Chapter 32
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
“Mr. Shaw?”
Margaret’s voice snapped Hudson back to the present. She’d finished her call and was looking at him with mild concern.
“Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hudson forced himself to relax his shoulders, to breathe normally.
That couldn’t have been Brass.
He couldn’t be alive. He couldn’t be here. Hudson had simply been seeing things—ghosts from the past, from his nightmares.
He forced himself to look casual as he looked back at Margaret again. “I’m fine. Just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Oh?” Margaret glanced down the hallway. “Did you want to go say hello?”
“No.” The word came out too quick, too sharp. Hudson modulated his tone. “No, I was mistaken. Wrong person.”
But as he returned to his chair, his mind kept replaying what he’d seen.
Brass. Alive. Walking through Richard Ravenscroft’s office building three years after he’d supposedly died in a helicopter crash. The guy he’d worked with during that chemical weapons attack.
The same kind of chemical weapons that were about to be deployed.
Hudson’s phone felt heavy in his pocket. He should call Colton. Should report this. Should—
The door to Ravenscroft’s office opened, and Natalie emerged, her father right behind her.
Hudson stood automatically, forcing himself to focus on the mission, on playing his role.
But his mind kept circling back to that face in the hallway.
Brass is alive.
And if Brass was alive and working in Ravenscroft’s building, then everything—absolutely everything—about this operation might be wrong.
Could Richard Ravenscroft really be a criminal mastermind plotting to kill thousands of people?
Hudson knew the answer. The evidence was overwhelming. The financial records, the communications, the connections to known terrorists—it all pointed to one conclusion.
But standing here, in Ravenscroft’s legitimate business headquarters, surrounded by the trappings of respectability and success, it was almost hard to believe.
Almost.
Hudson had learned long ago that evil rarely looked like what people expected. Terrorists didn’t always wear explosives strapped to their chest and shout manifestos. Sometimes they wore expensive suits, donated to charities, and raised daughters who loved them.
That made them more dangerous, not less.
Natalie stepped toward him, her face pale but composed. Hudson moved toward her instinctively, playing the concerned boyfriend.
“Everything okay?” He kept his voice low.
“Dad’s invited us to dinner tonight,” Natalie said, her voice sweet and pleasant—and fake since Margaret was listening. “Seven o’clock. His house.”
Hudson’s mind immediately went tactical. Ravenscroft’s house—more security, more control, more danger.
But also more opportunity to gather intelligence.
“Okay,” he said. “We can do that.”
Natalie’s eyes met his, and Hudson saw the question there: Can we?
He wished he could tell her about the bug, about the surveillance team already monitoring Ravenscroft’s communications. But it was better if she didn’t know. Better if her reactions remained genuine, if Ravenscroft saw only a frightened daughter and her protective boyfriend.
The less Natalie knew about the operation, the safer she’d be.
At least, that’s what Hudson told himself.
Richard Ravenscroft cleared his throat—drawing Hudson’s attention—as he stood his office doorway. “Mr. Shaw. A word?”
Hudson’s pulse quickened, but he kept his expression neutral. “Of course, sir.”
This private conversation would be the ultimate test, the place where Hudson found out if he’d sold his cover story or not.
He prayed—not just for his own sake but for the sake of thousands of innocent lives—that this plan so far had worked.
Hudson followed Ravenscroft back into the office, acutely aware that this was both an opportunity and a trap. Ravenscroft would be assessing him, looking for any sign of deception, any indication that Timothy Shaw wasn’t who he claimed to be.
Hudson had been trained for this. He could handle it.
But as Richard Ravenscroft closed the door and turned to face him with eyes that had seen too much and knew too much, Hudson couldn’t shake the feeling that he was standing in a room with a man who’d killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again.
“My daughter seems quite taken with you.” Ravenscroft’s tone sounded conversational, but his gaze remained sharp as a knife. “That concerns me.”
“I understand, sir. If I were in your position, I’d feel the same way.”
Ravenscroft moved closer, invading Hudson’s personal space in a clear power play. But Hudson was clearly taller and stronger. Still, Ravenscroft had every resource imaginable at his disposal. He could hire men to do his dirty work.
“Would you?” Ravenscroft asked. “Because from where I’m standing, you appeared in my daughter’s life three months ago, and now she’s being targeted by dangerous people. That’s quite a coincidence.”
Hudson held his ground. “With all due respect, sir, Natalie was most likely targeted because of who her father is, not because of me.”
Something flickered in Ravenscroft’s eyes—surprise maybe or reassessment.
Ravenscroft nodded slowly. “Which means you understand the danger she’s in. The question is, Mr. Shaw, are you equipped to handle that danger? Or are you just going to make things worse?”
“I kept her alive last night,” Hudson said. “I’ll keep her alive tonight, tomorrow, and every day after that. That’s not an empty promise, sir. It’s a fact.”
Ravenscroft studied him for a long moment. “We’ll see about that. Dinner. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”
It was a dismissal but also a challenge.
Hudson had passed the first test, but there would be more. Many more.
As he left the office and rejoined Natalie in the hallway, Hudson knew they were walking a dangerous edge. One wrong move, one slip, and everything would come crashing down.
So he’d go to dinner at Richard Ravenscroft’s house. He’d smile and lie and play the role of concerned boyfriend.
And all the while, the bug he’d planted in the man’s office would be listening, recording, gathering the evidence they needed to stop a massacre.