Page 8 of K-9 Guardians (New Mexico Guard Dogs #4)

The scream ripped her out of unconsciousness.

Scarlett’s heart thudded too hard in her chest as fractions of memory invaded. She sank in to the prickling numbness in her shoulder as she tried to gauge the situation without giving anything away. Until she caught sight of Hans.

The Doberman wasn’t moving. Didn’t seem to be breathing.

Instant grief burned in Scarlett’s eyes. Hot and heavy and encompassing. She was slightly comforted by the fact Gruber seemed to be giving the man at the other end of a choke chain everything he had. With any luck, her defender would get the upper hand. Two cartel soldiers had positioned themselves off to one side from what she could see through the crack in her eyelids.

Her breath lodged in her nasal cavity, forcing her to part her lips. Pain kept rhythm with the ache in her face. Munoz. He’d broken her nose. The crust of blood stuck to her face, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

A groan called to something deep and protective as she pinpointed the source of the original scream. King had been restrained. Wrists, hands. And now a blade stabbed into his lower part of his thigh. But he wasn’t the only one suffering—a third soldier tried to keep hold of a little boy struggling in his arms.

Julien?

The breath rushed out of her as a thousand different escape scenarios took shape in her mind. Each of them more unlikely than the one before, but one thing was clear. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, she’d get them out. All of them. Scarlett kept her senses trained on each threat as she worked her free hand toward the inside hem of her cargo pants. Munoz had most likely stripped her of every weapon they could find, but there was hope they hadn’t searched past the surface.

“All I need from you, Agent Elsher, is the location of Adam Dunkeld’s and Eva Roday’s investigation files.” The cartel lieutenant dragged a chair from behind an old metal desk that resembled more of a cartoon anvil than a place to get any work done, the vibration of which rumbled through her.

A forced exhale reached her ears as she waited for King’s answer. The files? All of this—the deaths of two federal agents, the kidnapping of a ten-year-old boy—for information for an off-the-books investigation. What the hell had Agents Dunkeld and Roday uncovered?

King’s groan turned into more of a growl.

“The files, Agent Elsher,” Munoz said. “Please.”

“I’ve got a little itch. On the right side of this blade.” A hardness Scarlett had never witnessed seemed to roll through King as he faced off with Munoz. “Do you mind?”

A frustrated laugh punctuated Munoz shoving to his feet. He threw his chair backward, barely missing one of the cartel soldiers stationed behind him. The lieutenant latched on to the blade and twisted it deeper into her partner’s thigh.

The sound of King’s pain etched deep into Scarlett’s memory, to the point she would hear it every time she closed her eyes. It took everything she had not to get to her feet and find another home for that blade, but she’d already failed King once tonight. She wouldn’t let it happen again. Gruber echoed King’s lament and doubled the amount of agony washing through her.

She took the opportunity of distraction to make more progress on the inside of her waistband. To the razor blade she’d sewn into the fabric there.

It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough.

“No, to the right, Munoz. I said to the right.” A half laugh, half sob contorted King’s usually even voice, shaking through him. His body wasn’t going to be able to take much more. Shock hit everyone differently, but judging by the sweat coating his entire face and neck, Scarlett bet he didn’t have much time before the laughs died. “Now everyone’s going to know you died scratching my itch.”

“I died?” Munoz’s voice didn’t reflect his amusement.

“Yes.” The tremors had settled in the past few seconds, giving her a raw look at the man holding out as long as possible to save the people he cared about. “Because no matter what you do, I’m not going to give you the location of those files, which means your bosses are going to hunt you down and cut you into tiny little pieces. And if you kill me, hurt my son or my partner, there will be nowhere for you to hide.”

Scarlett pulled at the removable stitches and opened up the small slit in the fabric of her waistband. The razor blade was inside. No bigger than half of her index finger but deadly enough in a pinch.

“That’s where we disagree, Agent Elsher.” Munoz leaned down toward King’s face, his back to Scarlett. “Because even after I get rid of your bodies, the DEA would still welcome me with open arms. They need what I know.”

“Seems you’ve thought this through.” King was struggling to breathe. Exaggerated. Short.

“I have.” Munoz, out of breath, sank down onto one knee, effectively ruining that pretty suit. Though maybe the blood stains on the right sleeve had beaten the floor to it. “Now, give me the location of the files, and I will at least let your son live.”

But not Scarlett. Not Hans or Gruber. And not King.

Short bursts of breath escaped King’s control as the dip in his brows suggested his inner fight with what might happen next. That intense gaze settled on her, and in that moment, she locked her full attention on him. And he knew. He knew that she wasn’t going to give up or give in. Scarlett pulled the razor blade free, letting the sharp ends bite into her palms. She nodded. Just a little longer. That was all she asked.

Munoz slapped the DEA agent’s face, bringing him back to the present moment. “Do it soon enough, and Julien might even walk away in one piece.”

King’s laugh hiked his smile higher. Despite the blood loss and the overall agony he must have felt, he was going to hang on. To give them a chance of escape.

“You really aren’t going to tell me, are you?” The cartel lieutenant wiped at his own brow, as though torture took more out of him than his victims.

“No.” King shook his head.

“In that case.” Munoz shoved to his feet and kicked at King’s chair. The agent tipped backward and landed with a hard thud against the cement floor. The lieutenant unsheathed a smaller blade than the one sticking out of King’s thigh. “I’ll start sending you back to the DEA one piece at a time.”

Scarlett put everything she had into rolling, throwing herself into the back of Munoz’s legs, razor blade in hand. Her Kevlar vest threatened to slow her down, but that bright spot of determination was all she had to hold on to. Munoz fell backward, slamming into the floor with his legs draped over Scarlett’s side.

She swiped the blade across the tendon in the back of one ankle. “Can’t have you following us.”

Munoz’s scream outdid King’s and called the other three soldiers to action. Only two of them were preoccupied with their captives. Julien and Gruber.

Eyes on the third soldier coming at her from across the room, Scarlett sawed through the ropes around King’s wrists, then launched herself at the attacker closing in. “Get Julien out of here!”

The soldier pulled a gleaming steel blade and arced the knife down. Scarlett ducked, feeling every strike from her previous fight bruised into her sides and face.

Her attacker overextended, putting his back to her, and she took full advantage. She kicked him down as Gruber’s growls grew louder with each passing second. She angled her back to the Doberman and the man at the end of Gruber’s leash. Dragging her belt from her waistband, she wrapped it around her left forearm as the knifeman got back on his feet.

He came at her a second time, straight to the chest. Scarlett stepped to the side, letting him slide right past her. Into the cartel member at her back. The knife hit home, and the choke chain hit the floor.

Gruber was free, and he didn’t waste a single second letting everyone in the room know about it. The Doberman launched at the knifeman as Scarlett caught the bastard’s wrist and turned his own blade on himself. Shoving back with everything she had, she cornered both soldiers. Then kicked at the knee of the soldier with the knife.

Munoz’s screamed orders were nothing compared to the crunch of bone as the knifeman collapsed. Scarlett helped herself to his blade as the man who had held Gruber rushed forward with a knife of his own. She swiped at the bright steel in his hand but won a fist to the face instead. He launched at her, blade first, but missed her rib cage and embedded the knife into a metal filing cabinet as old as the oversize desk.

Scarlett knocked him out cold with an elbow to the face, but they were running out of time. The longer they stayed in this room, the sooner they’d be surrounded. The first soldier came at her again. She landed another kick to his chest and sent him backward, but it wasn’t enough. He ran at her, and all she could think to do was tackle him to the floor. They hit as one, each struggling to get ahold of the knife in her hand.

Gruber latched on to the soldier beneath her and jerked his head back and forth to tear through clothing and flesh and anything else that might get in his way. The resulting screams triggered a high pitch in her ears as she let the Doberman keep himself occupied. Adrenaline gave her the false sense of being able to tear through anything else that got in her way. She turned to deal with the last soldier holding Julien against his will.

To see King standing over the body with his son tucked behind him. The tactical knife from his thigh was in his hand. His shoulders hitched as he tried to catch his breath. Blood and sweat combined across his skin, deepening the carved lines in his face.

Scarlett took an initial step forward, all too aware that his will to protect and defend could turn on her any second. His wound was bleeding freely. There was no way they were going to make it without an intervention. Soft whimpers escaped from the boy hiding as much of himself as possible, and she tucked the knife in her hand into her back pocket. They weren’t finished. There was an entire warehouse of cartel members standing between them and their escape. “You good?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” King headed for the items piled on the desk and shoved them back into his pockets. The last—his badge—seemed to weigh on him heavier than all of them together from around his neck. Shuffling back toward Julien, he hiked his son into his arms. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

Just before he collapsed.

H E COULDN ’ T FEEL his leg.

King tried to get a hold on his vision as a blurred shape rushed toward him. Everything seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. Munoz clawed across the floor like the snake he was, blood trailing behind him in long streaks.

But it was the woman running for him with a dog draped over her shoulder that held King’s attention. Her features remained out of focus until she was fisting one hand in his shirt and hauling him to his feet. There was no mistaking her for his partner. Or what she’d done to try to get them out of here alive.

“Scarlett.” Her name was strangled in his mouth.

Gruber lunged for Munoz and took the son of a bitch straight back to the floor. King struggled to shift his weight onto his good leg as Scarlett reached for his son’s hand. The boy kicked and punched with everything he had, but the security operator took every hit with hesitation. She yelled something at King, running for the door.

And all he could do was follow. Because she was carrying them. All of them. Hans, Julien, him. With her strength. With her determination, and he couldn’t help but want to stay close. She was aggressive and rational and passionate. She was everything he needed as King forced himself to take that first step, and she was the one who was going to get them out of here alive.

King maneuvered around Munoz, who was still trying to claw toward the door. Bloody hands locked around his ankle and threatened to pull him down, but Scarlett had already gotten his son out the door with Gruber on her heels. King would do whatever it took to make sure they left together. Leg be damned.

Munoz’s mouth formed words drowned out by the hard pounding of King’s heart. The bastard’s fingernails dug through the fabric of King’s pants and bit into skin. “Not...over.”

“Yeah, it is.” King shucked the lieutenant’s hold and lunged out the door, both hands on the frame for support. His leg was dead. No telling how bad the damage was, but it didn’t look good. Didn’t feel good, either, but it was nothing compared with the alternative. His son would not witness King’s murder by the same drug cartel that had sentenced his mother to death. Julien had suffered enough. King would take a stab wound any day.

Full-blown chaos exploded from every corner of the warehouse as their escape party left the safety of the office. Scarlett forged on up ahead, leading them to cover behind a row of boxes that wouldn’t hold up against a hail of bullets for long. Julien jerked out of her hold, and she couldn’t get him back, surveying the fight in front of them.

His son bolted out into the open. Terrified. Confused. With no place left to go.

King had no choice other than to set weight on his bad leg to catch the ten-year-old around the middle as he ran past. A scream ripped up the kid’s throat and tore King’s last remaining strength from him. No one should ever have to hear a scream like that. Dragging Julien into the nearest aisle, he set his son’s back against his chest as bullets impacted the wall in front of them. King covered Julien’s forehead with his hand, setting the kid’s head against his chest. “It’s okay. I’ve got you, Julien. I’ve got you. Do what I’m doing. Just breathe, buddy. Follow what I’m doing.”

It was the same thing he told Julien every time the nightmares came for his son. The same comforting hold that kept the ten-year-old from hurting himself or others. And it was all King could do now.

Scarlett chanced a glance toward them, exposing the situation in her expression. They were out of options.

The realization hit harder than getting the news about Eva or the call about Adam. Because this wasn’t a bunch of operatives that’d been thrown together in the name of public safety. The men and women he served with had signed on to risk their lives for the greater good, and as much as King would give his own life to save any one of them, this was his son at risk now. The only person he had left to care about in his world.

“That’s right. Breathe like me, and soon it will all be over.” He kissed Julien on the crown of his head. “We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to go home. I just need you to be brave for a little longer. Okay?”

Julien’s grip left half-moon impressions in King’s hand, as though the boy had marked him as his own. His son nodded.

Blood seeped from his wound and settled beneath his leg in a pool that got stickier and thicker by the second. The knife hadn’t penetrated all the way through, but it’d done a hell of a job on the way in. King was bleeding out. Slowly. Minute by minute. And the harder he pushed himself, the sooner he’d have to let Julien go.

Scarlett’s gaze dipped to his leg, then back to his face. Understanding seemed to hit as they sat there warding off bullets.

“You’re doing great, buddy.” King tried repositioning the bad leg, but the damn thing wouldn’t move. Not an inch. The pressure in his chest reached an all-time high. No matter how hard King had fought to be the father Julien deserved, he wasn’t going to make it out of this. Wasn’t going to be there for his son. Not like he’d come to hope. “Now, you see that pretty lady with the dogs? Her name is Scarlett. She’s the one giving the orders. I need you to do everything she says. She’s going to make sure you’re safe.”

Scarlett let Hans slide down to the floor—gently. She kept low as she came to sit by King and Julien, her mouth trying for a smile as the world around them threatened to collapse. “Do you like dogs, Julien?”

His son nodded, though from the angle of his head, King bet the kid wasn’t looking at her. And he wouldn’t. Not until he started trusting her. It was only in the past couple weeks, King had gotten the pleasure of his son’s eye contact. It’d meant so much then. More so now.

“This is Gruber. Funny name, huh?” Scarlett tucked the Doberman into her side and planted a kiss behind the dog’s ear. “Would you like to pet him? He likes scratches behind his ears.”

Julien reached forward, and King couldn’t help but memorize this moment. Where the three of them had somehow created a solid bubble between them and the evil that waited on the other side of these shelves. His son massaged behind Gruber’s ears, and the K9 flicked a long pink tongue against Julien’s wrist.

“Aren’t you lucky? That means he likes you.” Scarlett locked her gaze on King. Neither of them wanted to say it, but leaving the truth unsaid didn’t make it untrue. King wasn’t leaving this warehouse. Not as long as he couldn’t control this bleeding. Which meant he had to trust her to keep her word. She had to get Julien out alone. Scarlett turned her attention back to his son. “And because he likes you, he’s going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe. So am I. Okay? No matter what. I promise.” She extended her hand. Waiting.

And Julien took it. Which was a miracle in and of itself. King couldn’t remember a single time his son had reached out like that. Not since he’d come to live with King. It was just one more piece of evidence of Scarlett’s effect on people.

She brought the boy to his feet as she stood.

But Julien hung on to King’s other hand, unwilling to let go.

Tears burned in King’s eyes. This wasn’t like dropping Julien off at school every day, worried something would happen that King couldn’t fix. This was goodbye. And damn it, he wasn’t ready. “It’s all right, buddy. You’ve got your very own personal guard dog. Cool, huh? And Scarlett here is going to make sure no one can hurt you again. You go with them. I’ll be right behind you.”

He’d never lied to his son before, and it didn’t sit well now, but King couldn’t destroy this boy’s world all over again. King kissed Julien’s hand, giving it a small shake. “It’s going to be scary, but you’ve got this. You’re amazing and brave and as stubborn as they come.” King was losing it. Going right over the edge of being able to let go. “Go on now. Before you know it, we’ll be back at home in our own beds with a big bowl of popcorn and your favorite movie.”

Shouts grew louder. Closer.

They were out of time together.

Julien fell into King’s arms, squeezing harder than ever before, and King’s heart hitched in his chest. Just before his son pulled away. One hand on Gruber’s collar, the boy kept close to Scarlett as she backed herself toward the end of the aisle. That brilliant gaze cut through him.

“I’ll protect him. I promise,” she said.

“I know you will.” In the short time they’d partnered together, he’d learned that was the kind of woman she was. A woman of her word.

King watched as they got to the end of the aisle. Scarlett bent down, gathering Hans into her side, and whispered something to Julien, who nodded before taking her hand.

“I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” King said.

His son turned back to look at him one last time. Just as he’d imagined his mom had done when she’d slipped free of his bedroom all those years ago. Hell, King couldn’t help but see her in that boy’s face.

“I love you, Julien. Don’t ever forget that.” King didn’t care if the cartel heard him. All he had to do was give Scarlett and Julien and Gruber a chance to escape.

Julien didn’t answer. But King saw it there. The softening, the glisten of tears. His son loved him, too. In his own way and in his own time.

Two months wasn’t enough for King. Wouldn’t ever be enough, but he sure as hell appreciated the time they had together in the last few minutes of his life.

Scarlett led Julien out of sight, Gruber taking his job seriously at his son’s side. And they were gone. Leaving King to fight off Sangre por Sangre alone.

The door to the office swung open, one of Munoz’s men dead center in the frame. Gun raised and aimed.

But King wasn’t going out on their terms. Just as he would bet Eva and Adam hadn’t. The last reserves of adrenaline dumped into his veins.

King was on his feet.

He lunged.

And tackled the cartel soldier a split second before the gun went off.