Chapter Nineteen
E mily’s head hurt so badly that she nearly threw up from the pain. She was laying on something hard and cold. It took several blinks before she managed to get her eyes to focus. She was in a kennel? One of her kennels. Her eyes flew open wider, and the action sent a shaft of pain through her head.
She grunted and the sound caused movement in the aisle outside the kennel. A woman moved closer, with a dog in her hands. An unconscious dog.
Princeton.
The sight brought back Emily’s memory. Her heart lurched.
Gritting her teeth against the ache in her head, she pushed to her feet and stumbled toward the plexiglass door separating them. She yanked on it, but a padlock held the door in place.
Dammit.
“What have you done to Princeton?”
She didn’t think the woman had actually hit him with her car as she’d tried to make Emily believe.
“Relax, I gave him a sedative. He’s just asleep.”
“So, you didn’t hit him with your car?”
Colby frowned. “No. I’m not a monster.”
Emily held back a grunt. “Could’ve fooled me. You haven’t been behaving very nicely, Colby.”
She knew it was stupid to taunt the woman, but she needed to know exactly what type of person she was dealing with, and it required pushing buttons.
“It’s your fault! All your fault!” the woman ranted, and started to pace. “Why did you have to bother with Holden? He’s mine.” She pounded her chest with her free hand. “ I saw him first. You didn’t even know him until he moved here. I met him in Houston last month. Me! Not you.”
Shit.
This woman was off her rocker.
She needed to warn Holden. Hell, she needed to call Gabe and get Colby off the streets. Her chest tightened and fear gripped her heart at the thought of this lunatic going anywhere near Holden.
Emily calmed her pulse and worked on quieting her emotions in order to think clearly. She had training on how to deal with volatile animal owners. But the unbalanced ones were the toughest to deal with, because of their unpredictability, it usually required an assist from the police.
That wasn’t likely right now. Emily was on her own.
“And I tried to warn you off,” Colby said. “But you didn’t heed it. Not my fault.”
Realization rippled through her. “My car?”
Perez hadn’t vandalized it?
“Yes! Ding, ding…Now she gets it.” The woman lifted the still unconscious Princeton to her face and rolled her eyes. “Your mommy’s a little slow. But you won’t have to worry about that much longer.” Colby set his limp body on the floor and then straightened.
Emily stiffened, alarm rushing through her again.
What had the woman meant by that?
Was she going to do something to her? Her dog? Or both of them?
She glanced at the security camera in the corner near the ceiling, and her heart sank. The little red blinking light was out.
“There’s no calvary coming, Emily.” Colby grinned. “I know about your system and how those ESI guys can view it too. As a waitress, you hear things. So, I used this to disarm it. No one can see you now,” she said, digging Emily’s phone out of her back pocket and waiving it at her.
Several thoughts raced through her mind simultaneously, the most important being that the woman would not have been able to shut down all of the surveillance on the property since “those ESI guys” had planted a few more that even Emily didn’t control.
This meant they could still view what was going on.
Hope flickered through Emily for the first time since waking up in the kennel. And, God…she was so grateful for Holden and his buddies for planting those cameras, she didn’t care about the permission part right now.
And even if they hadn’t, the fact that Colby had disarmed the system would be cause enough for the guys to come.
Yeah, this chick wasn’t thinking straight, for sure.
Thanks to the woman waving her phone, Emily now knew the time. It’d been about an hour since she’d stopped in the road. Deciding to take a chance that she was right about the calvary coming, she planned to do her best to keep Colby talking and hopefully, that would give Holden or Carter or whoever, time to arrive.
“So, are you the one I’ve felt watching me around town?” Emily asked, curious to know if Perez was actually a threat at all.
“Well, yeah. Who else would it be…unless you’ve stolen someone else’s guy, too.”
Emily ignored the taunt. “Do you even have an aunt here?”
“Yes, of course I do. And yes, her leg is actually broken,” she replied, putting Emily’s phone away before pulling out a gun.
Shit. Emily worked hard not to allow the white-hot fear gripping her heart to rule her mind. She needed to stay calm and not panic.
The woman kept talking. “A well-timed trip, using my foot, sent my aunt falling down the escalator at The Galleria Mall when she visited me in Houston the day after I first met Holden. I was shooting for her to break her ankle, but a broken leg was even better.”
Emily inwardly gasped. “You deliberately broke your aunt’s leg?”
Colby shrugged. “I had to, in order to have a feasible reason to move to Harland so Holden wouldn’t think I was crazy.”
It took everything inside Emily not to show any emotional reactions to all that Colby had just revealed.
My God, the woman was certifiable. She didn’t see that it had been wrong. If she was willing to do that to a relative, then things didn’t look so good for Emily.
She was screwed.
“Of course, my aunt doesn’t know it was me,” Colby stated, waving the gun around. “I mean, there were several people funneling onto the escalator, which gave me the idea. I made a split-second decision—then boom—down she went.”
As the woman talked, Emily moved to set her back against one of the kennel walls to see if the kennel door leading to the outside was blocked, but it wasn’t. As for a lock on the door at the outside end? She couldn’t tell. It was too dark out.
Not that she had much of a chance slipping through that first partition without the woman getting off a shot. And Emily had no idea if the plexiglass separating them was thick enough to stop a bullet. She definitely didn’t want to find out…but if she had to make a run for it, she would.
“You are causing me to be a not nice person, Emily.” Colby sighed, waving the gun around again. “But soon this will be behind me, and Holden won’t ever know.”
“That’s not true, Colby,” Holden said, stepping into the room through the door on the woman’s left.
Colby gasped. “Holden? Y-you’re not supposed to be here.” She rubbed her temple. “No. Not yet. Not until I made Emily pay for taking you away from me.”
“That isn’t necessary, Colby,” he said, holding up his hands as he moved closer.
The lifeless Princeton now slept motionless between him and the gun-toting woman.
“It’s over,” he continued. “We know about the car accident. Your aunt told us about the piece of metal in your brain. And that you stopped taking your medication.”
She waved the gun, shaking her head. “It’s not supposed to be like this. Emily has to pay.”
“Emily hasn’t done anything wrong,” he told the woman in his calm, assertive voice. “Put the gun down, Colby.”
She shook her head. “No. Not until Emily pays. She took you from me, so I have to take something from her.”
And Emily watched in horror as the woman turned the gun on Princeton.
“No!” she shouted, rushing to the locked door, and furiously tugging on it.
Fear gripped her tightly as the lock held, forcing her to watch helplessly as Holden dove for Princeton while the gun went off.
Everything stood still, except for the heart ripping from Emily’s chest.
Holden…oh, God, no.
He lay motionless on the floor next to Colby, who was being cuffed and taken from the room.
Emily hadn’t even noticed the takedown, or the arrival of Mac, Dex, Hunter, and Sinjin. Her attention was on her dog and Holden and the fact Colby had shot at them.
And now there was blood.
She sucked in a breath and rattled the door. “Holden!” she cried.
Sinjin appeared with a large pair of bolt cutters in his hand and deftly removed the lock and opened her door.
Emily blew past the guy with a quick thanks and rushed to Holden, who rose to his feet with Princeton in his arms.
“Oh, God,” she choked out. “Are you two all right?”
He nodded. “Yes. We’re fine.”
“But you’re bleeding.” She touched his arm where blood trickled from a wound on his bicep. Her chest squeezed so tightly, she could barely breathe.
“Just a scratch,” he said, handing Princeton off to Sinjin. When she went to protest, he set a hand on her shoulder. “He’s still asleep but is starting to stir. It’s better if he wakes up in his crate in the house.”
She swallowed before kissing the sleeping dog’s head and nodded for Sinjin to take the poor thing back into the house. “Queenie! Is she okay? Colby didn’t…”
“She’s fine,” Holden reassured. “Still in her crate.”
Thank God.
She exhaled and the room started to spin. Emily stumbled and Holden immediately pulled her close. A warm, familiar strength surrounded her, and it hit her how she thought she’d never feel that again. “You took a bullet for my dog,” she choked out, burrowing her face against his chest.
Emily knew they had some things to iron out, and as the night progressed and they’d both talked to Gabe and were cleared by an EMT—as well as Isla, who’d showed up with a frantic Lyndsey an hour later—she kept circling back to one fact.
Holden had taken a bullet for her dog.
“Ouch,” she muttered, as she sat in her house on her couch almost an hour later.
Isla sat on one side of her, holding a bag of ice on Emily’s head, Lyndsey sat on the other side, while Queenie and the now fully awake Princeton sat by her feet.
Lyndsey had examined both dogs and pronounced them well rested and out of danger from the sedative Colby had apparently laced in some treats she’d fed them.
A shudder rippled through her as she realized how close they’d come to dying. But they were okay now. She was okay.
She was surrounded by her pack, her people, but a very important someone was missing. Not a pack leader…no, her equal. Holden.
Last she knew, he was outside with Gabe, filling out more papers or something.
“You okay?” Lyndsey asked.
“Yeah.” Isla shifted forward to meet her gaze. “Can we get you anything?”
She shook her head and promptly winced. “I’m good.”
What she needed, they couldn’t give her. What she needed…walked through her front door. The rest of his buddies followed and started talking to the deputies that were checking for evidence inside her home.
Holden made a beeline straight for her. Emily’s pulse leapt and chest squeezed at the haunted look in his eyes.
“Hey, Emily, can I talk to you?” he asked.
“Sure,” Lyndsey replied for her, but didn’t move to make room.
Isla stayed by her other side, still holding the icepack.
That didn’t stop him. He sat down by her dogs at her feet.
“I’m so sorry, Emily,” he said, petting Queenie and Princeton, who both got up and shifted to him. “This was all my fault. Your car. You and your dog in danger. I’m so sorry.”
She drew her head back slightly. “This wasn’t your fault, it was Colby’s. Medication or not, she did this, not you. God, Holden, she shot you.” The horrible moment washed over her again, and she shuddered. “I thought I’d lost you without telling you I was sorry. I don’t agree with going behind my back to put in the extra security, but I understand your fear now.”
“I’m just so sorry. When I found your abandoned car…” He closed his eyes a moment and when they reopened, they were full of emotions that darkened his gaze. “And I realized you’d been abducted…I lost my mind. I care about you, Emily. So damn much.” He inhaled then blew out the breath. “I didn’t agree to put the extra security behind your back on your property to control you. I hope you know that. It was for selfish reasons, though. I needed to know you were safe 24/7. It wasn’t to spy on you. It was to be alerted to threats. That’s it, I swear.”
She held his gaze a moment then nodded, slowly this time so the movement wouldn’t hurt her head. “I have a few things I’d like to say to you, too. But I need to stand. My head is too cold here.”
A smile twitched his lips. He held out his hand and he brought them both to their feet. “That better?”
“Some,” she replied. “My last boyfriend was very controlling, Holden, so when I saw the app on your phone, it brought it all back.”
He squeezed her hand that he still held, and the sincerity in his gaze warmed her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m not like that. I’m not him.”
“I know.” She set her free hand on his arm, careful not to brush the bandage on his wound, aware that they were now the center of attention in the room. “That was so abundantly clear tonight.”
“It was?” He cocked his head and raised a brow.
She patted his arm and squeezed the hand she still held. “When you took a bullet for my dog.”
He blinked then glanced down at Princeton, who currently sat at their feet. The Chihuahua looked up at them and yawned.
“I’d never let anything happen to him.” Holden’s gaze returned to hers, and the remorse in his hazel depths gripped her tightly. “It was karma for Braddock, the dog that saved my life during an op in Syria this past January. He took a bullet for me and then I left active duty and him behind.
It was on the tip of Emily’s tongue to point out that the dog was a soldier doing what he was trained to do. And that it was no different than him taking a bullet for Mac or Dex or the others, but she got the impression it would fall on deaf ears. So, she brought their joined hands to her lips and lightly brushed her lips across the back of his hand, remaining quiet, sensing he wasn’t done.
“But if he makes it through to retirement, I’m going to get him back.” Apprehension and hope filled his gaze and her chest tightened again.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” she choked out.
He inhaled and warmth took over his expression. “I can’t wait for you to meet him, too.”
He dipped down to brush his lips to hers in a soft, sweet, featherlight kiss that stole her strength and what was left of her heart.
When he drew back, he set his forehead to hers. “Thank you for wanting to keep me in your life. I don’t deserve you, Emily.” Then he released her hand to cup her face, and the adoration, devotion, and love blazing in his eyes made her shudder. “You rescued my heart and showed me everyone deserves a second chance. You ground me, Emily. Bring balance to my life. You are my life.”
She blinked back a sudden wave of tears. “Thank you for respecting me, for seeing the real me and wanting me anyway. When I watched you get shot tonight, I pretty much died, so…” She paused to blink the tears back again but failed as one slid down her face. “You are my heart, Holden. My calm. My confidence. My reason. You are my reason to breathe.”