Page 77 of Too Broken to Love

“You’re safe here. Go ahead.” Hudson ignored Malcolm’s snicker about the safe part. “Are you experiencing nightmares?”

“Yes.” Nathaniel’s shoulders shook. “Every goddamn night.”

Good. Hudson forced a professional response up his throat. “Talking about it is the way to make the nightmares stop.”

Nathaniel’s whole body quivered as he nodded. “He held the jagged bottle up to my throat. He said if I told anyone about our meeting, or the deal they were about to propose, he’d find me and slice open my guts.”

Hudson’s hopes rose with each word. Every new detail led to another. He could feel a clue forming from Nathaniel’s memories as sure as he felt Pop’s strength seeping from his ruby and into his blood. “Stick with me. What happened next?”

“I think I passed out. I don’t know.” He pressed his palms to his eyes. “I remember them laughing. Saying that despite beatings and threats to his life, Frank kept trying to get out of the country, and that thank God they’d found the perfect leverage to keep him in line—his pretty daughter in the states.”

“Motherfuckers. How long had they been tracking her?”

“I don’t know.” Nathaniel jerked his head up. “Wait. You said tracking. They talked about tracking too, but I can’t…I don’t…” He pressed his fingertips into his temples. “They said something about always knowing where Frank was.”

Hudson grabbed the front of Nathaniel’s shirt. “Did they know where Frank was because they put a tracker on him?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

The General slapped the steering wheel. “Nice work, Doc.”

“Can your people track the signal?”

Tessa lunged at Frank with a scream that had been burning inside her for two decades. Fists flying, she swung at his hands covering his face. “I’ve been grateful to you all this time for paying off the cops so I could have a future when I should have been cursing you for having me fake arrested.”

Strong hands grabbed her shoulders. “Stop that shit unless you want to get shot.”

Her nails ripped down Frank’s forehead as Shadow pulled her back. “Go ahead. Shoot him. I don’t care.”

Chest heaving, fists itching to lash out again, she looked Frank in the eye and searched his churning irises for the man she wanted him to be.

Time shifted back to when it was only the two of them.

Tessa.

Yes, Daddy?

Wad of cash in the side pocket. Go get ‘em and make me proud.

Frank’s voice hurled her back into the present with a gutting jolt. She jerked her gaze up to the man who should have loved her unconditionally, not caused her nightmares.

He cocked his head toward the door. “You don’t look so good. Please tell me you’re still taking your medication.”

Medication?

It only took half a second for the meaning of the word to register. The little girl who still missed their adventures recognized the code word immediately.

Shadow shook his gun at them. “Shut up.”

Tessa clenched her jaw and locked every muscle from her neck to her toes. Rolling her eyes with a sharp shift to the left and a guttural grunt, she held her breath for a heartbeat before she dropped her head to the side. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out as her temple struck the floor.

“She needs a hospital.” Panic shook Frank’s voice. “Now.”

Hudson braced himself between the front seats of the SUV. He blinked at the dashboard display tracking the signal the General’s team had locked on to with surgical speed. The indicator that pinpointed Frank’s position froze.

Hudson’s stomach lurched up and drove into his jackhammering heart. “Go.”

The General cut in front of oncoming traffic. “Two blocks out. By the park.”