28. Eva
EVA
I bring our lunch plates over to the couch, where Hudson is hunched forward, furiously texting on the burner phone.
I assume it’s Lucian.
The deep furrow between Hudson’s brows tells me it isn’t a good conversation.
I set his plate on the side table beside him. He grunts a distracted thanks but barely looks up from the screen.
“Everything okay?” I ask carefully. “Anything I can do?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Just keeps typing.
The silence stretches and makes my stomach uneasy.
Finally, he tosses the phone onto the chair cushion and grabs half his sandwich, biting roughly like he wants to chew through the problem.
“Martin is more unhinged than ever,” he says after swallowing.
Cold dread settles low in my stomach.
“What does that mean?”
Hudson stares down at the plate in his hands for a second before answering.
“He’s getting violent with Lucian.”
My breath catches.
“What?”
“He’s never put his hands on him before,” Hudson says quietly. “Lucian’s basically his son. He raised him. But now…” His expression hardens. “He’s using him to get to me. He knows Lucian’s the only person I care about enough to come out of hiding for.”
The words land harder than they probably should.
Hudson notices immediately.
He reaches for me, his thumb brushes lightly across my cheek.
“Hey,” he says softly. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I know.”
And I do.
Before me, there was Lucian, the center of his world, the reason he stayed alive through it all.
I understand that.
It still stings anyway.
“I never should’ve left him there,” Hudson says.
“We have to go back, then.”
His eyes snap to mine immediately.
“We have to get him out.”
“Eva—”
“No,” I cut in. “Don’t tell me I have to stay here.”
His expression hardens because that’s exactly what he was about to say.
“You can’t go back to Chicago,” he says. “It isn’t safe.”
I gesture around the cabin.
“And this is? Hiding in the woods forever?”
Frustration flashes across his face.
“Then I’ll take you home,” he says suddenly. “I’ll drop you at the Saints’ gates myself. You can go back to your business and your life. Pretend none of this ever happened.”
The sharpness in his voice surprises me. He means it.
The thought makes my chest hollow.
“I don’t think that’s what I want now,” I admit softly.
“Eva.” My name leaves him rough, almost desperate. “This is insane. I can’t take you back there. I can’t put you anywhere near Martin.”
He drags a hand through his hair, pacing once before turning back toward me.
“Can’t you stay here a little longer and keep healing? I’ll get Lucian, bring him back, then we’ll figure something out.”
“And what about hockey?” I ask. “You have a contract. You said yourself you want to go back.”
“So what’s the alternative?” he asks. “I can’t see one where I get everything I want.”
The flatness in his voice makes my chest ache. “And what do you want?”
Hudson looks at me for a long second before answering.
“A life,” he says softly. “I want a life away from the club. I want to play hockey as long as I can. I want Lucian safe.”
His gaze locks onto mine.
“And I want you.”
The words hit hard enough to steal my breath.
“Maybe it would have been easier if you’d just killed me,” I whisper.
Hudson goes completely still.
I wipe my eyes before the tears start.
“I mean it,” I say shakily. “Maybe I should just disappear. You tell Martin I’m dead. That you took me as revenge all along; he’d believe that, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe,” Hudson admits quietly.
He looks sick, saying it.
“But your life wasn’t bad before this, was it?”
I blink at him, confused.
“What?”
“Your father’s a sexist asshole, but he didn’t hurt you,” Hudson says quietly. “You had your business. Your freedom.”
“Well… yeah.” I shove my hands deeper into my sweater sleeves. “I had friends. I had my business. I was mostly happy, except for being sold to Baron.” I shrug. “But I had a plan for that too.”
A small smile tugs at my mouth.
“And I had a really cool car. I do miss my car.”
Hudson gives me a half smile that makes my stomach flip.
“You’re not supposed to be here with me,” he says softly. “You’re not supposed to care about me. This.” His jaw shifts once. “This isn’t your life.”
The guilt in his voice hits harder than I expect.
“I’m sorry I took you from a good life.”
“I mean…back at you. But here we are.”
That shuts him up.
For a minute, neither of us says anything.
Then he pulls me closer until our foreheads touch, his hand warm and heavy at the back of my neck.
I know what he really wants.
I know what he really wants.
He wants me to go home.
The problem is, I'm not sure I want to anymore.
For a second, I let myself imagine staying here.
Just us. The cabin. The lake.
No Martin. No Saints. No Chicago.
Then reality creeps back in.
He has hockey waiting for him.
I have a life there too.
Too much real life exists outside these woods for this to become some kind of fucked-up fairytale.
Wind rustles softly at the windows. Beyond the glass, Lake Superior stretches gray and endless beneath the clouds.
The silence between us fills with all we aren’t saying.
I pull back eventually.
“I need some air.”
Hudson watches carefully, as if expecting me to collapse if I move too quickly.
“Want company?” he asks.
I nod.
We walk the shoreline mostly in silence.
The beach is damp from the rain, fog curling low over the lake in pale ribbons.
Hudson stops every so often to pick up rocks.
Some he skips across the water.
Some disappear into his pocket.
Every once in a while, he holds one out to show me, explaining what kind it is as if he can’t stop himself.
Some are streaked with impossible bands of red and gold.
It’s strange how gentle he looks while doing this.
After walking far down the beach, I finally ask, “What kind of timeline are we talking about?”
Hudson exhales slowly.
“I have to be back in a week, or I’m in breach of contract.” He pauses. “But honestly, I’d rather go back sooner. Figure things out with Martin. Get Lucian out before this gets worse.”
I study him for a moment. “Do you really think you can work something out with him?”
A humorless smile touches his mouth.
“I think he wants to make an example out of me,” he says. “But I’m high profile. Hockey player, public figure, all that shit. I don’t think he can make me disappear without people asking questions.”
His expression darkens slightly.
“I might be able to negotiate something that keeps Lucian safe.”
“Something that hurts you?”
“Probably.”
My stomach sinks. “Hudson,” I say.
He shrugs one shoulder.
“I’ll survive whatever he throws at me.” His voice flattens. “Most days I barely feel pain anymore.”
The way he says it makes my chest ache.
I look away toward the endless water, trying to shake the heaviness settling over me.
Hudson crouches, picks up a flat stone from the shoreline, then flicks it across the lake.
It skips once. Twice. Then keeps going.
I lose count near twelve before it disappears beneath the water.
I blink at him.
“Okay,” I say. “That was obnoxiously impressive.”
“Skills I learned growing up near the beach in California.”
He straightens, turning the next stone over in his hand absently while he thinks.
“What do you remember about your mom?” I ask softly, changing the subject.
“Hmm.” He sounds thoughtful.
Hudson is quiet for a moment. A small smile touches his mouth.
“What I remember most about my mom,” he says finally. “She was blonde. She liked surfing. Total free spirit.”
His gaze drifts toward the lake.
“Huge smile, that could split a room open.”
His expression softens in a way I don’t see often.
“Really beautiful.”
Then the softness fades slightly.
“But troubled too. Mental health stuff. She wasn’t good with money or responsibility.”
He looks back out toward the lake.
“She used to bring men home sometimes and tell me to play outside for an hour.” He lets out a humorless huff. “She bought me a wristwatch so I’d know when to come back.”
The image makes my heart ache.
“Always an hour,” he continues quietly. “The guy would be leaving by then. She’d take a shower, then announce we were going out to eat. Usually somewhere cheap. Burgers or tacos or whatever she could afford.”
“She was a prostitute?” I ask gently.
“Yeah.” He nods once. “Until Baron.”
The name darkens his entire expression.
“She brought him home one day, and he kind of fell in love with her. Or thought he did.” He shrugs slightly. “He told her she shouldn’t be doing that to herself anymore. Said he’d give her a better life.”
I bite lightly at the inside of my cheek.
We both know how that story ended.
Hudson tosses the stone in his hand back toward the water.
“But before all that…” His voice quiets. “She’d play music in the apartment and dance around with me. She had this huge smile.” A faint, real smile touches his mouth at the memory. “Like it could split a room open. You couldn’t help smiling back at her.”
I can picture her instantly: sun-tanned skin, long blonde hair, bare feet moving across a tiny apartment kitchen while music played in the background.
Laughing with little-boy Hudson as they danced together.
The image hits me hard, and my eyes suddenly burn.
He lost her violently. Had to watch it happen. Then he had to carry that rage for years afterward.
And for the first time, I understand the revenge he wanted from my father.
From Baron.
A daughter for a mother.
A life for a life.
God help me, I understand it.
Hudson pulls me into his arms, and we just stand there, our feet in the sand, the lake lapping small waves along the shore.
I cry into his chest for a while before embarrassment creeps in.
“Sorry,” I mumble against him.
“For what?”
“For crying again.”
He chuckles. “Well, it’s been a shitty time for both of us.”
“I’m sorry they took her from you.”
Hudson goes still.
For a long moment, all I hear is water and wind moving through the trees behind us.
Then finally?—
“I think,” he says slowly, voice rough around the edges, “for the first time in my life… I’m starting to let it go.”
The admission feels huge.
Like watching a man set down a weight he’s carried so long he forgot who he was without it.
We walk, hand-in-hand, a little further down the beach.
“I wish we had met differently,” I whisper.
Hudson glances down at me.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re just some ridiculously hot hockey player.”
“Okay, I'm listening.”
“Maybe my company gets hired by the Reapers. Maybe we flirt at media events.”
“And then what?”
“Maybe we fall in love the old-fashioned way. You’d ask me out like a normal person instead of kidnapping me behind a bar.”
His thumb brushes across my knuckles.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “That probably would’ve been better.”
“Or maybe we have a really blisteringly hot one-night stand, and you ghost me afterward.”
“Or you ghost me because you’re too good for me,” he says.
“Or we see each other again and end up married with three kids.”
Hudson immediately wrinkles his nose.
“Blech. Kids. Hard pass.”
“You’d hate your own children?”
“I’d be a terrible father.”
“Don’t be a cliché,” I say, squeezing his hand. “You think awful things about yourself that just aren’t true.” I look back toward the fog rolling over the lake.
“You don’t understand.”
“No,” I counter gently. “I think I do.”
He finally looks at me again.
“You’d figure it out,” I tell him. “You’d probably spend your whole life trying to make sure your kids never feel the way you did growing up.”
He looks taken aback. Then he lets out a bitter laugh.
“It’s a nice dream, princess,” he says. “Too bad it’s not reality.”
But the way he keeps holding my hand tells a different story.