Page 21 of K-9 Guardians

Muñoz.

Age had gotten to Muñoz over the past ten years. Striations of gray chased back the muddied brown in the man’s facial hair and eyebrows. The skin beneath those empty eyes sagged and folded as gravity didn’t have much care for appearances, but there was still a hint of the man Muñoz had been. Physically lean, well-kept in the suit department. Much stronger than he wanted people to know. “Hello, Agent Elsher. I brought you a present.”

Muñoz dragged the body forward, that thick accent carving into King’s memory.

Scarlett hit the floor without protest. Unmoving. Blood dried beneath her nose and around her mouth. Gruber’s low whine punctuated the ache in King’s gut as he visually searched for a pulse or a chest fall. Something to tell him he hadn’t gotten Socorro’s security operator killed for nothing.

“Get him up,” Muñoz said.

The cartel member who’d dropped Hans to the floor left the Doberman where she lay and closed the distance between him and King. Rough hands jerked King back to sitting, and feeling shot back into King’s arms.

Despite the image he wanted to convey, that of a DEA agent who didn’t give into threats, King couldn’t control the tremors in his chin. He tried to breathe through it, to give his nervous system something other than Scarlett and Julien to focus on, but it was no use. Muñoz wasn’t known for keeping hostages. Both Adam and Eva had learned that the hard way.

Palpable silence filled the room, only interrupted by Muñoz’s advance. “How long has it been, Elsher? Ten years? You don’t look like you’ve aged a day. You must take care of yourself.” The lieutenant rounded behind him, lowering his face beside King’s. “Such a waste.”

King didn’t answer. His gaze locked on Scarlett. She was alive. She had to be.

“You know, I’ve never understood all these elaborate tortures the people I work with like to use. The accelerants in tires. Countless days of beatings. Acid on the skin.” Muñoz penetrated King’s peripheral vision. The cartel lieutenant unsheathed a tactical blade, dark steel serrated in high peaks and valleys. The lights didn’t even reflect off the surface. Not like King expected. “It’s the simplest things that can get the point across.”

Muñoz swiped the blade across King’s thigh.

Stinging pain erupted faster than he expected and stole the air in his lungs. He bit back the scream trying to force its way free, but it was no use. His composure had been corrupted the second he set eyes on Scarlett. Blood rushed through the wound though the laceration was shallow compared to what it could’ve been. He stared straight ahead. Not willing to give Muñoz the satisfaction of breaking him.

A slap to one side of the face ensured King couldn’t disappear. That he had to stay present. “There will be little for the DEA or your son to identify you as human when I’m finished, Agent Elsher. The only question is, will you give me what I want in time?”

King forced himself to take a breath.

“I want everything your partner and that bitch from ATF collected on me and my operation.” The weight of Muñoz’s attention intensified the pain in King’s wound. One second. Two. The lieutenant nodded, backing off slightly.

The second cut went deeper. King couldn’t contain the scream of pain this time. His agony filled the room and took Gruber by surprise. The K9 howled in unison, but the man handling the choke chain cut him off short.

King’s heart rate skyrocketed. Sweat slipped down the sides of his face.

“Perhaps your partner’s wife will tell me where Agent Dunkeld hid the information he gathered. Jen, right? And the girls. Beautiful, beautiful girls. I can see them doing very well for Sangre por Sangre.” Muñoz turned to the cartel soldier hovering over Hans and hiked a thumb toward the door. The subordinate left the room without a word, closing the door behind him. “In the meantime, why don’t I remind you of what I’m capable of?”

Shuffling sounded through the door, and then the cartel soldier carried Julien—kicking and punching—in his arms.

Just before Muñoz stabbed the blade down into the top of King’s thigh.

Chapter Eight

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. Muñoz. 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. Muñoz 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.

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