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“Yeah. And you were trying to seduce me. But it didn’t work.”
“Because of the cat?”
“Only Doc Delicious would have a sex dream while fighting for her life,” Felix scoffs. He stomps back around to the other seat and drops with athwump. “Didn’t even have the decency to invite me along for a threesome.”
* * *
Time passes. Could be minutes, but it’s probably hours, as I slide in and out of sleep.
My dreams continue in tiny snatches of time. But before Archer can do much more than take my bikini off and hold me close, I wake again.
First, to find Aubree sitting in the visitor chair.
And later, to find only Felix.
I guess my forehead wrinkles, because he responds on an almost-whisper, “You’re fine. And Arch was told to go the fuck home and have a meal.” He glances toward the clock and considers for a beat. “It’s only been twenty minutes since he left. I doubt he’ll be gone for more than an hour. So go back to sleep.” Leaning forward in his chair, he slides the tips of his fingers over my eyelids and makes them shut.
I’m too tired to fight him, so I allow myself to doze. But I think in the back of my mind how it’s cute he’s an absolute pig whenever he has an audience to show off for, but in our moment alone, in the quiet and the fading light as the sun lowers in the sky, he may be the sweetest Malone of them all.
“How is she?”
I sleep, and drift, and dream of Archer. I lie perfectly still, because it hurts to move, but I hear a familiar voice. A deep baritone that makes my heart squeeze.
I peek to see Charlie Fletcher. The dark bags beneath his eyes, and the sweet toddler sitting on his lap while she eats a corndog.
Hotdogs on a stick.
“She was awake not long ago,” Felix responds from the other side of my bed. His tone is hard. And somewhat… fearful. Not surprising, considering the last time Felix and Mia were in the same space, he kinda threatened her life. “She’s in a lot of pain,” he continues, “so the nurses keep coming in and pumping her full of meds.”
“That’s good.” Fletch clenches his jaw as his eyes scour the length of my body.
He’s still mad at me. But he’s here.
“Prognosis?”
“Why don’t you hang around long enough to ask Arch yourself?” Felix grumbles. “He won’t be long.”
“How about you mind your own fuckin’ business and answer my question? Or I could call the local P.D. and provide an anonymous tip regarding the whereabouts of a known mafioso. Pretty sure they still have questions related to the string of hits in Copeland a few months ago.”
I don’t see Felix, but I don’t have to, to know he smirks. “Men rarely survive threatening me, Detective Fletcher. Wanna reconsider your words and try again?”
“Nope.” I watch through my lashes as he pushes up to stand, but I close my eyes fully when I feel the warmth of his stare on my skin. In the silence, he opens my fingers and places something small and delicate in my palm. Finally, he turns and grabs his daughter. “We’re going now anyway.”
“You can hear his footsteps too, huh?” Felix chuckles.
His words surprise me, so I focus my senses, and swallow the flutter in my throat when I catch Archer’s heavy stomp, moving along the hall.
“You got busted,” his brother taunts. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”
“Fletch?” The venom in Archer’s tone makes my heart rate monitor grow louder and my eyes to whip open in curiosity.
He stops in the doorway and stares at his partner as if they are enemies. But Mia sits between them, tiny and innocent, so neither man speaks of our troubles. Of killers, or betrayal. Disloyalty. Dishonor.
“I’m leaving.” Fletch pushes through the door with his baby on his hip, stealing her out of our lives once more, so I feel her absence as keenly as I’d feel Aubree’s.
Silence hangs heavy, and my pulse refuses to slow as Archer comes to the side of my bed and lowers into the chair his partner so recently vacated.
“What the fuck did he want?” Archer reaches for my hand like he always does, but my fist is closed, and he doesn’t think to open it. “What did he say?”
