Page 25 of Always Been Mine (Always #2)

Gabe cursed the car that pulled into a parking spot closer to his house.

Thankfully, there was no vehicle behind him, so he backed up to another space a couple of cars down.

Exiting his Chevy Silverado, he collected the grocery bags, bumped the door close, and bleeped the locks.

Balancing the bags, he took a leisurely pace to his home.

When he turned on his street, he grew alarmed to see a crowd gathering right in front of his house and a smear of red on the pavement.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gabe demanded, shouldering past the throng. What he saw brought him to his knees. He dropped the bags.

Rhino was bloodied, panting hard, and whining softly.

“Buddy?” Gabe whispered, checking quickly for the source of the bleeding.

“He crawled home,” a person in the crowd said. “Some of us tried to help him, but he was growling and snapping at us.”

Gabe found the wound near the neck.

One of the spectators shoved a roll of gauze in front of his face. “Here. I ran home and grabbed this.” Gabe recognized his neighbor next door .

Recovering from the shock of seeing his dog bleeding out on his front stoop, the implication hit him like a ton of bricks.

Beatrice!

While working first aid on Rhino, Gabe asked. “Did anyone see a redhead?”

Everyone started speaking simultaneously. Frustrated, Gabe decided to finish treating Rhino before interrogating any witnesses. When he lifted him, Rhino tried to fight the movement and cried in distress.

“Easy, boy,” Gabe fought the heart-rending emotion of seeing his dog injured. He lifted a chin to the nearest person. “Did you see what went down?”

“Yes, I—”

“Come with me,” Gabe ordered. He wended his way through the assembly, which parted easily before him. “Tell me everything. How many? What car.”

As the details of what happened were revealed, Gabe tried to quell the rising panic in his chest. Beatrice was rendered unconscious and dumped into a white van.

There were three men wearing ski-masks—one would be sporting a dog bite on his right arm.

Gabe thanked the man for the information and loaded Rhino in the vehicle.

Police cruisers turned into the neighborhood, but Gabe had no time to talk to them.

Pulling up emergency veterinary hospitals from his phone, he was relieved that there was one a couple of blocks over. Afterward he called Travis.

“Blake.”

“Travis, it’s Gabe.”

“What do you want?”

“Cut the hostility, Lieutenant,” Gabe snapped. “Beatrice was taken. They shot my dog, and I’m on my way to the emergency vet.”

There was a muffled curse before Travis said, “What can I do?”

“I need you to scope out my neighborhood. The cops just got here. Get them to back off. Find out more from witnesses if you can.” Gabe dictated his address as well as the intersection where Beatrice was nabbed. “See if you can gain access to traffic cams.”

“Porter should have it.”

“He’s been off the grid for almost two months. But I’m calling him next.”

“Gotcha. Anything else?”

“Hurry, Blake.”

“Will do.”

Gabe punched the admiral’s number. It went straight to voicemail.

That son of a bitch . “Porter, you better be dead or dying. I couldn’t raise you for weeks.

Your daughter almost died, and you couldn’t even fucking show up.

Well, now they’ve taken her, you hear me?

They’ve. Taken. Her. Got your attention yet, Admiral?

Just”—Gabe didn’t know what else to say—“thought you should know.”

He put the phone away and looked over to Rhino, who was whining softly. “Hang in there, buddy. We’re almost there.” His dog did not survive an IED blast only to be cut down by a sorry-ass schmuck’s bullet.

He was innervated with rage so powerful he had to grip the steering wheel tightly to keep from punching the dashboard. His vision blurred, and the sound of cars got louder. He willed his heart rate and breathing to even out.

His woman. Taken.

His dog. Shot.

The past six months were a struggle to define his place in normal society. But maybe he shouldn’t fight who he really was, because that person from the past was the person needed to fight this unknown enemy.

The people who took Beatrice knew him, but they had forgotten what he could become.

A stone cold killer.

It was a waiting game.

Waiting for the emergency vet to tell him if Rhino would live or die.

Waiting for Travis to call him back with a clue to find Beatrice.

Waiting.

Gabe hated feeling helpless. He hated how things were out of his hands and out of his control.

He had been on the phone with Travis, desperate to join the search for Beatrice, but the need to know that Rhino was okay was his brain’s way of managing his emotions in order to get centered.

Travis further set him straight. “Gabe you need to let us handle this.

You are in no shape to do the investigation objectively.

I'm not saying Nate and I are any better given our friendship with Bee, but you don't have your head on straight right now. Do you remember back with the SEALs, before we headed out on a mission, our minds needed to be clear? We needed to be square?”

“Yes,” Gabe bit off.

“Same rule applies here. You’re emotionally compromised. You need to get a grip on your shit, or you’re going to hinder rather than help find Beatrice. You have to back off. We got this.”

His attention returned to the present when a female veterinarian dressed in blue scrubs opened the door to the reception area.

“Mr. Sullivan?” the vet addressed him. He had met her earlier when he brought Rhino in and his dog was admitted for immediate surgery.

“How is he?” His voice was gruff.

“He’s stable. You did good administering the first aid.” The vet’s voice and face were grim, belying the good news. “How did Rhino get shot?”

“I didn’t shoot him, if that’s what you’re implying,” Gabe responded. “That matter is under investigation. I don’t have any details.”

“Fair enough. I do need to report incidents of animal abuse.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you need to report,” Gabe snapped. “All I give a fuck about is my dog.”

Exhaling deeply, the vet said, “There was an exit wound above the scapula. To be sure, we did an x-ray and there were no signs of the bullet. There were some bone fragments we had to clean up.”

“Will he make a full recovery?”

“I’m optimistic, but it will be slow because of his age and there might be occasional pain for the rest of his life.”

Gabe nodded.

“We would like to keep him overnight for observation.” The vet scanned through Rhino’s chart. “He’s partially deaf and blind?”

“He was a military dog. Got caught in an IED blast.”

The vet’s face softened. “You have a tough boy, Mr. Sullivan.”

A lump lodged in Gabe’s throat. “Can I see him?”

“Sure. He’s heavily sedated though, but we’ve moved him into recovery.”

The vet nodded for him to follow her through the door.

A long stretch of hallway with smaller rooms on either side led to a sprawling facility with glass walls. Monitoring equipment was grouped around several surgical tables. Toward one corner were two additional glass-paned operating theaters, while another corner were sections separated by curtains.

A veterinary technician was laying Rhino on a table .

“We need to monitor his blood pressure and other vitals throughout the night,” the vet said.

A section of his fur was shaved above his shoulder, revealing the stitches holding together battered flesh. Gabe let the vet-tech finish getting Rhino settled in before he stepped close to the table.

“Take your time.” The vet drew the curtains closed.

His fingers gently threaded through Rhino’s fur.

Gabe couldn’t believe in such a short time this creature had come to mean so much to him.

His dog courageously protected the woman he loved.

Gabe didn’t know how he deserved such loyalty and selfless love that Rhino had shown him.

During the early days of his transition back to a normal life, Gabe would sit on the floor against the wall with his head on his linked arms resting on his knees as images of what he had seen and done haunted him.

Rhino would poke his muzzle through his arms to rest his cold nose on his cheek, forcing Gabe to pet him.

His dog wouldn’t let him wallow in his darkness.

Rhino knew what he needed. Amazing what a simple connection could do, bring a human back from fucked-up man-made misery to experience the basic reason for being—love without exception, given without personal gain, selfless and innocent.

Gabe scratched behind Rhino’s ears. “You did good, soldier.” He absolutely did, in more ways than one.

Gabe drove back to his neighborhood thirty minutes later. Travis called to inform him they had retrieved the bullet that had struck Rhino. Travis also acquired street surveillance footage of the abduction.

Pulling his truck right in front of his house, he watched Nate and Travis exit a black Escalade a couple of cars up. Gabe cut off the engine and got out of his vehicle. His eyes took in the trail of blood still visible on the pavement .

The two men jogged up to him.

“Hey,” Nate said. For the first time since Gabe had met the man there was no challenge or animosity in his eyes. Instead, there was sympathy and concern. “Sorry your dog got hurt, but I’m glad he’s fine.”

Gabe gave a slight nod. “Did the cops give you guys a hard time?”

“I know their chief of police and had them back off. They can’t sweep this under the rug forever, so if none of the alphabet agencies take over, they may come back to question you. BSI can take over the case if we can establish what happened to Beatrice impacts the security of our client.”

“Thanks for all you’ve done, man.”

Travis clapped one hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Gabe, I know we haven’t seen eye to eye since you came back, but Bee missing, trumps all the bullshit between us. We want her back as much as you do.”