Page 88 of Critical Mass
Just then, a knock sounded at his door.
He opened it, his heart racing.
Ravenscroft stood there, his stance making it clear he’d come with a purpose.
“I just thought you should know that the missing security agents I hired—they’ve been found dead. Murdered.”
Hudson’s eye widened. “What?”
Ravenscroft’s gaze remained hard. “Someone is playing a deadly game with my daughter, and I don’t like it.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE
Natalie knewshe shouldn’t do this.
But she did it anyway.
After her father had told her the news about her security detail, she’d been shaken. And all she could think about was seeing Hudson—though her logic made no sense.
Despite that, she went to his room.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she stood outside his door.
Using her free hand, she knocked.
Her other hand gripped a first-aid kit. Gauze. Antiseptic. Ice pack. Band-aids decorated with cartoon cats because she’d bought them on sale and thought they were funny. She’d left them in her bathroom here at her father’s house.
But nothing about tonight was funny.
Hudson opened the door, his eyes widening when he saw her.
“Don’t pretend like you’re not in pain,” she murmured as she breezed past him. “I saw you wince, and I know you’re going to ignore your wounds. I’d hate for them to become infected.”
“Would you?”
“Then you wouldn’t be any good to anyone.” She winced as she said the words. They were meant to sound lighthearted. Instead, they sounded entirely too serious.
She set the kit down and opened it up, pulling out the ice pack first.
“You don’t have to do this.” Hudson’s voice came from behind her, rough-edged and careful. He was leaning against the doorframe, one arm wrapped around his ribs, his white shirt torn and spotted with blood. Not all of it his.
“Sit down.” She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t yet.
“Natalie—”
“I said sit down.” Her voice cracked.
He moved slowly, like sudden motion might spook her, and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. Something about the way he looked while sitting there took her mind back in time.
Back to two weeks ago when Hudson had sat on the edge of her couch, laughing at her story about the disastrous office potluck—the one where she’d tried to reheat her casserole in the break room microwave and somehow set off every fire alarm in the building, evacuating three floors during a client presentation.
Back when she’d thought she knew who he was.
She prayed coming here right now wasn’t a mistake.
Natalie was the last person Hudson had expected to see.
