The diner went silent.
Butch screamed.
I turned his momentum, kicked through the back of his knee, and sent him face-first into the puddle he had poured over Rex.
I dropped onto his back.
“The dog you just humiliated is a decorated veteran,” I said quietly. “You’re a bully wearing leather.”
Butch coughed against the floor.
“Understand the difference?”
A chair crashed behind me.
“Get him!”
The other five moved.
Fast.
One pulled a knife.
Another raised the pool cue.
A third reached behind his back.
“Get down,” I told the waitress.
She disappeared behind the bar.
Across the room, Rex remained exactly where I had ordered him.
But his posture changed.
Head forward.
Ears high.
Every muscle loaded.
The first biker charged with the pool cue.
The man with the knife moved toward my blind side.
Another kicked a table aside as customers scrambled toward the walls.
Then Rex saw something I hadn’t.
His eyes snapped past the five men.
Toward the biker reaching beneath the back of his vest.
Rex stood.
Not attacking.
Not yet.
