veins. Not from ahead as she’d expected. From behind. “Help me! Lena! Let me go!”
Elena turned back to the house. “No. No, no, no—No!”
Brake lights illuminated the sidewalk in front of her parents’ house enough for her to get a look at two men forcing her brother into the cargo area of a sleek, black SUV.
“Daniel!” She lunged for the fence she’d just climbed through. Her bare feet slipped in the panic to get back over as fast as possible. She was on the edge of getting to the other side when her body failed her. She fell beside the soldier she’d knocked unconscious. Pain exploded down her arm and into her ribs. It wouldn’t stop her.
Daniel’s screams died as the cargo lid closed him inside the car.
“No!” This wasn’t real. She ran as fast as her body allowed, along the side of the house and toward the front. “Daniel!”
She reached the corner of the house as the car sped away.
The butt of a gun slammed into the side of her head.
And the world went black.
CASH MEYERS GAVE a high-pitched whistle, and his Rottweiler, Bear, launched at the gunman.
Her teeth sank deep into the bastard’s arm as the woman the soldier had knocked unconscious hit the ground. A scream echoed through the night, but it was nothing compared to those he’d heard on the way in. Of pain, loss. Of fear. Fires burned out of control from at least three homes that were torched during the recruiting party. Sangre por Sangre had raided a small New Mexican town for new blood. And left nothing but devastation.
Bear brought down her target, and Cash called her off with a lower-pitched whistle. His weapon weighed heavy in his hand as he approached the gunman and took aim. “How many others?”
A low laugh was all the answer he received, but Bear’s low growl put an end to that. “Too many for you, mercenario.” Mercenary.
Cash had been called much worse, but the truth was he and the men and women of Socorro Security were the only ones stopping the cartel from gaining utter control of this area. So he’d take it as a compliment. “It’s sweet you’re concerned about me, but I’ve got Bear. Who has your back?”
Nervous energy contorted the soldier’s expression in the gleam of flames and moonlight. The man’s fingers splayed across the dark steel of his automatic rifle. An upgrade from the last time Cash had a run-in with the cartel. “You’ll need more than a dog to protect you if you kill me.”
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you.” He rammed the butt of his weapon into the soldier’s head and knocked him out cold. “You’re just not going to be happy when you wake up.”
“Steh,” he told Bear in German. She huffed confirmation as Cash tossed the soldier’s gun out of reach and turned his attention to the woman who’d run headfirst into the weapon’s stock. Her face came dangerously close to being impaled by one of the cacti, and he maneuvered her chin toward him. Scratches clawed across her neck while swelling and a split lip distorted sharp cheekbones and smooth skin. She’d fought. That much was clear. He set one hand on her shoulder and shook her. “Hey, can you hear me?”
No answer.
Hell, he should’ve hit the bastard who’d struck her harder. Or let Bear get her pound of flesh. Cash scanned the street. Sirens pierced through the roar of flames and cries. Not even Bear’s low whimper compared to the dread pooled at the base of Cash’s spine. He’d been too late. He hadn’t seen this coming, and now the people in Alpine Valley had paid the price.
Fire and Rescue rolled up to the burning house across the street. One ambulance in tow. It wasn’t enough to treat the people gathering for medical attention. Older couples holding their heads, a man calling a woman’s name, a toddler screaming in his mother’s arms.
Sangre por Sangre had ruined lives tonight.
Because of him.
“Daniel.” The woman at his feet cracked her eyes open. Flames reflected in her dark pupils a split second before she slipped back into unconsciousness.
Cash holstered his weapon. She’d taken a nasty hit to the head and then some. She needed medical attention. Now. He slid his hands beneath her thin frame, only then noting that she’d run to the front yard in nothing but a T-shirt and lounge shorts, and hauled her into his chest. “Aus.”
Bear followed close on his heels like the good companion she’d been trained to be for the Drug Enforcement Agency. With more cartels like Sangre por Sangre popping up between the states and butting up against the Mexican border, deploying K-9s like her had become standard protocol, but Bear had taken one too many concussions during her service for the agency. Always the first to respond. Always the last one to leave. She’d dedicated her life to saving lives, and in return, he’d saved her when she’d faced being put down. They had an understanding. A partnership. She was part of the team, and he wasn’t ever going to leave her behind.
Cash jogged the way he’d come and wrenched the back door of his SUV open. Bear waited for her turn as he laid the woman in his arms across the seat, then took position in the front. He hauled himself behind the steering wheel and flipped around as fast as he dared. Alpine Valley didn’t have its own hospital, and the small clinic meant to handle non-life-threatening injuries would be overrun.
Her groan practically vibrated through him from the back seat and deep into bone. “Son of a bitch...lied.”
“That seems uncalled for.” Cash barely managed to dodge a police cruiser tearing down the street with its lights and sirens on high alert. His mind raced to fill in the blanks that came with her words. She wasn’t conscious. Whatever she’d been through tonight had taken hold and wouldn’t let go. It was a defense mechanism. One part of her brain was trying to process the trauma, while the other tried to force her into action. “I’m going to get you help. Okay?”
She didn’t answer. Out cold.
Putting her in his sights with the rearview mirror, he couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of the devastation behind. It’d take all night for Fire and Rescue to get the flames under control. Cash hit the first number on his speed dial on the phone mounted to the dash. The line only rang once.
“What the hell happened, Meyers?” Jocelyn Carville, Socorro’s logistics officer, didn’t give him the chance to answer. “Because from where I’m at on the top floor, it looks like an entire town has caught fire.”
“You’re not wrong.” Cash floored the accelerator with another check in the rearview mirror. His back seat companion hadn’t moved. “I need additional fire and ambulance units in response from Canon and Ponderosa sent to Alpine Valley. What they have isn’t enough. I counted at least three homes on fire and two dozen residents injured. I’m bringing another in.”
“Wait. You’re bringing who in?” Jocelyn’s voice hitched a bit higher.
“Doesn’t matter. Can you get me the rigs or not?” he asked.
“I can have them there within thirty minutes.” He could practically hear the logistics officer jabbing her finger into the phone. “You owe me.”
“I’ll have a box of Junior Mints on your desk by morning.” Ending the call, he glanced at Bear staring at him from her position in the front seat. “What? I couldn’t just leave her there. The clinic is going to be overrun. We have a perfectly good suite at headquarters. The doc will know how to help.” She didn’t look too convinced. “Don’t give me that look. You would’ve done the same thing. Protocols be damned.”
She cut her attention out the passenger-side window. Her side of the conversation was over.
Cash carved through town. The blaze overtaking Alpine Valley had spread and gave off a glow seen for miles. Every cell in his body urged him to turn around—to do what he could to help—but he had to trust the police knew what they were doing. He turned the SUV onto a one-way dirt road that led up the mountain that overlooked the valley, pinched between two plateaus.
Socorro Security had become the Pentagon’s latest instrument in undermining and disbanding Sangre por Sangre. Their operation was smaller than most defense companies, but the private military contractors assembled under its banner were the best the United States military had to offer. Forward observers, logistics, combat control, terrorism, homicide—they did it all, and they did it for people like the woman in his back seat. To protect them against the crushing waves of cartels killing and competing for control.
The corner of the massive compound stood out from the dirt-colored mountains surrounding it. Modern, with sleek corners, bulletproof floor-to-ceiling windows, a flat roof that housed their own chopper pad and a black design that had been carved into the side of the range. The one-million-square-foot headquarters housed seven operatives in their own rooms, a fleet of SUVs, a chef’s kitchen, an oversize gym, an underground garage, a backup generator, an armory and the best security available on the market. This place had become home after his discharge from the Marine Corps. A place to land after not knowing what to do next—but it was the medical suite Cash needed now.
He dipped the head of the SUV down in the garage with a click of an overhead button and pulled up in front of the elevator doors. He hit the asphalt, Bear jumping free behind him, and rounded to the back seat.
Cash tried not to jar her head more than necessary, hugging her against him. She was still unresponsive, but her delirious name-calling earlier was a good sign she’d pull through. She wasn’t talking anymore though, and a sense of urgency simmered in his gut. He wasn’t a doctor. While he’d taken a few hits to the head throughout his service, he didn’t know anything more than the instinct to get her to a real doctor. He nodded to the elevator door’s keypad. “Tür.”
Bear pressed her front paw to the scanner, and the doors parted.
Once they were inside, a wall of cool air closed in around them as the doors secured into place. His grip automatically tightened on the woman in his arms as the elevator car shot upward. The swelling had reached its peak, but even underneath the bruising and blood, he had a proper glimpse of arched eyebrows, thick eyelashes and a perfect Cupid’s bow along her upper lip. He guessed her age somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-six. No hint of silver or gray in a black mane that must’ve reached her low back. Fit. Someone who took care of herself. Her breathing was even, deep, and accentuated her collarbone across her shoulders. She was beautiful to say the least, but that hadn’t stopped the cartel from hurting her.
Bear cocked her head at him, as though sensing he’d taken his eyes off the target. Hell. He hadn’t brought her back to headquarters for his own viewing party. She needed immediate help she wasn’t going to get back in town.
The elevator pinged, and a world of black expanded before him. The floors, the ceilings, the walls, the art. Monochrome and practical. Cash picked up his pace. He shoved through the door at the end of the hall, swung the woman onto the bed in the middle of the room and got the attention of Socorro’s only doctor, seated behind the desk at the far end.
“Hey, Doc.” Pointing to Socorro’s only visitor, he tried to contain the battle-ready tension in his voice. “I brought you something.”
