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William shifted and moaned.
Addie scooted closer. “NO. I want you to stay put. Stay put. I’m coming to you.”
She moved closer and felt his hands on her thighs.
“All right, now move your hands upward slowly. We can’t drop it. So just go slowly.”
Addie watched his huge hand slide slowly up her thigh. He reached just inside the waist of her pants and grabbed the gun. She eyed William, who was on his side. “Okay, now hand it to me.”
William didn’t move, and he didn’t open his eyes, but he held to the gun tightly. “No, Addison. I got this.”
Addie lowered her tone and gritted her teeth. “You don’t have this, William. You don’t fucking have it. You can barely keep your eyes open. Now give me the gun. I can do it.”
William opened his left eye. “I need you to trust me. I’m not opening my eyes because I’m conserving my energy, but I’m an expert marksman. You do realize that you’d have to shoot with your hands tied behind your back, don’t you? Anyway, I’m in such bad shape he won’t suspect me.”
Addie rolled her eyes. “Conserving energy, my ass. William, give me the gun!”
She watched him click off the safety and slowly, painfully roll all the way onto his back, covering the gun with his body.
Addie sighed as she heard the door fling open, and she watched her father-in-law tumble down the stairs, landing at the bottom with a thud.
“Whoops. Did I do that?” Hammons called out from above as he descended the stairs. “All right! Time to get this little party started.” He laughed, stopping directly in front of Addie. “It looks like lover boy isn’t doing too well, huh? That’s quite a lot of blood here. Impressive. Look at you. You know I’d forgotten how pretty you really are.” He taunted, taking her hair and running it between his fingertips. Addie backed away, but it only caused him to pull harder. “This pretty long blond hair. And my, my, my, those eyes. As blue as the sky, they are. Man! It’s just too bad you had to turn out to be such a little whore. You do realize that if you’d just kept your legs closed that none of this would be happening to you, right? What a foolish, foolish girl you are for believing that this bastard could love you. He used you up and then tossed you aside just like everything else, didn’t he?”
Addie remained quiet, meeting his glare head on, until he backhanded her with seemingly every bit of strength he had. She staggered a bit, and then he really let loose on her, knocking her to the ground and kicking her repeatedly. Somewhere around the third or fourth kick, Addie heard the shot fire off. She watched Hammons stagger and saw the confusion on his face. As he reached for the gun at his waist, she lunged forward and sunk her teeth into his leg, biting into it as hard as she could. He grabbed her head and tore at her hair as two more shots rang out in rapid succession. As though time had suddenly stopped, Addie watched in slow motion as the blood splattered across the room and covered her. Hammons fell forward, half of him landing on top of her, the other half falling to the floor, bouncing as he hit the ground. She squirmed, trying to push him off as he lay motionless, staring at her, a blank expression upon his face. The sound of her own screams was the last thing Addison remembered before blacking out.
Eighteen
William watched the flash of red and blue lights from windows in the back of the ambulance. He kept asking about Addison, but no one was answering with anything definite. Everything was happening so fast. Teams of law enforcement had descended on the property, and medical personnel were shouting questions at him left and right, but the only thing he could think of was her. When he’d fired the shots and Hartman went down, Addison lost it. He didn’t think she’d been hit until the screams started, and then she blacked out, and there was all the blood, so much blood that he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He’d been shaking her as best he could—considering his injuries—trying to get her to respond when the cops had come storming in, weapons drawn.
The medics rattled off his vitals as they cut his clothes from his body. They placed an oxygen mask on him and were inspecting his various injuries when an officer opened the door and started rattling off questions directed at him. William could barely breathe, and he sure as hell couldn’t speak with that damned thing on his face, so he kept his gaze focused on the lights.
“He keeps asking about the girl. You do know who this is, right? It’s William Hartman, that gazillionaire from Austin who got mixed up with that married woman,” the medic said in a matter-of-fact tone to the officer who simply nodded and continued jotting something down on his clipboard.
“What’s his status?” the officer demanded.
The medic continued trying to place the needle in his forearm and after a moment sighed. “Serious, if not critical. Likely has a collapsed lung. I suspect a head injury and several broken bones. He’s in shock and isn’t responsive other than repetitively asking after the girl.”
“
All right, I’ll meet you guys at the hospital,” the officer quipped as he backed up and pushed the door.
“Officer?” the medic called after him, his tone serious.
The officer peered quizzically around the side of the door.
“The girl? How is she?”
William turned slowly, trying to see the officer’s expression, but his head wouldn’t budge.
“About the same. That asshole really did a number on them.”
That night Patrick had spotted his mother, who was severely hypothermic and not too far from death, walking along the side of the road. He pulled over, put her in the car, and drove them to the nearest house to call for help but hadn’t spoken to her since. He hadn’t visited her in the hospital nor returned her calls. To tell the truth, at the moment, he wasn’t quite sure whether he ever wanted to speak to her again. When all the facts came out, he’d just grown more and more furious at her for what she had put his family through. He didn’t know how he could possibly ever trust her again. His father had suffered a heart attack and spent one night in the hospital but seemed to be recovering well in his temporary apartment. Patrick had heard that Penny had visited him there a few times, but from what he gathered, his dad didn’t seem ready to move back home anytime soon.
Michele was feeling better and had been staying with Patrick at his place since he’d had to care for the boys for the past week and a half while Addison recovered. The boys seemed to be doing well. They were worried about Addison, of course, but thankfully, they didn’t really know all that much about what had taken place that night, other that their mother had gotten hurt. Michele had been a tremendous help with them, and they seemed to have taken a liking to her. Patrick took them to see their mother, daily, who was currently still in hospital, learning to function on her own again. She’d suffered broken ribs and a broken arm in addition to a severe head injury. Hammons had apparently been able to deliver quite a few blows to her head before Hartman could get a clear enough shot. The docs told Patrick that headaches seemed to be improving some but she still couldn’t be exposed to much light and noise seemed to really bother her. She was always glad to see the kids, and although Patrick hated taking them there to see their mother like that, he believed it was helping with her recovery, and the boys were just as happy to see Addie, as she was to see them. They’d proudly decorated her room with flowers, pictures, and cards that Michele had helped them make.
Patrick had mostly been able to work from home but was set to go back to work within the next few days, which he looked forward to. The only good thing to come out of any of this was that his family’s situation had garnered so much attention lately that the higher-ups had decided not to transfer him after all, despite his and Michele’s relationship.
Speaking of their relationship, it had been so far so good, and while he couldn’t say exactly what the future might hold, he knew he wanted to be there for his daughter the way he’d been for the boys. He loved Michele in his own way. It was just hard sometimes to imagine what their life together would be like after spending over a decade loving Addison, but he knew he had to try, not only for the baby on its way but also because Addison herself had so clearly moved on and it was probably time that he did the same.
