Chapter 4 Hudson #2
Dark sedan. Tinted windows. Three cars back, matching my speed and lane changes that couldn't be coincidental.
"Hudson?" Betty must have sensed the shift in my posture. "What's wrong?"
"We have a tail." I kept my voice calm, even though my heart rate had spiked. "Don't turn around. Don't react. Just act normal."
"A tail?" Her voice pitched higher. "You mean someone's following us?"
"Dark sedan, three cars back. They've matched every turn I've made for the last mile."
I watched her hands clench in her lap, saw the color drain from her face. Fear. Pure, undisguised fear.
I hated that I couldn't make it go away.
"What do we do?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"We lose them."
I took the next right without signaling, then an immediate left into an alley. The sedan tried to follow, but I was already accelerating through the narrow passage, my rental SUV barely fitting between the brick walls.
Betty grabbed the door handle, her knuckles white.
"Trust me."
I burst out of the alley onto a side street, took another sharp turn, then merged onto a main road with enough traffic to provide cover. Three more turns, doubling back twice, before I was satisfied we'd lost them.
"Are they gone?" Betty asked, finally allowing herself to look back.
"Yeah. We're clear."
She exhaled shakily, pressing a hand to her chest. "That was Lang and Briggs?"
"Could be. Could be someone they hired. Either way, they're keeping tabs on you." I pulled out my phone at a red light and sent a quick message to my team. "I'm going to have Santos run the plates, see if we can identify the driver."
"How did they know where we were?" Her voice was trembling now, the adrenaline starting to wear off. "How did they find us?"
"They probably had someone watching the bar. When we left, they followed." I reached over and took her hand, squeezing gently. Her fingers were ice cold. "Hey. Look at me."
She turned, and the fear in her eyes made my chest ache.
"They're not going to get to you," I said, putting every ounce of conviction I had into the words. "Not while I'm here. I promise you that." I brought her hand to my lips, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Betty. Whatever it takes. Do you understand?"
She stared at me, her eyes wide and glittering with unshed tears.
"Okay," she whispered finally. "Okay."
I held her hand the rest of the way home.
She didn't pull away.
The apartment felt different when we walked in. Smaller. More intimate.
Betty shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it over a chair, then just stood there in the middle of the living room, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.
"You should try to get some sleep," I said, even though I knew neither of us would be sleeping tonight.
"I can't." She shook her head, her voice thin. "Every time I close my eyes, I see that SUV coming at my car. Or I imagine what would've happened if you hadn't been driving tonight. If I'd been alone."
"You weren't alone. You're not going to be alone again. Not until this is over."
She turned to look at me, and something in her expression shifted. The fear was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something desperate and raw.
"I don't want to be alone tonight."
My heart slammed against my ribs. "You want me in your bed?"
"Not like that." She held up a hand, and I saw it tremble. "I just... I don't want to lie in my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening for sounds and imagining the worst. I want..." She swallowed hard. "I want to feel safe."
I want to feel safe.
Three words that shouldn't have wrecked me as thoroughly as they did.
"What do you need?" I asked, my voice rough.
"Can you just..." She bit her lip, looking uncertain. Vulnerable in a way she never let herself be. "Will you hold me? Just hold me. Nothing else. I just need to feel like someone's there."
It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but I nodded.
"Yeah," I said softly. "I can do that."
We ended up on the couch because her bed felt too intimate and the floor wasn't an option.
I sat with my back against the armrest, my legs stretched out across the cushions, and Betty curled up against my chest like she'd been doing it for years instead of ten years ago.
She fit perfectly. Just like she always had. Her head tucked under my chin, her hand flat against my heart, her legs tangled with mine. I wrapped my arms around her and held on, trying not to think about how right this felt. How much I'd missed it.
"I'm not forgiving you," she said into my chest.
"I know, honey." The endearment slipped out before I could stop it, and I felt her stiffen. "Sorry. I know you don't want me to call you that."
A long pause. Then, so quietly I almost didn't hear it. "It's okay. Just this once."
My arms tightened around her.
We lay there in the dark, listening to each other breathe. I could feel her heart beating against my ribs, fast at first, then gradually slowing as the tension drained out of her body.
"Hudson?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did you really leave?"
The question landed like a punch to the solar plexus.
"I told you. The work I was doing."
"No." She lifted her head to look at me, her eyes searching my face in the dim light. "The real reason. Not the excuse. Not the justification. The real reason you walked away."
I stared at her for a long moment, my heart pounding.
The truth. She wanted the truth.
"I was scared," I admitted, the words feeling like broken glass in my throat. "I was twenty-two years old, being recruited for black ops work that would take me to the darkest corners of the world. And I loved you so much that I couldn't breathe when you weren't next to me."
Her eyes widened, but she didn't interrupt.
"I'd seen what happened to guys in my unit who had someone waiting at home.
They got distracted. Made mistakes. Got themselves or their teammates killed because they were thinking about their wives, their kids, their girlfriends instead of the mission.
" I swallowed hard. "Or worse, someone used their families against them. Kidnapped. Threatened. Hurt."
"So you left to protect me."
"I left because I was terrified of what would happen if I didn't. If someone found out about you. If they used you to get to me." My voice cracked. "I left because I loved you too much to risk you. And I've regretted it every single day since."
She was quiet for a long moment, processing.
"I would have waited for you. I would have done whatever it took to make it work."
"I know that. Now." I reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "I was young and stupid and so fucking scared of losing you that I convinced myself losing you on my terms was better than losing you to something I couldn't control."
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"Yeah." A broken laugh escaped me. "It really is."
She laid her head back down on my chest, and I felt some of the tension ease out of her body.
"I'm still angry at you," she said quietly.
"I know."
"I don't know if I can ever fully forgive you."
"I know that too."
"But..." She hesitated, and I felt her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt. "I'm glad you're here. Right now. I'm glad I'm not alone."
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
"There's nowhere else I'd rather be."
She fell asleep in my arms sometime around four, her breathing evening out into the slow, deep rhythm of true rest.
I stayed awake, watching the shadows shift on the ceiling, holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Because she was.
She always had been.
And this time, I wasn't going to let her go.