Chapter 38
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
Natalie adjusted her dress one last time, studying her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. The burgundy color had always made her feel confident, put-together.
Tonight, she needed every bit of confidence she could muster.
She was about to have dinner with her father while secretly trying to determine if he was planning a terrorist attack. While being watched by his security team. While pretending to be in a relationship with a man who’d been lying to her for three months.
No pressure.
Her hands shook slightly as she applied lipstick, and she forced them to steady. She couldn’t show weakness tonight. Couldn’t let her father see her fear or her doubt.
She had to be Natalie Ravenscroft, confident daughter and woman in control.
Even if inside she was falling apart.
Natalie took a deep breath and headed downstairs, steeling herself to see Hudson. To play the role of girlfriend. To pretend everything was normal when nothing had been normal since last night.
She found him in the guest room doorway, and her traitorous heart skipped a beat.
He looked devastatingly handsome in dark slacks and a white button-down.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms in that casually elegant way that had always made her weak.
His hair was styled, his jaw clean-shaven, and for just a moment, he looked exactly like the Timothy Shaw she’d fallen in love with.
Then his eyes met hers—wary, calculating, professional—and the illusion shattered.
This wasn’t Timothy. This was Hudson Roberts, operative, spy, the man who’d used her.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself of that?
“Ready?” She forced her voice to remain neutral even as her pulse quickened.
Focus, she told herself. This isn’t about him. This is about stopping Critical Mass.
They drove toward her father’s estate in silence, the black security sedan following at an inconspicuous distance. Natalie watched the familiar streets pass by—streets she’d driven down her entire life.
Except now she was going there as a spy. As someone gathering intelligence on her own father.
Critical Mass. The phrase echoed in her mind again.
According to Blackout’s intel, her father was planning something catastrophic that would kill thousands of people.
But was it true? Could the man who’d sung silly songs to her scraped knees really be capable of mass murder?
Natalie’s gut clenched.
She didn’t know anymore. Didn’t know what to believe, who to trust, what was real.
But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: If Critical Mass was real, if innocent people were going to die, she had to do everything in her power to stop it.
Even if it meant betraying her father.
Even if it meant working with Hudson.
Even if it meant becoming someone she didn’t recognize when she looked in the mirror.
A few minutes later, her father’s sprawling estate—the place where Natalie had grown up—came into view.
Natalie had always loved this house, had spent her childhood playing in those gardens, had celebrated every holiday and birthday within those walls.
Now it looked like a fortress. Like enemy territory.
Hudson pulled up to the security gate, and a guard stepped out to check their identification.
How many of these men knew what her father really did? How many of them were part of Sigma? How many of them might be collateral damage at the end of this?
Her heart felt heavier at the thought.
The gate opened, and they drove up the long driveway. Her security detail followed behind them.
Natalie’s father stood on the front steps, waiting, his posture radiating authority and control.
He smiled when he saw her, and something cracked inside Natalie’s chest.
That was her father. The man who’d raised her, protected her, loved her.
But was he also the man planning a terrorist attack?
Soon, she’d find out.
Even if the truth destroyed her.