The noose around his throat slowly strangled Tanner until gray blurred the edges of his vision. At the very last moment before he lost consciousness, he forced his weight onto his legs, providing blessed air. He knew the relief was short-lived. One leg was broken, the other almost useless after the hours of trying to support his weight on just his toes on the stool where he balanced precariously.
“Tell us who the cop is, and this can all end.”
Tanner could barely see through his swollen eyes. “I already told you.” The words were garbled whispers—blows to the face and the trauma to his throat had ensured that. “I’m the cop.”
Someone pushed his leg out from under him, causing the rope to tighten around his neck once again, his hands tied behind his back rendering them useless. Airflow immediately ceased, although he didn’t jerk or move unnecessarily. He’d learned after the first hour that flailing didn’t accomplish anything but using up more energy and oxygen.
He had a limited supply of both.
“Which one of them is the cop? We know you were communicating with one of them.”
The voice was referring to the two men also tied up with Tanner, but sitting in chairs, one barely twenty-one years old. Tanner couldn’t see them. Couldn’t hear them. Could only try to survive this moment.
Someone helped him plant his good leg back on the stool so he could relieve the tension on his throat. At least they’d finally figured out he couldn’t talk while they were attempting to suffocate him.
He breathed in as much as his swollen throat would allow. “I wasn’t communicating with one of them.” That was the truth. He’d been communicating with both of them. All three of them had been sent undercover together. “It’s just me.”
The blow to his stomach caught him completely unaware and had him coughing up blood and struggling to balance on the stool. Tanner didn’t know how much more he could take. But he would do whatever he had to if it meant Nate and Alex would walk out of here.
Tanner definitely wouldn’t. He’d already made peace with that.
Before he could prep himself for another blow, someone ran into the opposite side of the warehouse screaming curses that would make a sailor proud.
“Cops! They’re everywhere outside!”
For a split second Tanner felt hope. They were going to make it.
The hope died a moment later at the simple instructions the leader of the syndicate gave his men.
“Kill them all.”
It echoed over and over in Tanner’s head.
Kill them all.
Kill them all.
At the first blast of gunfire and thump of a body, Tanner used all his strength in one last Hail Mary attempt to dive from the stool. He could barely believe it when the rope gave way, snapping from the ceiling rather than ending his life. He crashed to the floor and—ignoring that agony lighting through his entire body—forced himself onto his feet.
And turned just in time to see one of the syndicate members point his Glock at twenty-one-year-old Nate Fletcher’s forehead where he was strapped to a chair.
Tanner dived for them.
* * *
EIGHT HOURS LATER the nightmare still felt slick and slimy on Tanner Dempsey’s skin. The flying motion had woken him up. It was what had woken him up, often violently, hundreds of nights since what happened in that warehouse three years ago.
Tanner was never in time to save Nate in his dream, just like he hadn’t been in time to save him in real life. He’d watched as the life of a promising law enforcement officer—and human being—had been snuffed out.
Tanner had been too late to save Alex, the other undercover officer, too. He’d died with the first bullet when Tanner had still been strung up.
The place had been swarming with cops not a minute later. Almost everyone in the Viper Syndicate, a human-and weapons-trafficking cartel, had been caught or killed that day, too.
But not in time to save Nate or Alex.
Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. He was sitting in a Denver courthouse, having finished giving his testimony in a drunk-driving case. Normally, he would’ve already left