Page 27 of K-9 Guardians

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.

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