Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Hudson lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling, knowing sleep wouldn’t come. It never did after nights like this—nights when violence came too close, when he had to fight to keep someone alive.
His mind drifted to his days in the military.
In an instant, he was taken back in Ankara. Three years ago. The operation that had changed everything.
The market had been crowded.
That was what Hudson remembered most. Not the intelligence briefing or the target location or even one of his colleague’s jokes during the helicopter ride in. Derek “Brass” Brassen always had a smart aleck remark on the tip of his tongue.
What stuck in his memory was the sheer density of people—families buying produce, old men drinking tea at corner cafes, children weaving between stalls with sticky hands and bright laughter.
Too many people. Way too many.
“Eyes on the package,” Brass had said through the comms. “Second floor, northeast corner. Two tangos visible.”
Hudson had been on the opposite rooftop, along with other colleagues, scanning the building through his scope. More teammates were on the ground, blending into the crowd or running overwatch from their mobile command unit three blocks away.
“I see them,” Hudson confirmed. “But I don’t see the device.”
“It’s there,” Brass said. “Satellite imaging confirms chemical signature. VX nerve agent, approximately two kilograms.”
Enough to kill everyone in a six-block radius. Maybe more, depending on wind patterns.
Hudson’s finger had rested beside the trigger, not on it. Not yet. “Brass, can you get a visual on the device itself? We need confirmation before we breach.”
“On it.”
Bobby Gordon, a teammate, had moved then—Hudson had tracked him on the ground through the scope as his teammate crossed the market square, casual as any tourist.
Gordon was good at that. Good at being invisible when he needed to be.
“Approaching the building now.”
“Negative,” Brass had cut in. “Gordon, hold position. We’ve got movement—”
The explosion had been small. Controlled. Designed not to destroy the building but to trigger the panic.
Hudson had watched it happen through his scope, helpless. The second-floor window blowing outward. Smoke billowing into the street. And then—
“Chemical release detected!” Brass’s voice had lost all calm. “Gordon, get clear! Get clear now!”
But Gordon had been too close. Hudson had seen him stumble, had seen his hand go to his throat, had watched his teammate collapse in the middle of the market square while people screamed and ran.
“I’m going in.” Hudson was moving before he finished speaking, slinging his rifle and running for the fire escape.
“Hudson, negative!” another teammate grabbed his vest, yanked him back. “You go in there without a mask, you’re dead in ninety seconds.”
“Gordon is down there!”
“Gordon is already dead.” His teammate’s face had been pale, his grip iron-hard. “You can’t save him. But we can still save others.”
Hudson had wanted to fight him. Wanted to throw his teammates off the roof and sprint into that market and drag Gordon out even if it killed them both.
But Brass was right.
The tangos on the second floor were escaping. And if they got away with whatever else they had planned—if this was just the first attack—
He and Brass went after the lab.
They’d found it twenty minutes later in a warehouse four blocks from the market. Enough VX to kill half of Ankara. The chemist had been packing it up, preparing to move it, when Hudson kicked in the door.
He remembered very little about the firefight. Just the sound of gunfire, the chemical smell that made his eyes water, Brass shouting at him to watch his six.
When it was over, three tangos were dead. The VX was secured. And Hudson had sat on the warehouse floor with his head in his hands while sirens wailed in the distance.
Gordon was gone. But so were forty-seven civilians who’d been in the market square when the device went off. Forty-seven people buying vegetables and drinking tea and living their lives.
Forty-seven people Hudson hadn’t saved.
“You made the right call.” Brass had sat down beside him, his face gray with exhaustion and grief. “If we’d gone in after Gordon, those tangos would’ve escaped. They would’ve used the rest of the VX somewhere else. You saved thousands of lives today.”
Hudson had looked at his hands. They’d been steady during the firefight. They were shaking now.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” he’d said.
That night, in the safe house, his team sat in silence. No one knew what to say.
Hudson had made himself a promise: Never again.
Never again would he let these weapons get used. Never again would he sit by while arms dealers and terrorists trafficked death in convenient packages. Never again would he watch civilians die because someone wanted to make a profit.
Whatever it took. Whatever lines he had to cross.
He’d stop them.
Hudson blinked, and he was back in his room. The ceiling came into focus. His ribs ached. His knuckles throbbed.
Gordon had been dead for three years. Those forty-seven people in the Ankara market had been dead for three years.
Brass later died in a helicopter crash.
Now Richard Ravenscroft was selling the same kind of weapons to the same kind of people.
That was why Hudson had taken this mission. That was why he’d walked into that cooking class and lied to a woman with kind eyes and a terrible sense of humor. That’s why he’d let himself fall in love with her even though he knew it would end like this—messy and broken and wrong.
Because if Ravenscroft’s weapons got used, it wouldn’t be forty-seven people. It would be thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands.
Hudson had already failed to save Gordon. He’d already failed those civilians in Ankara.
He wouldn’t fail again.
Even if it meant losing Natalie. Even if it meant she hated him for the rest of his life.
He’d stop Ravenscroft. He’d stop the attack.
And maybe—just maybe—he could finally stop seeing Brass’s face every time he closed his eyes.
He rolled onto his side, ignoring the protest from his ribs, and stared at the wall until the gray light of dawn crept through the window.
Sleep never came.