ELEVEN
I end up opening the door again.
It’s just sheer curiosity, no other grand reason. I’m curious as to why he’s in this state and why he thought coming to me was a good idea. I would’ve rather bled out and died than ever consider going to Hudson.
He’s leaning against the wall in the hallway with blood surrounding him. It’s not too much, but, if he continues to stay like this, he will bleed out. I pull out my phone and quickly call Cecilia.
She’s the only doctor I know who would be willing to help without asking questions. By the time I take him to the hospital, he’ll be long dead. Cecilia responds in record time, and I know she’ll be here soon.
I crouch down and stare at him.
Hudson blinks weakly. His forehead is covered in sweat, and his breathing is shallow. I don’t want to touch him and risk infecting the wound or killing him by accident. Not like this.
It’s not fair to kill him when he’s half-dead.
“Look who changed her mind.” He tries to laugh but fails. He groans in pain. “Did you finally let someone into your dark, stone-cold heart?”
My left eye twitches at the provocation, and I laugh bitterly. His eyes are barely open, yet he has enough time to fuck with my head? I get annoyed by his words and by the small smirk he has on his face, despite his pathetic state.
My hands move quicker than I can process what I’m doing.
I plunge my index and middle fingers deep into his wound, feeling the organs inside pulsating around my fingers. His warm blood coats my fingers, and I pull them out just as quickly as I forced them in.
Hudson hisses out in pain, but he’s no longer keeping his eyes closed. Pure hatred and annoyance are written on his face, and he wants to pounce on me. Sadly for him, his state is too severe for him to even move a muscle.
“You bitch,” he spits out, his voice weak and hoarse. “Why don’t you just kill me?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Why would I? It’s better to torture you first.”
“You might just be a bigger sadist than me.”
“Is that a compliment I hear from you? I guess it’s true what they say; a near-death experience truly changes a person.”
“Piss off.” He chuckles, then hisses in pain. “Are you letting me rot in this hallway?”
I motion with my head toward the cameras in the corner. “No, I’d get kicked out of my home if I ever did that, but I am waiting for back-up.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Cecilia will fix you and then, while you’re asleep, I’ll put you in a cage with a pretty collar and keep you as my bitch forever.”
“Stop messing around.”
I blink. “But I’m not.”
Well, it was a half-joke. The more I think about it, the more appealing it sounds. An image of Hudson wearing a pink collar with his name and a muzzle flashes behind my eyes and I can’t stop the wide smile that tugs on the corner of my lips.
“I will fucking break your arms and legs if you so much as try to put me on a leash.”
“Tempting.” I smile. “But how about you threaten me when you’re in a state of going through with it? Empty threats don’t suit you, little De Santis.”
He opens his mouth to respond but closes it just as quickly. His eyes flutter shut, and he’s no longer responding to my voice. I panic, slapping his cheek and pulling on his hair.
Cecilia walks into the hall as if on cue.
She’s baffled, to say the least. She’s carrying her emergency kit on her. By the looks of it, she just came from a night out. Her makeup is pretty, her hair gorgeously styled, and her dress to die for.
“Is this your new thing? Nearly killing them, then calling me to fix them?”
I roll my eyes. “Just help me carry him inside.”
We rush and manage to put him on my kitchen table. He weighs more than I expected and by the time he’s lying lifelessly on top of the wooden table, I’m exhausted.
Cecilia puts her gloves and a mask on, then grabs a pair of scissors and cuts open his shirt.
I’m frozen in place, and she doesn’t mind me just staying there like a corpse. I’m amazed at her speed and how she’s able to quickly switch from her care-free personality to a top-notch doctor.
“How the fuck is he even alive?” she mumbles under her breath, but it’s loud enough for me to hear it.
“What’s wrong?”
“He has two bullets in his body. Not only that, but it looks like something pushed them deeper in his body. What in the world happened to this man?”
Her eyes are on me. I turn my head to the side, feigning innocence and hiding my bloodied hand behind my back. Her burning stare sends chills down my spine, and I swallow the knot that forms in my throat. Cecilia waits three seconds before speaking again.
“What did you do?”
“I may or may not have impulsively pushed my fingers in his wound.”
Her brows shoot up to her hairline. “Why not just kill him? That way, both of us would have less work.”
I ignore her. “Is he fixable?”
Cecilia snorts. “Yes. I think so.”
I don’t speak again as she starts working on him. I only bring my biggest lamp while she’s in the middle of removing his bullets to give her better light. She doesn’t say anything for the next while, and I’m sitting right across from her, watching in fascination as she performs a mini-surgery in my kitchen.
Hudson has a really nice body.
His abs are defined, and there are a lot of tattoos on his chest. He doesn’t seem like someone who would have that many tattoos. He usually wears suits and is dressed professionally and neatly. Somehow, both suit him perfectly.
Cecilia’s hands work quickly, and I can barely follow her with my eyes. She’s focused on the task at hand and silence surrounds us. At some point, I yawn and decide to clean up the hallway until she’s finished.
I grab bleach, warm water, and a lot of rugs.
Before I even begin, I see that the blood has stained my door, the tiled floor, and the walls. The door and floor can be cleaned easily, but I can’t turn the walls white again without painting them.
Thank God, I’m the only person on this floor. I make a mental note to buy some paint tomorrow and fix this.
The next hour is spent with me on my phone, ordering a pretty collar for Hudson with a big, pink pendant where his name will be engraved. Cecilia works relentlessly, trying her best to save his life.
Why did I do that?
Letting him die would make half of my problems disappear. He’s not someone I can ever bring myself to care about, nor is he someone I could ever use in the future. So why did I call Cecilia to save his life?
When Hudson closed his eyes and could no longer hear me, dread filled me. I was anxious, and I started panicking. The only thing I could think about was how he was not supposed to die in front of me.
He’s supposed to die by my hand.
I’m more concerned as to who managed to put two bullets in his body. He’s someone who always claimed to be bulletproof—that’s what I knew him for. How the fuck did this idiot allow himself to get shot not once, but twice, in the same spot, on the same night?
“I’m done.” Cecilia emerges from the kitchen.
While she was working, I took a shower and got out two glasses of wine.
She plops into the empty seat next to me, grabbing the glass from my hands and taking a full swig of it.
“I saved the bullets,” she says with a sigh.
“Why?”
“I’ve seen a lot of bullets in my lifetime.” She looks at me with a worried expression. “And these are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They’re handmade with a crest I don’t recognize.”
“Do you know anyone who might know anything about that?”
“I can ask my father,” she promises. “I don’t know how much he’ll be able to help, though. You’re the assassin here. Shouldn’t you know about this more than anyone?”
I bite my bottom lip in frustration. Hudson’s words vividly replay in my head, and my cheeks flush. Slowly, I release the hold on my lip before it bleeds and try to ignore the sudden rhythm change of my heart.
“Personalized bullets are rare. They’re often purchased in bulk, and the person making them is either quite skilled or an amateur. Adding a crest is a dumb move because it can identify the attackers easier.”
“Then all you need to do is find the person who made the bullets, and it will lead you to whoever bought them and shot him, right?”
“Yes. I have someone who can find that out for me. Thanks for keeping them intact.”
Cecilia nods. “No problem.”
“Also, can I ask you to keep this between us?”
She smirks. “Which one? The enemy hottie or the bullets?”
I roll my eyes. “Both.”
“So you do agree that he’s handsome?”
My eyes close. She’s starting again, and I don’t know how much longer I can put up with it. She’s reading too many books, and she can’t differentiate between fiction and reality.
“I have a pair of functioning eyes.” I give her a pointed look. “So, yes. He’s handsome. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I don’t know why the two of you don’t use this opportunity to work together and find a solution to put an end to this feud.”
Because the rage that I grew up seeing and the loss I had to deal with are just too great for me to let go of. If I don’t get revenge for my fallen family members, and if I don’t put an end to it by killing them, then I have nothing to live for.
I live to kill them.
And I yearn to see their downfall.
“Because if I let go of this rage, I have nothing left.”
Instead of moving Hudson from the table and risking his stitches opening, I put a pillow under his head and Cecilia throws a blanket over him. That’s as generous as I can be.
Before she leaves, she tells me he’s expected to wake up soon. If he doesn’t, well, I should start preparing a funeral. I glance at him one last time before bidding Cecilia goodbye and going up to my little, personal room.
I’m not a hacker. I’m only good with a few things because a friend taught me and left a written manual on how to access certain things, which keys to press, and how to navigate CCTV footage.
I leave the door open in case Hudson wakes up and I need to bolt from this room.
In the meantime, I turn on the computers and get access to the cameras in front of the building and in my hallway. I try to track his steps backward and to figure out where he was before coming to me.
In total, there are seven monitors attached to my wall. I’m still learning how to hack, just because it’s a good skill to have and it’s fun. The first monitor shows Hudson getting off his bike, which is weird on its own.
He came here on a bike, in that state, in a suit?
I’m trying to follow instructions written on the paper and see what he was up to before showing up at my doorstep, but it’s harder than it looks. I’ve been lazing around lately and haven’t practiced at all, so I’m barely managing to do anything right.
And my mind is elsewhere.
What did he mean about not having anywhere else to go?
There was a rumor a couple of years ago about Hudson being a bastard child—that his mother had an affair and Henrick decided to raise him as his own. It was never proven and since his mother is still alive and breathing, I’d say it was a lie.
From everything I know about Hudson, he has a good relationship with his family. Is this another trick to mess with my head? Or are there things I’m not aware of?
I bite my thumb in frustration.
I’m reluctant to call Lucas, the tech friend who is teaching me how to hack, but eventually I call him and quite literally beg for him to help me.
With that, I lean back in the chair and stare at the monitors. Soon enough, it starts shifting from the things I’ve found to the things Lucas presents me with.
It starts at eight in the evening and Hudson is at the bar—the same bar I was supposed to visit with him. The inside isn’t anything special, and there are five other people aside from Hudson and the bartender.
They’re talking, and Hudson is drinking scotch while glancing around. The bartender doesn’t look suspicious at all; he’s just doing his job while occasionally glancing at Hudson.
He finishes his drink and leaves on his bike.
The next footage is of Hudson randomly stopping at a gas station near me. He’s fueling his bike and grabbing a pack of cigarettes when he receives a phone call. He looks pissed, brows furrowed and jaw clenched.
He pays the cashier and leaves, and that’s all Lucas sent me. The next footage is what I’ve seen already: him arriving in front of my building with two bullets inside of him.
“Hey,” I say to Lucas, who picks up after the first ring. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” he says with a yawn. “He does drive toward your building but, coincidentally, all CCTV footage blacks out between the time he leaves the gas station and when he arrives in front of your door.”
“Shit,” I cuss. “That doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” he says dryly, and I roll my eyes. “Do you want me to dig more?”
“Yes. I have a terrible feeling about this.” I press the rewatch button and start watching it all over again in hopes of seeing something I might’ve missed the first time. “While we’re on the topic, can you track down anyone who is making personalized bullets in bigger quantities?”
“Personalized bullets?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he agrees. “I won’t promise anything, since the chances are almost zero. Those guys are always off the radar.”
“But you know a lot of people.”
“So do you,” he retorts. “I’ll try my best and send you the bill later.”
“That’s fine, as long as you actually find something. And try to find out who called Hudson.”
There are too many things that don’t make any sense, and I don’t have a place to start.
I sigh, and lay my head on the desk, hitting my forehead in the process.
This is getting too messy and complicated for my liking. I can’t deny that I’ve already gotten too involved with Hudson and now I’m curious. I can’t satisfy the strangeness of the situation. It’s burning inside of me, forcing me to learn everything.
If there is someone personally out to get Hudson, I will not get involved.
But if there is even the slightest possibility of it being connected to the family trying to ruin mine, I’ll make sure they’re dead before they can succeed.
And I don’t care who I have to take down with me.