Addison fell to her knees beside Felix. His bloody shirt clung to his skin. He looked a little dazed, blinking as though just coming around, or maybe she was already losing him.
“Oh God,” she said.
Shock kicking in, her limbs seemed to go numb as her body focused its energy on pumping blood to her vital organs, her heart, her brain. Her stupid, stupid brain. The brain that thought it knew better, that had clung to an idea of what “perfect” was supposed to be, to a crazy fantasy she’d invented.
Her brain had ignored her heart’s desires, and now it was her heart that was suffering for it. It ached. God, how it ached, like Baxter was making a snack out of it. Yet somehow it kept pumping, and aching, and pumping, and aching.
“Felix,” she sobbed. “Hold on. The police are almost here. We’ll get you an ambulance.”
There was so much blood everywhere, spreading over his shirt, pooling beneath him. She imagined if her nose wasn’t so full of the caustic scents from the wine and the dogs, she’d even be able to smell it. Where were the damned cops anyway?
Oliver wandered over, sniffing at his master. With a whine, he laid his head down on his lap.
Felix gave him a pat, but didn’t take his focus off Addison. The look on his face was dazed as his half-lidded eyes met hers.
He must be losing consciousness. She had to stop the bleeding somehow. She wished Piper was there. She would know what to do.
“You’re an angel,” Felix said.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God. You’re hallucinating.” It didn’t take a doctor to know that was a bad sign.
Gripping his shirt, she tore it open. Buttons flew everywhere. She lifted his undershirt and began to run her hands over his bare chest, searching for the source of the bleeding, but all she found was his six-pack and a firm set of pecks. She wished she had more than flickering light bulbs to see by.
She groped him frantically, dragging his jacket off to have a closer look. That’s when he winced, hissing in pain.
“Where does it hurt?”
He blinked lazily. “If you wanted to get me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
“What? This isn’t the time to joke.” Tears filled her eyes until she could barely see Felix, much less the entry wound. “You’ve been shot. You need to conserve your energy.”
“Addy. It’s okay. I’m okay.” He reached for her hands.
“Your hands feel so cold,” she said, finding it difficult to breath through the oncoming sobs.
The floor he was sitting on stung her own legs with chill. It would be warmer upstairs, she thought, but there was no way she was going to be able to drag him up there. “I need to keep you warm.” She tucked herself beside him to share body heat.
Princess and Oliver snuggled in close, making a human-dog pile, as if they understood what she was trying to do. Or maybe they just wanted to be petted after their traumatic evening. Colin and Sophie soon joined, also seeking potential petters.
There was so much to say to Felix, so much she wanted to tell him, about her feelings, to apologize for the things she’d said to him, but she worried there wasn’t enough time left.
“Addy,” Felix said. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
Her chest shuddered as she bit back another sob. “You don’t have to be brave with me.”
“No. I’m serious.” He took her tear-stained face in his big hands. “The bullet just grazed my arm.”
“What?”
Reaching for his shirtsleeve, he showed her a tear in the material. She could see the bright red blood seeping through the fabric around the hole. She touched the stains covering the rest of his shirt, much darker in color.
“But all the blood,” she said.
“It’s not blood. It’s wine. The first bullet grazed my arm as I pushed you out of the way. When I fell, I hit my head pretty hard.” He rubbed the back of his head and checked his hand as though expecting to see blood. “I think I blacked out for a few seconds, or minutes maybe. The second bullet hit the wine rack above me.” He pointed above their heads.
Frowning, Addison looked up. Wine dripped down from a broken bottle above his head. She hadn’t smelled it over all the other scents saturating the small space. When she looked back at him, he had a stupid smirk on his face.
“Worried much?” he asked.
“Worried” didn’t begin to cover it. Sure he’d moved on to Charlotte. He couldn’t be Addison’s, but she still couldn’t imagine a world without him. His gut laugh, and his messy hair, and his stupid band T-shirts. Or a world in which his daughter had to grow up without a father.
After what had just gone down, she wanted to tell him that, to tell him how she really felt. She had fallen for him. Not because she was desperate for any man at all, like Felix thought. She was just desperate for Felix.
But Felix was going to be okay. He wasn’t dying on her. In fact, he found her confusion funny. His chest shook with chuckles. He was laughing at her!
Speechless, Addison wound up and punched him in his uninjured arm. “Jerk much?”
He winced but gave a weak snicker. Blinking, he seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time since blacking out. His eyes flitted from the bloody dogs mingling, the gun on the floor, Penny’s body.
“Naia,” he said. “I need to find her.”
“The police must be coming through the gates by now,” Addison said.
“I’m not waiting for them.” He held out a hand for her to help him to his feet, his face screwing up from the effort. Flesh wound or not, Addison imagined a bullet hurt regardless.
“This place is huge,” Addison said. “Where do we start? Naia could be anywhere on the grounds.” She glanced over at Penny’s motionless body. “And I don’t think asking Penny is an option right now.”
“We’ll split up.” He headed for the staircase, stumbling slightly as he grabbed his head.
As though sensing an impending prison break, the dogs rushed to follow him. Addison was nearly knocked over as the pack of purebreds brushed up against her legs in their eagerness to be free. Something small and brown skittered over her foot. She shrieked and backpedalled until she realized it wasn’t a rat, but a tiny hairless dog. A Chinese crested.
Once the herd had cleared, Princess was still there by her side. Addison scooped her up and cradled her in her arms. The doxie was shaking, or maybe that was Addison herself. Either way, she held her close, letting Princess kiss her despite the gruesome red stains around her snout. Princess had saved their lives. She was so getting treats when they got home.
“My hero,” she told Princess.
In the wake of the fur tsunami, Addison climbed the stairs after Felix. The moment she walked through the hidden door and into Alistair’s office, she breathed a sigh of relief—and clean air—as glad as the dogs were to be free of the tiny, smelly dungeon.
“Let’s go find Naia,” she told Princess. Her legs froze and she blinked, a plan coming to her. “Felix!”
A second later, Felix burst through the door, glancing around the room, like he’d hoped to find his daughter. “What is it?”
“I have an idea. Do you still have Naia’s bunny on you?”
“Yeah.” He frowned in confusion as he dug into his jacket pocket.
Addison took the bunny and held it in front of Princess’s nose. “What’s this? Whose is this?” she asked in her excited “You wanna play?” voice. “Is this Naia’s?”
Princess sniffed it, snorting as the fuzzy tail tickled her nose.
“Where’s Naia, Princess? Where is she?”
Princess’s ears perked up and her tail began to whip back and forth. She could tell by Addison’s voice that this was a game. And oh, she remembered this game from the park. She liked this game.
Addison set Princess down on the hardwood floor. “Where’s Naia? Go find Naia.”
Princess took off, barrel chest quivering as she sniffed rapidly, following the stuffed bunny’s scent out of the office, down the hall where she circled the Persian rug a couple of times, and then off into the dining room.
Addison and Felix followed Princess through the stainless steel and marble kitchen. The dachshund glanced back at Addison, needing encouragement that the game was still on.
“Come on,” she said. “Where’s Naia? Go find her.”
Addison tried to infuse her voice with cheer, but it still shook with anxiety and adrenaline. She hoped her plan worked, that doxies’ noses were as strong as they were famed to be. That it wasn’t as stuffed up as hers was from the pungent smells in the cellar.
Princess limped up the stairs with her one short leg, her nose never relenting, as though she chased an invisible trail through the mansion. She followed it up to the second floor, then up to the third, down a long hallway, right to the base of a door. Princess scratched and whined at it, determined to win the game.
Felix grabbed the door handle and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked. Stand back.”
Addison snatched Princess away and backed up. She watched as Felix took a few steps back. Using his good arm, he rushed forward and threw his weight against it. Crack!
Felix grunted and held his breath as he grimaced. He took a few moments to work through the pain. But it wasn’t for nothing because Addison noticed a fracture had splintered up the side of the doorframe. He tried once more. This time, he sent it flying open.
Felix charged inside and Addison ran in after him. She didn’t know what she’d expected once they’d found Naia, but whatever it was, it wasn’t the scene before her.
Naia was perched in the middle of a striped settee with a bowl of chips in her lap and cookies on a gold filigree plate. In front of her, Toy Story played on a big-screen TV.
She stared wide-eyed at the door, startled by the noise. As soon as she saw who it was, she cried out, “Daddy!”
If Felix was surprised by the manner in which Penny had kept Naia, he didn’t show it. Without faltering, he ran to her and plucked her off the cushion. He crushed her against his chest. “Peanut. Oh, peanut, I thought I’d lost you.”
She laughed. “I was in Oliver’s house the whole time. I was playing hide-and-seek with Charlotte. She never found me.” Naia beamed with pride. The fact that she’d won the game seemed to overshadow everything else.
Penny might have been as mad as the Joker in The Dark Knight, but it was clear she’d treated the child well. Addison leaned against the busted doorframe and sunk to the floor in relief and fatigue. The fight was over.
“Well, we found you now.” Felix held Naia tight and kissed her hair. “We found you.”