Chapter 35
Tessa skidded across the van floor. The hard metal ridges smacked against her ribcage one by one. Scrambling to her knees, she backed away from Shadow and another stone-faced enforcer perched on a bench seat in the cavernous van and crawled toward Frank.
Tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks as the vehicle sped off.
The jolt pitched her onto her hands. Pain shot up her wrists as she landed in a corner in front of her father with a dull thud.
As shockwaves rolled through her, Frank’s body and features, once strong and charismatic, but now frail and weathered, came into focus.
Even his once bright eyes and hair the same shade as hers had dulled to indistinct hues.
“Tessa, I’m so sorry.”
Frank spat out a tooth. Bright lights from the ceiling illuminated the yellowed, chipped canine.
“Are you drunk?” She wrinkled her nose at his familiar sweat and beer scent, this time tinged with the metallic tang of blood.
“Giving me all the booze I wanted was the only humane thing these idiots did.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and burped. “I didn’t know what they were into, I swear.” Another tooth and a stream of crimson-tinged saliva shot from his mouth. “I tried to leave… really, I did.”
“Thanks for that.” Shadow chuckled, one hand gripping a handle bolted into the doorframe, the other wrapped around his gun. “We’d been looking for a reason to give you a beating, ain’t that right?”
The other enforcer smiled. “We’ve been having fun reminding him to behave.”
The driver howled with laughter. “Sure have.”
Frank thrust his bound hands toward Tessa. Blood stained the white zip ties. “You know I’m good at giving people the slip, but you gotta believe me. I tried to ditch these goons, but they kept finding me.”
Tessa’s heart dropped to the metal floor. How many times had she wished terrible, harmful things upon Frank? He deserved every thought, but this punishment exceeded her most vengeful dreams. “I believe you.”
And for the first time in her life, she did. Even Frank couldn’t fake the raw fear and regret oozing from every fiber of his body. Relief that her father wasn’t working with human traffickers coursed through her so fast her vision blurred. “I believe you. Truly, I do.”
Surprise crossed his swollen features. “I told a cop but…the cop was as dirty as them.” Frank fought for air as more spit dripped from the sides of his mouth. “They found out about you. Said they’d hurt you like they hurt me if I left.” He muttered a curse and turned his head. “See this?”
Tessa opened her mouth to scream. Nothing came out as she stared at the scarred stump where the upper half of Frank’s ear used to be.
He turned his gaze back to her. “They did this a few months ago when I tried to get you a message.”
“You tried to protect me?” Frank had never protected anyone but himself in his life except for when he’d made her arrest record go away.
“Always, Tessa. I taught you survival skills, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough if these guys found you.
” He dropped his chin and pushed matted hair from his shoulder as he darted a glance toward the two guns trained on them.
“They tortured me. When we got to that Belmarva place, they made me think you were in the house they blew up. I thought you were dead. I didn’t know you were alive until I just saw you. ”
Frank’s wide eyes and raw scream popped into her mind with vicious force. He’d yelled at her to run, not to win the game, but to save her.
A sob ripped from her throat. Tears poured from her eyes as love, hate, regret, and every other jagged emotion she’d ever felt for her father burst out of her in a violent geyser.
He’d tried to save her. He’d failed, like he did at most things in his life, but he’d tried.
The van whipped to the left. She pitched into Frank. He caught her with his bound hands before their heads cracked together. She waited for him to tell her to run.
To hide.
To get the hell out before the cops came.
But this wasn’t a game, and these men weren’t cops.
Frank rolled her off him. Pain seized her torso as she landed hard. She pressed a hand to her ribs, still throbbing from the impact. They weren’t broken like Hudson’s, but everything else was wrecked beyond repair.
This wasn’t just about Frank and his cursed gift to find her and wreak havoc. Nor was it about protecting the people she loved from falling victim to his scams.
This was about protecting their lives, including her father’s.
Hudson had called her a survivor, and he’d been right. She’d been fighting to survive her whole life and won. She wasn’t about to lose now, not with her whole life—with Hudson—ahead of her.
Closing her eyes, she breathed slowly and steadily until she got to a place where she could focus.
It wasn’t hard to get there. She’d been conditioned to enter a similar mindset playing adventure games.
Frank may have taught her survival skills, but Hudson was her stability.
She didn’t need to be with him to draw from his strength.
She could feel him in her heart and soul.
Without a doubt, she knew he’d always be with her, no matter how far apart the universe sent them.
The van veered left. Tessa gripped Frank’s knee for support.
He brushed her fingers with his thumb. “They’re planning to kill me, and I’m going to die knowing I failed you.”
Shadow laughed. “You’ll drown after we dump you in the bay.”
Tessa threw her arm across Frank’s shoulders even though she knew defending him was useless. “He can’t swim.”
Frank gripped her forearm like it was a life jacket. His ragged nails bit into her skin.
“They know that, Tessa. They’re gonna make it look like I drowned so they can get rid of me and blame me for some rich guy’s murder instead of a guy named Nathan, or something like that, who did it.”
Alarm blared through Tessa like a tornado siren. “Nathaniel?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
The siren picked up force and shattered Tessa’s eardrums. Nathaniel wasn’t just a pompous prick. He was a murderer with access to everyone she loved.
Frank twisted and latched onto her arm. “Don’t let them throw me in the water.”
She shoved him off her. “Then maybe you should have learned how to swim instead of being a no-good drunk.”
He straightened himself against the wall and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Tessa. All those adventures I took you on. I made you face your fears, but I wasn’t strong enough to face my own. I didn’t think you’d learned anything from getting arrested, but—”
Her nerves pulled taut as she jerked Frank’s hands from his face. “What do you mean made me face my fears?”
“I paid the cops to haul you in so you wouldn’t be afraid of getting arrested.”
The truth hit her like a fist. Something twinged in her neck and broke in her heart. “It was all fake?” Her hand flew to her cheek. Pain flared hotter than her fear and rage combined. “You staged the whole thing?”
“I missed adventure games with my little girl. You were growing up.”
Frank’s words sped up along with the impact of his psychological coercion.
“Tessa, baby, I did it to help. I thought if I taught you that getting arrested was no big deal, we could be a team again.”
Frank’s warped justification for his manipulative stunts throbbed through her skull. The van and the moment narrowed to nothing but her, Frank, and a single question pounding in a blinding, steady beat.
What kind of father does that to his daughter?
Hudson shot his leg across the back seat of the SUV and kicked Nathaniel. “Think harder.”
The murdering fucker grabbed the headrest in front of him.
“Hey.” Malcolm spun in the passenger seat. “Hands off.”
Hudson glared at his best friend he’d told to stay at the hotel. He fired another at the General in the driver’s seat who hadn’t backed him up.
Malcolm shrugged and faced Nathaniel. “Hudson here is supremely pissed. I’d start talking if I were you.”
Nathaniel grunted. “I’ve told you everything I know. Now please send someone to make sure my son and his family are okay.”
The General had already arranged for a security team to protect them, but Hudson wasn’t giving up that information until they found Tessa. “Walk us through your meeting with the Passage enforcers again.”
“I already told you.”
“Tell. Us. Again.” Hudson yanked at the neck of his crimson-stained, sweat-soaked T-shirt. He’d ditched his jacket, along with the tuxedo shirt the smuggler’s blood spray had seeped through. His uniform was made for pageantry, not burning down D.C. to save the woman he loved.
Tough to do when you didn’t know what part of the city to storm.
The fuckers had hacked into the hotel’s network and compromised the security cameras. Hudson didn’t even know the color of the van for sure, let alone a license plate. He prayed they were headed in the right direction.
Prayed the General’s team and the authorities they’d alerted would find her.
Prayed taking Nathaniel with them, instead of handing him over to the cops, would yield more information.
According to the research intel agencies had compiled about Passage International, they preferred to smuggle their cargo by boat.
If they planned that for Tessa, it would make sense to have a vessel waiting at the closest marina so they could get her out of the city and en route to their buyers as quickly as possible.
Fear boiled Hudson’s blood to an apocalyptic burn. Why the hell wasn’t she wearing her ring? He’d seen her slide the damn thing back on her finger where it belonged. It didn’t belong back in his pocket with Pop’s sinker. That’s not where the old man had wanted it.
That’s not where I want it.
The only reason she should ever take the ruby off again was to make room for an engagement ring.