Page 26 of K-9 Confidential

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She tasted justas he remembered. No. Even better.

It almost felt wrong to take advantage of her physical state right now, but the time without her—the past ten years, and the devastating hour during which she’d been taken—was about to destroy him. The only solution was this. This moment. This connection they’d lost themselves in once before. It’d been the only thing that’d grounded him the night of the Alamo pipeline explosion. That’d kept him from losing his mind, and he had the chance to feel that again. With her.

He couldn’t fix what’d gone wrong in their lives. He wanted to. With every cell in his body, he wanted to make it so she wasn’t in pain, so she didn’t have this invisible target on her back. Maybe if he’d followed his gut and reached out the night of the attack, despite their agreement to keep their distance, he could’ve prevented all of this from happening. He could’ve protected her, and she wouldn’t have gone through what she had tonight. She wouldn’t have had to be alone these past ten years.

Instead, they were sharing a desperate kiss he couldn’t seem to break. And she was kissing him back, pulling him deeper into an endless well of need he wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to escape. Damn it, if he were being honest with himself, he didn’t want to. Because this, right here, was his version of heaven. Free of fear, free of the weight of loss and loneliness. They deserved this. A small freedom from the terror that waited outside these walls, and suddenly, she was all there was, and Granger never wanted this moment to end, like so many others had.

They’d survived. Together. He’d lived despite every obstacle in their way. For this moment. For this woman. In this room, he no longer felt invincible as he had in the field, but very, very human. Alive. As though he’d just regained feeling that had been lost since the night she’d disappeared. Like he’d been waiting to breathe all this time.

Charlie speared battered hands through his hair, holding him in place, mirroring his need to hold her as close as possible. Her exhale shook through her, uncontrolled, caged. She broke the kiss and set her forehead against his. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” Whatever happened after this didn’t matter. Because this moment was perfect. It was theirs, and nothing in the world could take that from them. They weren’t their pasts. The future didn’t exist yet. He just needed to be here. “You have no idea how much.”

Charlie bit down on her bottom lip then flinched against the pain of the split. “If you feel anything like I do right now, I think I might have some idea.”

A throat cleared from near the door. “Perhaps you should wait before you start undressing each other.” Ivy Bardot stood tall, chin parallel to the floor, as she waited for them to separate.

His chest felt as though it would break apart if he released his hold on Charlie. Granger peeled his hand from her arm, instantly aware of the empty sensation forging through him. He added a bit of distance between them but didn’t bother removing himself from the bed. “You need me?”

“I wouldn’t be interrupting your reunion if this weren’t important.” Socorro’s founder didn’t wait for an answer as she turned on her impossibly high heels and wrenched the door open before stepping into the hallway.

“I’ll be right back.” He needed Charlie to know that. That he wasn’t going anywhere. That he would fight for her all over again. Granger pressed a kiss to her forehead. Though not for her reassurance. For his. Then he followed Ivy out. “I requested twenty-four hours off the clock. Last time I checked, I’m not on duty.”

“Henry Acker isn’t talking,” Ivy said.

“He taught everyone in his backward army to hold up against interrogation. Charlie included.” He nodded through the window looking into Charlie’s recovery room. “From what I understand, he’s damn good at it too. Stands to reason he’d use the same techniques in case of capture.”

“Let me rephrase that.” Ivy turned to face him, seemingly watching for every change in his expression, every unintentional tick. “Henry Acker won’t talk to anyone but his daughter.”

His gut hollowed as the events of the past twelve hours carved through his brain. “Charlie has been through hell because of that man. There’s no way I’m going to make her face him after what she’s gone through. He can sit in the interrogation room as long as it takes to get to him to open up. I’m not putting her recovery at risk.”

“Is that really up to you?” Ivy cut her attention to the window, watching the woman on the other side. “You care about her, that much is clear. But Henry Acker knows details aboutSangre por Sangre’s plans. There’s a chance he’s the only one who knows, and we need that information if we’re going to carry out our mission here.”

“You want me to use her to get to him.” A sick feeling knotted in his gut as the past threatened to overtake the present. Charlie had just come back into his life. He couldn’t risk losing her again. “I did that once, Ivy. I turned her into a CI who started working against the very people who’d raised her, and I lost her for ten years. How can you ask me to do that to her again?”

“I’m not askingyou.” Ivy kept her voice even. No emotion. Nothing but logic. “I’m asking her to the make the choice. The same choice you gave her all those years ago.”

“I shouldn’t have recruited her in the first place. If I hadn’t, maybe none of this would be happening now,” he said.

“Or maybe it would, and we wouldn’t have a way to stop this attack. This game we’re playing can’t be won with what-ifs.” Ivy crossed her arms. “I know what you’re thinking, Granger. I know how important she is to you, but you have to remember what’s at stake here. We have nothing but a set of charred blueprints of the state capitol with notes we can’t decipher. Without Henry Acker’s statement concerning the cartel’s motives, we are operating blind. Everything we’ve done these past two years—everyone’s lives that were lost in this fight to bring down the cartel—will be for nothing if we letSangre por Sangreregain even an inch of ground. We’ve come so close, and I can’t let us lose now. There’s too much at risk. You have your orders.”

Ivy’s footsteps echoed off the black tile mazing through every square foot of this place.

“You mean our source inside the cartel is at risk.” Granger didn’t bother facing her. The click of her heels had stopped. He had never stood up to Socorro’s founder before, but there was a piece of him that knew he could’ve protected Charlie better had he had the guts to stand up to his supervisory agent at Homeland. No one above him would sign off on labeling her as his CI. Too much of a risk. No matter how many times he’d tried to push the paperwork through, they denied him. So he’d done what he’d had to to convince her she was protected, that the government would have her back in case anything went sideways. He’d taken the risk on personally, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. And in the end, he’d failed her. “That’s what this is about for you, isn’t it? Getting him out alive?”

Ivy didn’t have an answer for that.

Granger turned, leaning against the window for support. His entire future seemed to balance on the edge of a blade. Tip one way and he and Charlie could make up the time they’d lost. Could start the life they’d always talked about together. Tip the other and his future with Socorro was secure. He’d continue his role as counterterrorism agent fighting the country’s deadliest drug cartel and keep lives from being destroyed. But he couldn’t have both. Not anymore.

“You didn’t think I would do my own digging when I signed on with Socorro?” He’d done his homework on every operative under the Socorro umbrella. Cash and his determination to hide his brother’s corruption from the DEA, Jocelyn and her drug addiction, Jones with his involvement in bringing down a state senator and Scarlett with her involvement in a military smuggling operation. He’d backed all of them up when they’d needed him, despite their dirty pasts and what had led them here, and now Socorro was going to make him choose between them and a woman he’d sworn to protect? Hell no.

“I know who your inside source is, Ivy. I know what he means to you, and that the only reason you’re fighting this hard for closure is to get him out from underSangre por Sangre’s control.” Tendrils of resentment twisted in his chest.

“I would consider the next words out of your mouth very carefully, Morais.” The investigator she’d once been—the one who refused to stop despite direct orders from her superiors, the concerns of her partner and the cost of her family—shifted back into place. “Because the only reason we knew about the cartel’s interest in Charlie Acker is because of that source. Do you really want to put his life at risk for a woman who cost you your job with Homeland Security?”

She was right. If Socorro hadn’t gotten to Charlie first, based off that intel, she’d be dead right now. He had no doubt about that. The fight drained out of him. Whether due to exhaustion or logic, Granger didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted to protect the one thing in this world that made him feel needed. Human. “No. I want to know if you would be willing to ask the same thing of him that you’re asking of Charlie.”

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