The rope was tight.
Too tight.
He sniffed it, then began working at the knot with his teeth.
It was clumsy at first. He was not trained for rescue. Robert had paid thousands of dollars for attack commands, not gentleness. Robert had taught him to lunge, freeze, intimidate, and obey.
Mary had taught him something better.
Patience.
Trust.
How to take food softly from a human hand.
How to wait when someone whispered, “Easy, baby.”
Zeus pulled at the rope again.
The knot loosened.
Mary’s wrists burned as blood rushed back into her hands, but she forced herself not to cry out. Down the hallway, Robert shouted numbers at the safe. One robber cursed. Metal clanked. Drawers slammed.
Mary peeled one hand free.
Then the other.
She pulled the tape from her mouth slowly, biting back a cry.
“Good boy,” she whispered.
Zeus pressed his forehead into her chest for half a second.
That half second nearly destroyed her.
Then she crawled toward the side table, where Robert always kept the backup panic button he bragged about but never thought she knew how to use. Her fingers shook as she reached under the lower shelf. The button was still there, taped beneath the wood.
She pressed it.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing happened at first.
Then, somewhere outside the house, a silent alert went out to the private security company, the neighborhood guard gate, and Dallas police dispatch.
Mary knew she had minutes.
Maybe less.
She grabbed Zeus’s collar.
Not the chain.
The collar.
The first one she had bought him secretly, soft black leather with his name engraved on a silver tag.
“Zeus,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”
He did.
They moved toward the kitchen together, low and slow. Mary’s ankle throbbed. Her ribs ached. She could hear Robert begging in the study now, his voice rising and cracking as the safe refused to open fast enough.
Then one robber came back into the living room.
The one with the backpack.
He froze when he saw Mary free.
Zeus stepped forward.
The man lifted both hands.
“Hey. Easy. I’m not touching her.”
His voice changed completely.
No laughter now.
No swagger.
Just a man suddenly aware that the room had rules he did not control.
Mary backed toward the kitchen phone.
The robber looked toward the hallway, then back at her.
“Lady,” he said under his breath, “you need to get out of this house.”
Mary stared at him.
For one absurd second, the robber sounded more concerned for her than her husband ever had.
Then Robert screamed from the study.
“Shoot the dog!”
The words cut through the house.
Zeus’s ears flattened.
Mary felt him tremble.
Not from fear.
From memory.
The robber with the backpack looked toward the study.
