Unfortunately, Reese wasn’t one to hand out favors at the drop of a hat. “She won’t let us use it,” Connor muttered. “It’ll cost her too much fuel.”
“You’ll owe her big,” Lennox agreed.
Yes, he would. But he was willing to pay the price. He’d give Reese whatever the hell she wanted as long as it meant having Hudson safe in his arms again.
Speaking of his arms, Hope was struggling to get out of them, straining her head in Pike’s direction. Connor thrust the wet ball of fur into Pike’s arms, then swept his unfocused eyes over the group. They were all staring at him, waiting, as if they expected him to make a decision, issue an order.
Jesus, he wasn’t even capable of reciting the alphabet right now, but somehow he got his brain into gear and found his voice. “Kade, take Lennox and the girls to the cabins Hudson cleaned out. Ry, you need to get to Foxworth.” They’d have to pass through Foxworth on their way to the city, but he might as well send Rylan there ahead of them to butter Reese up. Maybe this time she’d actually fall for his charm.
“Pike, you’re on first watch. We need to guard the camp in case there are still Enforcers in the area.” His tone went deadly calm. “Xan?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going inside and getting that comm system working, or God help me, I’ll —”
“Already done.”
Connor blinked. “What?”
Xan shrugged sheepishly. “I got the program running three days after Hudson told me about it.”
His mouth fell open. “You did?”
Xander nodded.
“You…” Connor blustered, shock and anger warring for his attention. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? And what the hell were you doing yesterday when I sat beside you for hours?”
“Well, ah… I wasn’t doing anything. Just messing around with an old program I’m recoding.” The other man shrugged. “And I didn’t tell you because I was trying to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
The anger won out.
Combined with the overwhelming worry for Hudson and the bone-deep shame over what he’d done to her, his blood coursed with a lethal cocktail that had him grabbing Xander by the collar. “A mistake? Because I’m trying to find the man who killed everyone I ever cared about?”
Xander was unfazed by the death grip on his shirt. “You’ll be shot down if you get within five feet of him, Con. Do you really think your wife would have wanted you to die avenging her?”
He released Xan, stumbling backward with a grumble. “You still had no right keeping that from me.”
“I made a decision I felt was best for the group.”
Xander was mocking him now, and Connor would’ve slugged him in the jaw if they didn’t have more important issues to deal with. He jabbed a finger in the air, inches from Xander’s nose. “I’m kicking your ass for this later, Xan. I mean it.”
The man’s lips twitched.
“But it’ll keep.” He broke out in an urgent stride toward the lodge. “Right now I want you to load up that comm program so we can figure out a way to get my woman back.”
Her quarters were untouched. Unchanged. Hudson looked around the spacious room, with its huge bed and cozy sitting area, and it felt like she’d never left.
“Look at me, you little bitch!”
A strong hand forcibly yanked on her hair, reminding Hudson of why she’d left.
Knox’s dark eyes blazed as he sneered at her. He hadn’t stopped sneering since he’d dragged her out of Lennox’s house and thrown her in the back of the Enforcer truck. He’d ridden up front with his driver, and during the chopper ride to the compound he’d sat next to the pilot, as if Hudson’s presence were inconsequential to him. As if she were a piece of furniture that didn’t bear acknowledgment.
Now, in the privacy of her old room, he’d dropped the mask of indifference. Fury and disgust had his whole body trembling as he shook her so hard her teeth rattled.
“You have no idea how much shit you’re in,” Knox spat out. “That stunt you pulled? Running away? I’m going to make you pay for it, Hudson.”
She didn’t answer. A long, vacant stare was all she gave him, because experience had taught her that talking back to Knox only intensified his rage.
She’d known him since they were children, and she’d loathed him even back then. He’d been a smug, spoiled child who’d grown up to be an arrogant, violent psychopath. His sadistic tendencies and brutal efficiency made him a good Enforcer, and that was the only reason Hudson could think of that would make her father consider Knox for her husband. Her father’s compassion had been trumped only by his obsessive devotion to the Colonies, and on paper Knox had probably looked like the perfect candidate to head up the new Coast Colony.
But Hudson knew better. Knox would run the place to the ground with his blind rage and complete lack of empathy.
“Say something, bitch.”
She laughed without an ounce of humor. “Bitch, huh? Is that going to be your pet name for me when we’re married?”
The sharp backhand nearly knocked her off her feet. Her cheek stung from the force of the blow, and she pressed her palm to her face in shock as Knox smirked at her.
“I’m going to call you whatever I want when we’re married. And I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to do to you.”
She yelped when his hand closed over her left breast. He squeezed it hard enough to make her eyes water, and her knee came up instinctively, slamming into his groin.
Knox staggered back in pain, glowering at her. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.” He advanced on her again, but wisely kept a foot of distance between them this time. “I’m not weak like your brother, and I’m not going to stand for this bullshit when we move to the coast.”
She shook her head incredulously. Did he honestly believe she would willingly follow him to a whole new colony and be his wife? She’d rather die first.
Before she could stop it, the last devastating image she’d seen at Lennox’s house flashed in her mind. That redhead’s body – Nell – on the hallway floor. Blood pouring from the wound in her abdomen as Layla hovered over her and screamed for the Enforcers to leave them alone.
Hudson hadn’t known Nell at all, but her heart still ached for the loss. For Lennox and Jamie’s loss. Knox would have murdered everyone in that house if she hadn’t agreed to come home with him, but just because she was here now didn’t mean she’d forgotten what he’d done or what he was capable of.
“I want you to listen to me, and listen good,” she hissed out. “I am not your wife. I will never be your wife. I will slit my own throat before I let that happen, bitch.”
His face turned red, the deep color emphasizing the bruising around his nose, which was more crooked than it had been the last time she’d seen it. Dominik had broken it, she remembered. And maybe it made her as bloodthirsty as everyone else in this ruthless world, but she wished her brother had smashed Knox’s goddamn face in and turned it to a bloody pulp.
The door swung open before Knox could respond, and relief flooded her belly when her brother walked in.
There was a split second of silence. A multitude of emotions traveled from his eyes to hers.
Dominik opened his arms.
Hudson hesitated. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d done to her, either. What he’d done – and was still doing – to the outlaws outside the city walls. But when she saw his anguished face, some of the anger chipped away, leaving her with a deep ache of sorrow. This was her brother, damn it.
Good or bad, he was still her brother.
She dove into his open arms, tears stinging her eyelids as she returned the tight hug he gave her.
“Hey, sis,” he said hoarsely, and then his voice sharpened as he snapped at Knox over Hudson’s head. “Leave. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the other man snapped back. “She’s my wife.”
“No. She’s a name on a marriage contract,” Dom
inik said coldly. “Which, in case you’ve forgotten, I haven’t even signed.”
Hudson looked at her brother in surprise. He hadn’t? She thought back to the contract he’d handed her before she’d escaped, but she hadn’t paid attention to the signature lines, because the bride and groom didn’t get to sign a damn thing. Only three signatures were needed to approve a marriage – those of a West Colony councilman and two approved individuals who endorsed the marriage, usually family members or employers. All three had to be alive and kicking at the time the contract was signed, so with her father gone, it had been Dominik’s job to endorse.
“I suggest you get the hell out of here before I have you thrown out,” Dominik finished. “I haven’t seen my sister in two months. We’d like some privacy, please.”
Please. So polite. Hudson might have even believed he was being genuinely cordial if it hadn’t been for the purple vein throbbing in his forehead.
The two men stared each other down, but Knox was the first to look away. With a muttered expletive, he stalked out of the room and slammed the door – but not before Hudson caught a glimpse of the armed Enforcer posted outside of it.
“Am I prisoner here?” she demanded.
Dominik’s gray eyes, so much like her own, flickered with regret. “Yes. Commander Ferris ordered twenty-four-hour surveillance on you when he heard you’d been located.” His features strained. “He plans on interrogating you tomorrow morning. He’s going to demand all the intel you gathered when you were in outlaw territory.”
Her lips tightened. “I’m not telling him a damn thing.”
Dom sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say.”
She searched her brother’s face, desperately trying to find a trace of that darkness she and Connor had talked about. The evil he might be harboring. But all she saw was sorrow. Deep, soul-sucking sorrow.
“Why didn’t you sign the marriage contract?” she whispered.
He surprised her by chuckling. “Oh, come on, H. We both know I was never going to let you marry that bastard.”
Her eyes widened. “What? But you said…”
“I said a lot of things. It’s what I did that you need to be focusing on.”
Her blank look summoned another heavy sigh from him.
“Shit, Hudson, why do you think I sent you out in the field the day after I showed you that contract?”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Because I knew you’d run.” His smile was gentle. “I know you better than I know myself, H.”
Her mind reeled as she absorbed the new information. He’d been protecting her?
She hadn’t even questioned his orders that day. An Enforcer had been injured – of course Dom had dispatched her to help. Except… he could have sent any of the other nurses. But he’d chosen her.
To give her an opportunity to escape.
“What’s happening here, Dom? It must be something pretty awful if you were willing to let me go.”
“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “Ferris has been riding my ass since Dad died. He’s put all these new protocols in place, and he killed the outlaw surrender program because he doesn’t want them living in the city. He thinks they don’t deserve it, that there’s no hope for their rehabilitation. He’d rather just see them all dead.”
Dominik raked his hand through his blond hair. It was messy, growing out, as if he didn’t care about keeping up appearances anymore. “I’m…” He puffed out a breath. “I’m so angry, Hudson. All the time. I get these urges to… to rip people apart. And I wake up sometimes and don’t know how I even got back to my room. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Fear skittered through her. “I think I do.”
“What? How?” he said in surprise.
“I met one of your trainees on the road. Max?”
Dominik sucked in a breath. “Max is alive? He dropped out of the program and killed two guards on his way out of the city, but the kid’s soft. I didn’t think he’d last a day out there.”
“He made it far enough to run into me and my group. And he told me that Ferris is giving the trainees injections.”
Dominik nodded. “Vitamins.”
“No, I don’t think so. Max noticed serious personality changes in the other recruits, guys he’s known his whole life. I think Ferris is giving you guys some kind of aggression drugs.” She bit her lip. “I think he switched your pills out after Dad died.”
Dominik paled. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, looking more tired than Hudson had ever seen him. “Fuck. That… would make sense.” He pinched the bridge of his nose like he was warding off a migraine.
She let out a breath. “Did you know about Dad’s plan for me to marry Knox?”
“No,” he said immediately, his tone vehement. “I didn’t. I promise, Hudson. You know how hard I fought him when he decided that Knox would be the perfect lieutenant for me. But there was no arguing with the old man, so I sucked it up. I tolerated Knox because he’s a good soldier, but I never would have agreed to let him marry you.”
She believed him. She knew when her twin was lying. Although his eyes looked desperate and angry and confused, there was no dishonesty there.
“What’s going to happen to me now?” she asked as a wave of exhaustion washed over her. “Will I have to marry him?”
Dominik was quick to reject that. “No way. That’s never going to happen.”
“He thinks it will.”
“He can think whatever the hell he wants. I won’t let him touch you.” Determination hardened his jaw. “I found a way to get you out once. I’ll do it again.”
Their hushed conversation halted when a knock sounded on the door. Dalton, one of Dominik’s higher-level Enforcers, appeared in the doorway with a sleek silver tablet in his hand.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but… well, uh, the men are a bit confused.”
Dominik’s brow puckered. “About what?”
Dalton held up the tablet. “The order you posted. Nobody is sure what it means.”
“Be more specific,” Dom snapped. “I post a lot of orders.”
“The meeting tonight.” Dalton fidgeted in discomfort. “Was this supposed to go out to the general boards? Should I gather the men?”
“For fuck’s sake, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” Dominik stuck out his hand, gesturing to the tablet. “Give it here.”
Hudson watched as her brother scanned the contents on the screen, his frown deepening.
“This is obviously some kind of tech error,” he muttered. “I didn’t schedule a meeting for tonight, and I’d certainly never arrange for it to happen outside the gates.”
Hudson’s heart flipped as a thought occurred to her.
Her gaze snapped up at Dom, and he tensed slightly, as if sensing she had an answer to the mystery. They’d always been able to read each other with nothing more than a look, and so she wasn’t surprised when he turned to Dalton and barked, “Give us a moment. I’ll be right out and we’ll go clear this up.”
But he didn’t hand over the tablet, just tucked it under his arm nonchalantly, as if he’d forgotten it wasn’t his own.
The moment the door closed behind Dalton, Hudson snatched the device from Dom’s hand and eagerly read the message. It was brief and to the point. Meeting. Four a.m. Two clicks west of the rear gate.
A smile sprang to her lips. “Oh Christ. He actually did it.”
“Who?” Dominik said uneasily.
“My friend… one of the people who took me in… he’s a hacker.” She swallowed. “We found some tablets when we were out gathering supplies and I told him about the program. He must have found a way to get it to work.”
“These are your friends?” Dominik tapped the screen as he skimmed the message again. “Why would they send this? They came to rescue you?”
“Ye—” She halted when she realized that might not actually be true.
Yes, they could have come here to rescue her.
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Or they’d come to kill Dominik.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “When I was with them, I found out…” She took a breath. “You ordered Knox to sweep an outlaw camp in the west about two years ago. He didn’t give them a chance to surrender. He killed them all, and one of them was my… my friend’s wife.” She stumbled on the word friend because Connor was so much more than that.
Connor was everything to her.
“He blames you for her death,” she admitted. “There’s a chance he’ll kill you if you show your face.”