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

The shot punctured through the rhythmic pounding of her feet and Gruber’s nails against the asphalt. Every cell in Scarlett’s body knew the source, and instinctively she slowed their escape. Hans’s weight nearly pulled her to the ground.

A hundred feet. That was all that stood between them and the SUV, but the need to go back—to pull King out—gutted her. But she couldn’t turn back. She’d given him her word she would get Julien out, and there was no way she’d put his little life at risk. Not now. “Almost there.”

Midnight air sucked the sweat off her skin and from beneath her gear. She picked up the pace. Julien was breathing hard to keep up, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered. Scarlett remote-started the car. “Get in.”

No other gunshots came from inside the warehouse. Nothing to suggest the cartel was still fighting off the threat that had penetrated their walls. Which meant...

No. She didn’t want to think about that.

She helped Julien into the back seat and fastened his seat belt. She had to keep her word. Rounding to the cargo area, she laid Hans—still breathing—across the carpeted space as Gruber jumped inside to settle down next to his sister. Any second Munoz would order his men to expand the search area. They’d be found. They had to leave. Now.

But Scarlett couldn’t help but slow when she caught sight of Julien with his hand pressed against the window. Waiting for King to be right behind them as he’d promised. Why was it people always said that? I’ll be right behind you. Knowing the circumstances would force them to lie?

She followed Julien’s line of sight to the side door of the warehouse that nearly blended in with the metal sheeting. All but for a single overhead light outlining the exit. Two seconds. Three.

King wasn’t coming through that door.

He wasn’t going to be able to keep his promise.

Unless she helped him.

Scarlett collected the remaining ammunition and her backup pistol from the cargo area, her mind made up. Gruber would kill anyone who tried to get into this vehicle. She reached for the Doberman, sliding her thumb across his head. “Pass auf.” Stand alert.

Setting her palm against Hans’s rib cage, Scarlett took in the K9’s heat to settle the nerves trying to win out over her determination. “Take care of them. Okay?” She grabbed for the steel Hux tool all Socorro operatives carried to get through push bar doors in case of emergency. Two wedged prongs would create a gap between the locking mechanism and the frame while the solid length of the tool gave her leverage to pry it open from the outside. Not entirely legal. But useful.

“Julien, I want you to stay in the SUV. No matter what happens, don’t open this car door for anyone but me. Okay? I’m going to get your dad. I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. King didn’t have that kind of time. She slammed the cargo area closed and locked the running vehicle. Couldn’t have the state taking Julien from her because she’d left him in a hot locked car. The air conditioning would keep him cool enough. Scarlett tucked the tool beneath her arm as she loaded a fresh magazine into her weapon and faced off with the warehouse, every nerve in her body on fire.

She moved fast, closing the distance between her and the exit. Couldn’t go back the same way they’d gone in before. Munoz and the rest of the cartel were already on alert. She leveraged her shoulder against the metal sheeting of the warehouse, the absorbed heat of the day working bone-deep.

She glanced back at the SUV, imagining Julien watching her through the heavily tinted bulletproof glass. She could do this. She had to do this. For that boy. And for King.

Holstering her weapon, Scarlett angled away from the building and inserted the Hux tool between the door latch and the frame. A gap in the frame increased with every pull. Until the door snapped free altogether. She slid the tool along her forearm. Bracing herself for what came next. Aches pulsed in her face from the last time she’d squared off with the soldiers on the other side of this door, but it wasn’t going to stop her now.

Scarlett breached into quiet. As though the entire warehouse were waiting for her to come in far enough so they could jump out and yell, Surprise! But there wasn’t going to be cake at the end of this party.

She kept her back pressed against the nearest shelf, moving slower than she wanted to. Taking in every change around her. Where was King?

Movement caught in her peripheral vision from a gap between shelves in the aisle off to her right. Coming straight at her if she didn’t move fast. Forcing her legs to pick up the pace, she jogged to meet the soldier leading with an assault rifle aimed level for anyone who got in his way.

Scarlett’s knees protested as she crouched. One bullet would end this for all of them. She had to stay alive. Work smarter, not harder.

Wire shelves bit into the sensitive skin at the back of her neck as she waited. The soldier’s boot crossed into the aisle.

Scarlett let the air out of her chest. And swung up with everything she had. The Hux knocked the rifle straight up, and a spray of bullets exploded into the ceiling. Like fireworks. Though this wasn’t as pretty.

The soldier shoved her off.

She hit the floor and rolled, pulling her sidearm in the process. “Where is Agent Elsher?”

A low laugh and incredibly crooked teeth made dread pool at the base of her spine. Seemed this soldier liked to partake of the cartel’s supply. He pulled an oversize blade from his back, swaying it back and forth in front of her. “You know the twenty-one-foot rule?”

Twenty-one feet. It wasn’t as much as civilians might assume, but the rule was simple enough. Would she be able to get a shot off before he stabbed that blade through her? “I work for a security company. I’m pretty sure they taught that on the first day.”

A gunshot exploded from behind the soldier, and his expression deadened right before her eyes. He collapsed to his knees. The blade pinged off the cement just before he fell face first. Revealing King standing behind him, weapon raised.

Sweat and blood and exhaustion clung to every inch of him as King’s gun hand fell to his side. “You’re not...supposed to be here.”

Scarlett collected the discarded assault rifle from the floor, running to meet him. Another round of shouts told her there were more cartel members on the way. It was a big warehouse. No way to tell how many members were inside, but she didn’t want to wait around to find out.

Slinging the weapon around her chest, she tucked herself underneath his left arm to keep King from eating the floor against his will. “I came to make sure you keep your promise to that kid.”

“Where’s Julien?” Two words made his priorities clear, and she had to admire that. He hadn’t just taken on caring for a ten-year-old because a social worker and society expected him to step up as a father. He’d done it out of love. Raw, undying love for someone he barely knew.

“Safe. Come on. We need to get you out of here before you bleed out all over.” She took the majority of his weight, in addition to her Kevlar and the rest of her gear. Her legs screamed for relief, but she’d trained and operated under worse circumstances. This was just a warm-up.

“Do me a favor.” King shuffled forward at her lead.

“I’m kind of in the middle of the last favor you asked of me.” She swung the rifle up as they passed each aisle on the way back to her entry point. “Not really sure I can take on much more at the moment. You know, facing off with a bunch of armed sociopaths and all.”

King forced her to a halt. Pain and something along the lines of death infiltrated his expression. He swayed on his feet. Any second now, he wouldn’t have the strength to stay upright. Hell, it was a miracle he’d gotten this far. “Tell Julien I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him the way he deserved.”

Air lodged in her throat. Scarlett strengthened her grip on his T-shirt. “You’re going to tell him yourself.” She moved them forward. Fifty feet. Forty. They were almost there. She could see the outline of the door ahead. They were going to make it.

A gunshot exploded from behind them.

Searing pain thudded through her midback and shoved her forward. King lost his hold on her, and they hit the floor in a tangled heap of limbs. Agony spread beneath her waistband and up underneath her Kevlar vest. One hand stretched out in front of her, she reached for the door that would get them both out. Only it wasn’t enough. Her lungs suctioned for air. The Kevlar had taken the hit, but she couldn’t rush the recovery.

The gunman shouted something she couldn’t decipher. Calling the rest of the shooters to his location.

No. She had to keep moving. Had to get King back to Julien.

“Scarlett.” King’s hand found hers.

“I’m fine.” The lie slipped easily from her mouth, and right then she had her answer. People who promised they were right behind their loved ones in an impossible situation lied to make acceptance easier. To give hope. “We’re going to make it.”

Her heart thudded too fast at the back of her head, screaming for her to stop, to rest, to give up. But that wasn’t her. Scarlett rolled onto her back and latched on to the rifle jutting into her rib cage. She squeezed the trigger, taking out the gunman advancing on them.

The soldier crumpled to the floor. A multitude of footsteps echoed off the metal warehouse walls. Three sources. Maybe more. This was her and King’s last chance.

She latched on to King’s hand as though it were a lifeline. It was. Pushing her upper body off the floor, she got her feet under her. Bruising intensity dug deeper into her back the more she aggravated the wound, but she couldn’t stop. Not until she kept her promise. She reached for King, helping him stand. “We have to move. We have to go.”

The door was right there. So close and so incredibly far away. The voices were getting louder. Closer. But she wasn’t going to slow down. One foot in front of the other. And they were finally there. Pushing through the door she’d pried open, and then out into the night. They crossed the parking lot, leaning on each other for strength, but that strength was quickly running out.

Scarlett set her gaze on the SUV ahead. Only something wasn’t right. The back door... It shouldn’t have been open. Fear penetrated for the first time and intensified the pain in her low back. “Julien.”

His son’s name brought King’s head up as they picked up the pace.

Desperation unlike anything Scarlett had felt before burned through her. She practically dove into the back seat of the SUV, hands spread wide in search.

But he wasn’t there.

“Where is my son, Scarlett?” King nearly ripped the opposite door off its hinges. “You said...he was safe. Where is he?”

She clutched the SUV’s frame as everything inside of her went numb. “He’s gone.”

T HEY ’ D HAD HIM .

Julien had been right there in his arms.

Something heavy and uncomfortable seemed to be sitting on his leg. King couldn’t move, and the instinct to fight bubbled up inside him. Pinpricks of numbness spread through his palms.

No. That didn’t feel right, either.

A soft rhythmic beep broke through the pounding of blood in his head. Increasing. Like a heartbeat. This...wasn’t him coming around tied to a chair after being knocked out cold. Something was different.

King fisted a handful of fabric as he forced his eyes open. Dim lighting and deep shadows played a game of dominance which neither was winning. There was the black outline of an open door off to his right. A blue glow came from a window next to it.

The room was small but private. The source of the rhythmic annoyance was right there beside his bed, along with whatever was monitoring the clear rubber tubes coming out of his forearm.

Hospital.

Made sense after taking a tactical blade to the thigh. The memory of which created a deep ache he knew he couldn’t actually feel. At least not with whatever pain meds they had him on. More like remembered pain.

And it was nothing compared to the anguish of finding Scarlett’s SUV empty once they’d escaped the warehouse.

He didn’t remember much after that.

His son was missing. Again. They’d been so close to bringing him home. King had promised him. Promised him he’d be safe. That everything would be okay as long as they were together. And now Julien knew his father was a liar.

King had to go back. Had to take a look at the scene in the daylight. Sangre por Sangre be damned. He wasn’t giving up. Not on his son. Not on their future together.

King sat up higher in the bed, though his muscles had filled with lactic acid that made every move hell. Too long spent unmoving. Tremors shook through his arms as he put most of his weight into his upper body. The bed rails had been raised, and he grappled for the release. The remote control for the bed slipped off the edge of the mattress and slammed into the bed frame, but he didn’t need it. He needed to get out of here, to find his son.

The bed rail dropped with an exaggerated crash in the silence of the room, but he got the damn thing down. He’d take that as a win. Cold worked up through his bare feet as he pressed them to the floor. He was out of breath. The machine tracking his vitals was going haywire. Damn it. How the hell was he supposed to walk out of here like this?

“If I’d known you were this bad at escaping, I never would’ve let you follow me into that warehouse.” Her voice urged him to lie back, relax into the bed and hang on her every word. As though it alone could get him through the pain. And the lies.

Scarlett.

A lethal dose of rage mixed with gratitude to the point he couldn’t tell which way was up. She’d saved him. Kept Julien alive. Delivered on her promise. Yet if she hadn’t come back for him, his son would still be safe. King twisted, putting her outline in his peripheral vision. He hadn’t noticed her lying on the cushions shoved up against the window, but he knew enough about Scarlett now to know she only showed herself when she wanted to be seen.

Dryness graveled up his throat. “How...how long have you been sitting there watching me?”

“Long enough to know there’s no way you’re getting out of here without help.” Her outline shifted forward, and he could see thin lines of light coming through the blackout curtains. Daylight. They’d made it through morning. “You can’t go back, King. He’s not there. I already tried.”

“You tried.” That rage wanted to keep burning beneath his skin, but it was nothing compared to the appreciation of knowing Scarlett had risked her life—twice—to bring Julien home.

The DEA wouldn’t have done that. A failed mission meant escaping with the lives they had, regrouping and coming up with a new plan. Not trying to fix the one that nearly killed them in the first place. But he’d learned something else about her over these past two days. Scarlett Beam didn’t accept defeat. Ever.

“We had him.” Tears pricked in his eyes, and hell, he hated this feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness. Julien needed him at his best, and this...wasn’t it.

Scarlett moved so gracefully, he barely heard her before the mattress dipped with her weight beside him. Damn it, she looked stronger than ever. As though the butterfly bandage across her nose had given her some kind of superpower while he was stuck in this broken body. “I’m sorry, King. I gave you my word I would get him out. I had him. He was safe. I could’ve brought him to Socorro, and there would’ve been no way for the cartel to get their hands on him. But I...”

“You couldn’t leave me behind.” How could King fault her for that? Choosing to save two lives instead of one? It was what any agent in her position would’ve done. Hell, he would have, too.

“I’m the reason he was taken again,” she said.

King’s senses adjusted enough for him to see her fist her hands in the fabric of her cargo pants. “You’re the reason he’s still alive, Scarlett.” He set one hand over hers. Despite the low temperature of the room, a flurry of heat shot into his palm at the touch. The instinct to pull away charged through him, but there was something stable and balancing in that single touch at the same time. Something he needed. “Without you, we’d both be dead, and you know it.”

Flashes of memory broke free of the pain med barrier, and his heart rate hitched higher. “I remember you carrying Hans out. Did she make it?”

“Hans is back at Socorro with the vet. She took a beating, but she’s going to pull through. But Gruber...” Scarlett swiped a hand beneath her nose, then cringed in pain. As though she’d forgotten the break. “I left him to guard Julien when I went back into the warehouse for you.”

“But he wasn’t in the car, either.” King remembered that now. The SUV had been empty apart from Hans’s still frame. Which didn’t make sense. “You think the cartel took him?”

“I searched that entire area after I brought you in.” She shucked his hand from hers, leaning to one side to pull something from her pants pocket. “All Socorro K9s carry responders in their collars. They’re even trained to trigger the emergency signal. Gruber activated his while we were in the warehouse, and Socorro responded.”

She handed off a leather strap, and King worked his thumb over the worn leather pitted with adjustable holes. A metal rectangle was etched with some kind of lettering—Gruber’s information if King had to guess.

“Only problem is, they were too late,” Scarlett said. “All my team found was this about twenty yards from where we parked the SUV. I have to assume Sangre por Sangre knew our K9s have transponders embedded in their collars, and Gruber wouldn’t let the cartel take Julien, so they took him, too.”

“Why not just kill him and take my son without the fight?” King hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. As much as he didn’t understand the connection some people had with their dogs, it was obvious the Dobermans had fought like hell to protect Julien. And he wasn’t going to forget it.

“I don’t know. Maybe as leverage,” she said. “But for what, I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry, Scarlett.” He handed the collar back, feeling heavier than when he’d woken up. “I know how much you care about those dogs.”

“That’s the job, isn’t it? We risk our lives to protect the ones we care about, but nothing is permanent.” Scarlett skimmed her fingers over Gruber’s collar. “And this isn’t over. I gave you my word I would bring Julien home, and I’m not giving up.”

“Neither am I.” King reached for the side table to give himself something to hold on to. Shoving to stand, he put all his weight onto his good leg as he slapped a hand over his cell phone. “I need to check in with my supervisory agent. Get a raid party together to breach the warehouse and confiscate those shipments of fentanyl.”

“King, you can’t.” Scarlett rounded back into his vision, supporting him with a hand beneath his elbow. She was everything he needed right then, and everything he’d missed in a partner.

“Not sure if you know this, but that’s actually my job.” He scrolled through his contacts and hit his SSA’s information. The screen went black and started a countdown as the line rang.

“No. I mean the DEA is already aware of our attempt to recover Julien. They know about the drugs, too,” she said.

“How?” The answer was already there, waiting for his brain to break through the pain killer haze and catch up. Scarlett had said she’d gone back. Her team had recovered Gruber’s collar. King searched for his clothing, but it was no use. The authorities would’ve already taken them as evidence. “Where are the pills I took from the shipment we opened?”

“The DEA took custody of them after I provided my statement. One of their agents showed up dead yesterday morning, and another’s son was abducted. They weren’t just going to sit on the sidelines.” Her expression collapsed. “They know everything, King. I didn’t have a choice.”

Defeat stole the last remaining energy he’d reserved as King sank back onto the bed. A voice cut into the surrounding silence. Voicemail. He ended the call. His SSA wasn’t going to answer. “How bad is it?”

Her voice softened. Trying to ease the blow, he imagined, but he already sensed what was coming. “The DEA has put you on suspension, pending an investigation into what you’ve been putting together on the cartel the past couple of months. They confiscated everything in Agent Dunkeld’s home office, including the case he and Agent Roday were working together. The FBI is on its way to handle Julien’s kidnapping, and Socorro has been ordered to step aside.”

A headache spread from the base of his neck, threatening to break him all over again as the last remnants of his life shattered in front of him. He wasn’t just on the verge of losing Julien. His job was at stake, too. “All right. If the DEA knows about the warehouse, they can put together a raid party. Match the pills we took to the shipments in those boxes.”

“They breached the warehouse about an hour ago, King, but it was cleaned out.” Scarlett shook her head. “Everything that can corroborate our statements is gone.”