Page 20 of K-9 Guardians

Then slammed his fist into her face. Once. Twice.

The world went black.

HELL. HE’DMADEa mess of things.

Pain pulsed in the back of his neck as he dragged his chin from his chest. Like he’d fallen asleep sitting up. Guess he technically had. Though the falling asleep part hadn’t been his choice.

King put too much momentum into his neck, and his head fell back to stare up into a too-bright glow of fluorescent lighting. The office wasn’t much more than a storage closet with foggy glass in the door. It was bland and empty, apart from an old metal desk the likes of which he hadn’t seen in over a decade.

Damn it. His head hurt, but his pride had taken the biggest hit. He’d been so convinced Julien was here—desperate to be there for his son—he’d rushed in without a second thought as to what might wait on the other side. The attack had come fast, and the next thing he’d known was unconsciousness.

And now Scarlett and her Dobermans were out there trying to fix this. For him.

He’d never been the kind of man who would ask the people around him to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. But this... This wasn’t going at all as he’d hoped.

A smattering of items on the metal desk a few feet away caught his attention. Phone, wallet, keys, badge, business cards. All his. No sign of his sidearm, though. His attackers had stripped him of anything he could use to his advantage.

King tried to break through the rope scratching through the layers of skin around his wrists. Muscles he hadn’t used for far too long weren’t interested in showing up for him now. He’d relied too heavily on his gear these past few years. All of which had been taken from him now. And it would cost him everything.

Shadowed movement shifted on the other side of the fogged glass. No sounds of gunfire or fighting. Nothing to suggest Scarlett and her dogs were still alive.

He needed to get out of here. Get them out of here. He’d brought her into this mess. He’d be the one to make sure she didn’t pay the price. “Think, Elsher.”

He studied every inch of the office. It looked as though it’d been stripped for parts. All this time he’d believed that original DEA operation had hurt Sangre por Sangre’s growth. At least shut down one of their primary warehouses. Turned out, he, Adam and Eva hadn’t done a damn thing to bring these bastards to a stop. The cartel had simply taken on a new face.

His head pounded in rhythm to his heart rate. Too hard. Too loud. Twisting his wrists opposite directions, he worked the rope digging in deeper, but there wasn’t any bit of give. He was screwed in the leg department, too. No room for escape. The chair he was tied to wasn’t anything special. Though steel posed a problem. Guess the Sangre por Sangre cartel had too many mishaps with wood. Or maybe they’d suddenly turned environmentally conscious. Decided to give back for once.

“And I’m the freaking tooth fairy,” he said.

Oh, hell. Hewasthe tooth fairy now. Julien had a loose tooth ready to come out any day now, and King would have to be the one to sneak into his room and leave a dollar beneath his kid’s pillow without waking him.

No. He couldn’t think about that right now. The thought of never getting to be the tooth fairy for his son only messed with his head.

There. On the back wall. A wire storage shelf stacked with paper boxes. No labels telling him what each of them housed, but it couldn’t be paper.

He tipped his weight back onto two chair legs, his toes barely connecting with the floor. His shoulders screamed for relief, but King had to try. This was going to hurt, but it would be nothing compared to losing his son. Or Scarlett.

King shoved back against his toes. Gravity launched his stomach into his throat a split second before he hit the floor. The combination of the metal rim of the chair and his body weight threatened to break both of his arms, and he swallowed the scream ready to explode from his chest. He rolled onto his side, taking the too-heavy chair with him as he tried to catch his breath. That was going to leave a bruise.

Digging his heels into the floor, he shoved himself across the floor toward the shelf. Inch by agonizing inch. He was out of breath by the time he reached the base. Sweat beaded under his bottom lip. “Move, damn it.” Though how he was going to get these boxes open without the use of his hands or feet was a mystery.

The shelf itself had been constructed of smooth stainless steel. No way to use the frame to cut through the rope. But the sharp edges where the grating held the boxes themselves might help. King leveraged one shoulder into the floor and circled his feet to the left, setting his back to the wire rack. And set his wrists against the raw edges of steel.

He couldn’t move more than a few centimeters at a time, but that was all he needed. The fibers of the rope caught, and King put everything he had left into keeping the pressure on. Back and forth. Back and forth. He wasn’t sure any of it did a damn bit of good, but he wasn’t going to give in. Not to the cartel. And not to the doubt telling him he wasn’t ever going to find his son. That he was too late.

A warning growl pierced through the fogged glass on the other side of the room. Shit. He was out of time. King scanned the room for something—anything—that would get him out of this chair, but it was no use.

The door kicked back on its hinges and slammed into the wall behind it. A cartel soldier fought with a Doberman at the end of a choke chain, trying to drag the animal into the room, but the K9 wasn’t cooperating in the least.

Gruber—when had King figured out which was which?—wrenched his head from side to side as he dug his heels into the floor.

“Gruber,” he said.

The dog set coal-black eyes on him. Accusatory. Scared. Pissed off to hell and back. The soldier managed to pull the Doberman fully into the room with a heavy tug. But if Gruber was here... Where was Hans? Where was Scarlett?

Another soldier fireman-carried the second dog into the room and not-so-gently deposited her onto the floor. Injured? Dead? King didn’t know, but he sure as hell wanted to witness what Scarlett had done in return.

A scraping sound overrode Gruber’s overly loud fight for freedom. A rhythmic sound that raised the hairs on the back of King’s neck. A large man struggled to fit through the narrow door as he dragged something heavy and unconscious behind him. Recognition hit, and King’s entire world tore apart at the seams.

---