Help nexus 9 boots into recovery by default topic

I am in a messed up situation, I live outside US, asked a friend to bring me a nexus 9 from US. Tablet was ordered from Amazon, and when I received it its box was open. Anyway long story short when I turned on the tablet it showed me google logo then directly went to recovery screen (android logo with exclamation sign and text no command). This is all I get no matter how many times I restart the tablet.

I don't know how it got into this state, but I tried resetting it from recovery and fast boot, but it shows me same screen.

Boot loader is locked and I can not unlock it with unlock boot loader command, it tells me I don't have permission to run this command, now I know in nexus 9 you have to check a box in developer settings to run that command but the irony is I never reach the OS screen.

So I have locked boot loader, I am in a boot loop where my tablet boots into recovery by default, I can not unlock boot loader with simple unlock command, but I have access to boot loader and recovery and also ADB.

What option if any I have, is there any way to unlock boat loader without first checking that box in developer options, I really need help here other wise my money is going down the drain.