Page 45 of The Art of You

He came around the poker table, standing opposite of me.

“You’re in front of Bianca’s seat.”

I kept my eyes on the chair as he gripped the back of it, the slight veins in his hands popping from the tension.

“Pigtails and a missing front tooth. That was me. Permed hair and boys on the brain was Bianca.” I almost laughed at the image. God, I missed her.

Shit, I was losing the plot. Why was I sharing this story?

I blinked my attention up to him, finding him quietly waiting for me to continue.

“One thing I struggled with when it came to poker, and still do to this day, is I never played hands I didn’t think I could truly win. It’s not that I couldn’t bluff, I didn’t want to.”

“Being honest isn’t the worst trait to have.” He semi-smiled and shrugged.

“But I did lie to you. In August.” I resisted the impulse to close my eyes while I shared how I’d been dishonest with him,even though he was now well aware of that fact after my interview with Adelina. “Pablo walked uninvited into my house. I never got around to changing the locks. He had a key, and I completely forgot about that. Any time he’d come by before, he’d always rung the bell.”

He let go of the chair and took a step away from the table as if it were made of fire not hardwood.

“I’ve changed the locks since.” I quickly extinguished the flames before the man lost the plot, too. “Anyway?—”

“Don’t ‘anyway’ me.” He swiped his palm across his eyes as if wishing he could unsee something, his broad shoulders losing some slack in their typical tense state. “You can’t brush off the fact you were so casual about your safety and expect me to not freak out. You let this man have a key to your place, and you forgot to change the locks after you split?” He was shaking his head now.

Consider his control broken in half.

Not the story I’d wanted Bianca to write.

Where was a firefighter when I needed one to put out this new inferno I’d inadvertently caused?

“God, you stress me out.” He tore his hand through his hair, then winced at the movement, accidentally using his injured arm. “I should’ve taken more pills,” he added under his breath.

“Not good for you. Two was enough.”

The eye roll wasn’t lost on me. I about dropped anotheranywayon him to try and swing back to the point I’d been trying to make, but I didn’t want to be a total brat. He was right, after all. I shouldn’t have been careless with my safety.

“So.” Was that better than a sarcasticanyway? I hoped. “As I was saying, you already know what happened with Pablo, but the reason I’m rehashing this is because of what happened in the office the next day. You asked me about my arm, and I knew if I didn’t remember everything my dad taught me aboutbluffing and having a poker face . . . well, I knew what would happen. So I lied to you. I was trying to protect you, not Pablo. I didn’t want you getting in trouble by going after him.”

“The last thing you need to do is protect me.” He circled the table, dragging his knuckles along the felt with each step closer. When he stopped before me, he slowly guided his eyes up. “When I’m not running a bar, I hunt predators for a living. I’m well aware of the consequences of my actions and what would happen if law enforcement discovered how I took justice into my own hands.”

What if that asshole Fed looked into Hudson’s past, and he found out about his extracurricular activities and actually did come up with charges to throw at him?

“I don’t regret my actions with the men we’ve hunted. They were pure evil. Demons, as far as I’m concerned.” His hard gaze softened as his shoulders relaxed. “But I would’ve regretted the way I handled Pablo had you not lied to me. The rage would have consumed me. I don’t know if I’d have been able to stop. I’d remember what happened to Bianca, and I’d have lost it.” He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling as he worked to control his breathing. His anger stoked even now.

Memories of finding my sister in a pool of her own blood catapulted to my mind. And there it was. Proof of how fast the happy times could be stolen and replaced with the ugly.

“I would have been wrong, though.” Hudson’s words as he opened his eyes abruptly snatched me back to the present. “No mistake about it, he deserved to be punished for ever setting a hand on you, but Pablo’s not evil. Those drugs he took are. That drugisthe devil. It steals lives.” His long pause, and the sad hitch to his tone, forced my eyes to open. “It killed a teammate of mine.”

Oh God.“I’m so sorry.”

He was staring at the floor between us, and when he lifted his head, his blue eyes were glossy.

Somehow, I’d blinked, and in the space of that time, he’d gone from fuming mad at Pablo to the verge of showing an emotion I rarely saw from him.

“You never told me.” I set my hand on his arm, but he immediately backed free of my touch.

He huffed out a deep, seemingly taxing breath. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He turned away, his back muscles drawing together. “Distraction.” The word came out low and gritty. “I need one.” He slowly faced me again while drawing his hands to his hips.

I did my best to keep my emotions in check. To not sob on his behalf, knowing he was hurting on the inside and I’d been unaware of his struggles. He had a much better poker face than me. How long had he been hiding his pain?What happened to you that you don’t want to talk about?

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