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“Who’s that?” Levi demands, cutting to Kellen and Bubba.
“Just the owner of a patient,” I reply, garnering his attention back on me. “But he makes a good point. This is private property, and I’d like you to leave.”
“You got my fucking bitch, bitch, and I mean to get her back.”
My eyes slide to his sons, neither one yet an adult, and they’re grinning like Cheshire cats. Yup. Assholes in the making.
“Those your boys?” Kellen asks, and my head snaps his way.
Levi’s eyes narrow. “What’s it to you?”
“Stay,” Kellen says to Bubba whose butt hits the tile floor. He then heads toward Levi. “You might want to ask your boys to step outside, because I’m getting ready to beat your ass for calling Dr. Blackburn a bitch.”
I gasp, Christy chokes, and the Hellman boys look at each other in shock. Levi takes the threat seriously, though, and backpedals toward the door, holding out his hands. “Now you just wait a minute… You can’t—”
My mouth gapes as Levi’s back slams into the door, stopping his progress. But Kellen keeps moving right toward him.
Fear hikes Levi’s voice by a few octaves. “You stay back from me. Don’t make me shoot you.”
My stomach pitches at the threat, but rather than reach for his gun, Levi makes a push against the door with his backside and stumbles out. His boys bolt after him.
Kellen doesn’t stop, so I scramble from around the desk and rush that way. I have no need to worry because all Kellen does is hold the door open so that the Hellmans can hear him. “Consider this your official notice. You are not allowed back on this property. Next time one of you even slows your vehicle going by, the police will be called. Understood?”
None of them respond but instead jump into Levi’s Mercedes and peel out of the gravel parking lot.
I press my hand against my chest, trying to quell the hammering of my heart. That was intense.
Kellen turns to face me, one eyebrow raising. “Did you steal that man’s dog?”
“What?” I try my best to sound offended, but it comes off as guilty. “No. No way. Why would I do something—”
Before I know what’s happening, Kellen takes my elbow and turns me around and marches me into the back clinic area. Christy’s eyes go round as she watches him manhandle me.
Through the swinging door, Bubba on our heels, Kellen escorts me through and lets go as soon as the door shuts.
He moves right to the kennel with the golden retriever and squats before it. Bubba moves to his side and sniffs at the door latch while the other dog watches with curious eyes.
Head twisting, Kellen looks over his shoulder at me. “I never would’ve pegged you as a criminal.”
“Levi Hellman’s the criminal,” I retort, stomping over and pointing at the cage. “That poor creature is only one of about four hundred dogs he’s exploiting.”
“So you could only grab one?” he asks.
And though I hear his subtle teasing, I launch into a diatribe. “He has warehouses full of dogs. Wire cages, barely big enough for dogs to stand in, stacked on top of each other three high. The dogs are not let out of the cages, so all feces and urine from the top cages fall on the dogs below. It coats their fur, gets in their food and water, and makes them sick. They have festering wounds, eye infections, and their toenails grow so long and curved, they can’t walk when they’re let out. That’s why this sweet girl walks funny, because she doesn’t know how to. They breed the females over and over again, giving them no time to recuperate. They don’t give them proper nutrition, so they’re sick and starved. The puppies are jerked away from their mothers at four weeks, far too young to be fully weaned, and are shipped off to pet stores to sell, the store owners knowing full well the atrocities going on to get those puppies. And when dogs outgrow their use or a puppy is born with imperfections, they take a hammer to the head because why waste money on bullets, or they drown the dogs. So yeah… I stole this dog, and I’ll steal others. I would have taken more, but I heard someone coming, so I had to make do with saving just one this time.”
Kellen blinks as he stares up at me. “Wow.”
I huff a frustrated breath, brushing my bangs to the side. “Yeah… wow.”
I straighten my shoulders and wish he had not seen all this.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that. And yes, I did something legally wrong but what I feel is morally right. I appreciate your help in running Levi Hellman out of here, but that only puts you in his sights. He has friends in high places.”