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“Put Bonnie down, and I’ll come with you,” I said, fighting to keep the plea out of my voice. “We’ll leave all this behind and you can… you can do whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want to show you I’m sorry just pl— put her down.”
“You’ll both come,” Felix decided, and he stepped forward. I threw up my hands to block his path.
“No! No, I mean, sorry,” I gasped. “You can’t. She’s a child Felix, and they’re rich, you know they track their own children. They’ll find you, and you’ll be back in prison like that.” I snapped my fingers as Bonnie whimpered brokenly.
Felix actually seemed to believe me, and he glanced down at her, then back at me. “But not you?”
“I’m just the nanny, they don’t care about me,” I replied, my hands shaking despite how I willed them to stop. “If I go willingly, there’s no reason for them to look.”
Felix looked like he believed me, and his lip curled in disgust.
“Fine. But one sniff of a lie, and I’ll come back and gut them all.”
His arm opened and he dropped Bonnie. For a moment she was just in the air, and my heart froze, then my body moved on instinct as I threw myself forward to catch her. She wailed but landed safely in my arms as I fell, then I rolled to get both of us away from Felix.
Felix yelled, Bonnie sobbed, and Kane screamed.
“Dad!”
The yell unraveled all my work in calming Felix. His rage returned, fire in his eyes and he bolted to where Bonnie and I had landed by the couch, his knife raised.
“I’ve got you,” I gasped as Bonnie clutched at my shoulders and buried her face into my neck. Curling over her, I tucked Bonnie underneath me and buried my face into her curls, breathing in her soft scent as I waited for the inevitable blow from Felix.
I didn’t care if it would hurt, didn’t care what he did as long as my body protected Bonnie long enough for Tabitha or Theo to react to Kane’s scream.
Felix’s boots thudded down next to me, and I whimpered, tightening my grip on Bonnie as I braced for the pain that was surely seconds away.
Suddenly, an almighty clang ran out above me, and Felix’s angry yell stuttered off slightly. The pain didn’t come, so I slowly lifted my head. Felix was standing over me, the knife raised and ready to come down on my body, but he didn’t move. Instead, his mouth opened and closed, and his eyes rolled back in his head while he stumbled backwards. Then Felix collapsed like a sack of bricks down onto the floor, and my heart leaped up into my throat.
“Tabitha?!”
Behind him, brandishing a cast iron skillet, was Tabitha, and she puffed out her cheeks as she nudged a toe at Felix’s now unconscious form.
“What a foul, foul man,” she declared.
39
THEO
“Dad!”
I was used to Kane screaming. He was an excitable kid, and his game of running around saving Ava’s plushies from supervillains was a common occurrence.
This scream was different.
In a second, I had muted the lead designer for the New Year’s party, ending their rather boring rant about the importance of tassels over ribbons, and pulled up the security feed for the house. Ever since the drugs were planted, I had kept a closer eye on things. What was displayed on my screen made my heart drop like a rock. I wasted no time in processing; I flew out of my chair and sprinted out of my room, down the corridor, and all but leaped down the stairs two at a time.
“Kane!”
I glanced at the scene in the lounge; Tabitha standing over the crumpled body of Felix, Summer cowering on the floor with Bonnie in her arms. Kane was my priority and the moment I saw him in the doorway, tears streaming down his face, I scooped him up into my arms and all but crushed him to my chest in a strong hug.
“I’m here buddy. I’m right here.”
Safe in my arms, Kane started to sob, and I bounced him gently back and forth, then turned back to the others.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Language,” Tabitha scolded, aiming the skillet at me with a stern look in her eye.
