Page 68 of Too Broken to Love

“No. Please, you have to believe me. I put it there because…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t trust you at first. Then someone tried to take you. Kill you. I protect the people I love, Tessa, and you got added to that list so fucking fast my head spun.”

Her mouth dropped open.

She blinked.

“You…what?”

“Tessa, I⁠—”

“No. Don’t answer that. Not now.” She yanked the ring off her finger. “I should throw this at you, but I’m not stupid. Once I’m not in danger anymore, that tracker is coming out.” She slipped the ring back on her finger. “I’m going to the ladies’ room now. Don’t come looking for me. I’ll find you once I’ve cooled off.”

She spun on her heel and stepped toward the exit.

“Tessa, wait.”

She didn’t turn around.

Hudson nursed a bourbon at the bar as he watched Tessa’s tracker on his phone. Had he just told her he loved her while they were fighting?

Fuck, he had. He wouldn’t take it back, but shit, did it complicate things. He wanted the position with VIPER so badly it made him jitter.

But he wanted Tessa more.

He knew the dismal statistics for military couples. Add in special forces, and the divorce rate skyrocketed. Chris and his wife were proof enough. Tessa had spent her entire life surviving chaos. Now that she’d found stability, he couldn’t be the man who took it away. Even if he gave her everything he had while with VIPER, there were no guarantees he’d come home. Her heart had already been broken too many times. He couldn’t set her up for heartbreak again.

That left only one option, and it would surely land him on the General’s, an admiral’s, and the director’s shitlist.

He looked toward the entrance to the ballroom searching for Tessa and squinted. Was that Nathaniel hurrying toward him?

Shoving his phone in his pocket, he threw the rest of his drink down his throat. Half the bourbon splashed down his chin as he stalked toward the unexpected visitor, rage and anticipation bubbling in his chest and questions on his tongue.

Wiping his face with the back of his hand, he grabbed the prick’s arm. With enough force to leave no doubt he meant business, he tugged him to a corner screened by two lush potted trees and pushed him onto a loveseat behind the foliage. “What are you doing here?”

Nathaniel scrubbed sweat from his brow. Straightening, he held up his hands in surrender. “I need your help.”

Hudson swung a chair around and straddled it. Draping his forearms over the backrest, he stared at Nathaniel. “And I need answers. Start talking.”

Nathaniel’s lips quivered. “They’re gonna kill my son, his wife, and my grandbaby if I don’t get them ten million dollars.”

Hudson didn’t move a muscle, but everything inside him jerked in surprise. Why hadn’t a ten-million-dollar debt come up in any searches? “Who do you owe?”

“My bookie. Please, Hudson. He’s been threatening to hurt my family for a while if I don’t pay my debts in full, but I didn’t think he was serious. I tried to get the money myself, but it all went wrong.” He darted his gaze around the room. “I know you don’t like me, and I’m sorry Sam had to die to make things right, but after the way⁠—”

Hudson shoved off the chair’s backrest. The legs screeched against the floor as he kicked the chair to the side. Clamping his fingers around Nathaniel’s throat, he yanked him up and pinned him against the back of the couch as the confession blared in his ears.

Sam had to die.

“You killed Pop?” The question ripped out in a snarl as deadly as shrapnel. Blood thundered in his ears. The shockwaves shattered the disco ball’s reflection into streaks across Hudson’s vision as each pulse tightened his grip on Nathaniel’s jugular.

“No…no. The men from P-Passage International did.” Nathaniel gripped Hudson’s wrist. His eyes watered with the effort to speak. “They set up Tessa’s father to…to take the fall.” Spit gathered at the corners of his mouth. “I just made a deal with them to do it.”

Hudson tightened his hand on the murderer’s windpipe. “Why?”

Red blotches mottled Nathaniel’s face. “Because I need…needed Vivian’s inheritance to cover my…my debts.”

“How did Tessa’s father become involved?” Hudson eased the pressure on Nathaniel’s throat just enough so he could talk over the deejay calling everyone to the dance floor.

Nathaniel sucked in a gulp of air. Tears from lack of oxygen, not remorse for anyone but himself, clung to his lashes.