Page 48 of Too Broken to Love

Hudson willed the ocean to douse the anger blazing deep in his bones. Tessa’s hand on his shoulder did the trick instead.

“Here.” The General poured a shot of bourbon into his coffee and another into Tessa’s. “I thought we could all use a drink.”

“Thanks.” Hudson took a long pull. The spiked java scalded a path to his gut. He welcomed the burning calm. “You’ve never talked about your mother before.”

Something stirred in her eyes. Surprise, maybe? Realization? She shuttered the reaction as quickly as it had flashed.

The General groaned as he took a sip from his mug and looked at Tessa. “I meet a lot of people with tricky situations. You’ve taken a lot of smart precautions. I didn’t want to bombard you with information, but intel reports that Frank’s been working for a company called Passage International. On paper they’re a travel agency that caters to the wealthy elite.”

Tessa snorted. “But in reality, they are a bunch of lowlife criminals, right? Those are Frank’s kind of people.”

“Criminals, yes. But the only thing low about the life they lead are their morals. The travel agency is a front for transporting illegal and stolen goods. Drugs. Guns. Art. Jewels. They’ll transport anything for a price. And that price has made the agency’s operators obscenely wealthy.”

“Why the hell are they working with Frank? His only skills are conniving and stealing. Yes, he can be charming and not half-bad looking when he takes a shower and puts on a clean shirt, but he’s nowhere in the league of what you just described.”

“He doesn’t need to be. Conmen are masters in the art of distraction. They have him on the streets, using his skills to help distract the new products, and by that, I mean the people they’re smuggling.”

“Fuck.” Hudson’s wrath threatened to go critical.

“Human trafficking?” Tessa’s hands shook.

The General tapped on the file. “We have surveillance of him using distraction tactics to lure women, and even men, into traps.”

“No. Your intel is wrong. Frank doesn’t have many morals but…” She placed her hands over her heart. “He’s a father even if I don’t think of him as one any longer. He wouldn’t do that to someone else’s daughter. Unless he doesn’t care about anyone’s kid. Even his own.”

“Tessa.” Hudson touched her arm.

She pulled away. “No. He cares.” She downed a gulp of coffee and swallowed it so fast her eyes teared. “He has to care, right?”

And there was the defense he respected, but it sickened him to see the last shred of respect for her father crack along with her heart.

Hudson looked at the General. “Have you found him?”

“No, but we took another look at the photo Tessa lifted from her assailant on the boardwalk to be sure we didn’t miss anything. We didn’t. Frank is here definitely in the area.”

Hudson tracked Tessa’s reaction to the news. It didn’t change.

The General picked up the file. “Intel agencies have been tracking leads for months in hopes of tying Passage International to recent human trafficking. This situation is the first solid lead we have. The man who tried to take Tessa is a known Passage enforcer. Others in the organization, including the leaders, have been spotted in the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. areas. We think they’re meeting with a client.”

Hudson shifted closer to Tessa, protective instinct drawing him to her even after she’d pulled away. “Do you know who they’re meeting with?”

“I can’t divulge that information.”

Hudson’s blood froze cell by cell. “What would Passage want with Tessa? An organization of that magnitude wouldn’t care about twenty million or a mansion they couldn’t liquidate.”

“To traffic her is the most reasonable explanation.”

“Fuck, no.” Hudson slid in front of her.

The General held up a hand. “It’s just a theory. One of many we need to explore.”

Tessa cut around Hudson. “Where does the explosion at my house figure into your theory?”

“We don’t have anything solid yet. Just that the bomb appears to be a sophisticated type readily available on the black market and that it was remotely triggered. You’ll get that info in the report tomorrow too.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If someone remotely triggered it, they would have been watching the house. If the goal was to kill me, why detonate when I wasn’t there?”

“Maybe to send a message.”