Page 18 of K-9 Confidential

Two gunshots echoed through trees over the roar on encroaching flames.

Granger loosened his hold on Henry Acker.“Charlie.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The bullet ripped across the side of her calf.

Charlie hit the ground short of the next cover of trees. Pain seared through her leg until she wasn’t sure she’d be able to take her next breath. It was too much. Almost debilitating. But the thought of giving in to a cartel’s demands when she’d fought to escape a life of control and punishment was stronger.

She dug her fingernails into the dirt ahead of her and pulled. Physical strength was a necessity of being a soldier of Acker’s Army. No matter the situation, her father wouldn’t have accepted anything less than her best at all times. Her training had started when she’d just been five years old, and it hadn’t let up until she’d run the night of the pipeline explosion. Years of drills and weights gave her the strength to army crawl from her attacker as he advanced.

Only she wasn’t fast enough.

A foot pressed down on her wound.

The resulting scream exploded through the trees and echoed back to her. Loud enough to scrub the back of her throat raw. White lights lit up behind her eyelids, brighter than the fire burning ever closer.

“I’m beginning to think you are unappreciative of my offer, though I do appreciate the challenge you’ve presented me tonight.” That same smoky voice that had tried to convince her to trust him was back. Edging underneath her armor, chasing back the pain in her leg. “Just for that, I’ll personally make sure your father suffers before I kill him.”

“Touch him, and it will be the last thing you ever do.” The words hissed through clenched teeth as she fed into an anger she hadn’t let herself fall victim to in a long time. Because there was a difference between Henry Acker serving a prison sentence for the lives he’d destroyed through his attacks on government property and someone killing him to punish her. “I give you my word, and if you know anything about me and the way I was raised, you know I mean that.”

His laugh attempted to disregard her threat as nothing more than a temper tantrum. The weight of his foot disappeared. Strong hands wrenched her arm behind her, forcing her to turn onto her back if she didn’t want to dislocate her shoulder. He stared down at her, his features clearer now that she’d gotten some distance from the fire. Sharp ears stood out from a pristine haircut that fanned over his forehead. Sweat had glued his dark hair around his temples and hairline, but it was his eyes she paid attention to. Softer than expected. Lighter too. A thin layer of facial hair spread from his sideburns down along his jaw, giving him a younger appearance. This wasn’t a hardened soldier of a drug cartel, and yet he carried himself and spoke with far more authority than the soldiers in her father’s army would dare. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you? Who I am or what I’ve done to people standing in the way of what I want?”

Charlie brought her head off the ground in an attempt to make her point clear. “All I know is, right now,youare the man standing in my way.”

Bullet be damned, she brought both legs up and wrapped them around his waist. In a move her father would be proud to see, Charlie hauled her attacker off to one side. She slammed his body into the ground and rolled on top of him. Adrenaline gave her a burst of fight as she rocketed her fist into his face. Once. Twice.

Blood spattered as bone crunched beneath her knuckles. His head snapped back, but not hard enough to knock him unconscious. Her attacker caught her third strike and twisted her arm in the wrong direction.

Her holler filled the trees around them, and she was forced to follow the arc of her arm. Charlie hit the ground, but she wouldn’t let him get the upper hand. She rolled with everything she had as he struggled to pin her down. Dirt and ash drove into her mouth with every breath. Her leg screamed in protest, but she couldn’t stop fighting. She shoved to all fours and tested her weight on her injured leg.

A third bullet pulverized the tree bark to her left. Her nerves shot into overdrive. Charlie froze, her hands over her head as though they could do anything to stop a bullet from killing her. There was no cover to hide behind. Nowhere she could run this time.

“My plan was to let you walk out of here on your own with me, Charlie, but it’s not your legs I’m interested in. I just need that beautiful mind of yours, and my patience is wearing thin.” Her attacker shifted his aim from the tree. To her. “I’ve given you plenty of chances to come to your senses, and I’m done playing nice. Now stand. We have work to do.”

“You’re making a mistake.” Adrenaline drained from her veins—faster than she expected. She felt its loss as though the earth’s gravity had somehow intensified over the past minute. Charlie braced herself against the tree at her back. There was no way for her to hold her own weight. No way she was getting out of this on her own. She pulled out the knife she’d taken back from him and flipped the blade open. The one her father had given her on her twelfth birthday after she’s won a fight against four boys her age. It’d been a training test. To prove she could overcome, and it’d gotten her to this point. A blade this size wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it would keep her going. Keep her fighting. Because she deserved the life she’d created for herself, and no one—not even a drug cartel—was going to take that away from her. “Whatever you want from me, whatever you think you can force me to do for your organization…it won’t work. I’ve spent my entire life being told what to do, and I’m stronger than you think I am.”

A bark preceded the charge of the overweight bull terrier.

The gunman’s attention cut to the K9 lunging at him from the right.

And Charlie had her chance. “Zeus!”

She summoned what was left of her adrenaline and shoved to her feet. Zeus bit into the cartel soldier’s forearm and pulled the son of a bitch down. His body and his gun hit the ground as his scream exploded through the clearing. Charlie dove for the weapon.

He knocked it out of her reach as he fought off the dog with a bellow that outmatched hers. The gun disappeared into the bushes. Out of sight. Blood seeped from the wound in her leg. Unstoppable and pounding.

Her attacker unholstered his own blade, arching it down toward the determined bull terrier.

“No!” She didn’t have any other choice. Charlie wrenched his arm back, trying to get a hold of the weapon. The blade sliced into her palm, but she didn’t have the sense to get clear. Not as long as Granger’s partner was in danger. “Zeus!”

The K9 released his target. The sense of relief flooding through her was short lived as a fist slammed into her face.

The momentum and pain knocked her backward. Her leg threatened to collapse right out from underneath her. She fisted both hands together and brought them down on the soldier’s arm. Swiping her own blade toward his chest, she overcorrected as he dodged her attempt. Charlie made up for her imbalance and aimed for his gut.

He caught her hand an inch from the tip of her blade meeting the soft tissue of his stomach. Then slammed his head into her face. A strong right hook followed and threw her off balance. Images of that fight—of her facing off with four boys her age—threatened to superimpose on her current reality. She’d taken more than her share of strikes, but this…this was different. Back then, her father would’ve stepped in if things had gone too far. Now she was on her own. And she was losing.

Charlie’s leg failed, and she dropped to her knees, her back to her attacker. He moved in, but she wasn’t finished. Locking her arm, she rotated with the blade aimed backward. Only it didn’t reach its target.

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