"I'm here to keep you alive." His gaze dropped to the bat, then back to my face. "You planning to use that on me?"
"I'm considering it."
"Fair enough." He took a step forward, and I took a step back, my grip tightening on the bat. He stopped, holding his hands up like I was a spooked animal he didn't want to frighten. "Easy. I'm not here to hurt you."
"You already did that," I said, and the words came out sharper than I'd intended, edged with ten years of pain I thought I'd buried. "Ten years ago. Remember?"
"I remember."
"Then you should also remember that you lost the right to show up at my door in the middle of the night. So turn around, walk away, and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of."
"No."
The word was flat. Final. Infuriating.
"No?" I laughed, and even I could hear how bitter it sounded. "What do you mean,no?You don't get a say in this, Hudson. You don't get to just show up on my doorstep after a decade."
"Someone tried to kill you today." His said. "Ran you off the road in broad daylight. Your apartment was broken into three days ago. You've been followed, threatened, and someone spray-painted the wordsnitchon your bar." He took another step forward, and this time I didn't move back. I was frozen, pinned by the intensity in his eyes. "So no, Betty. I'm not walking away. Not this time."
My heart was pounding so hard I was surprised he couldn't hear it. "How do you know all that?"
"Because I've been keeping tabs on you."
"You've beenwhat?"
"Keeping tabs." He stepped past me into the apartment, moving around me like he had every right to be here, like he owned the place. Like he ownedme."Making sure you were safe. I tried to stay away, but when I saw the traffic camera footage of that SUV hitting your car..." His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. "I was on a plane within the hour."
I stared at him, my mind struggling to process what he was saying. "Traffic camera footage? How did you even get that?"
"I have resources."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means I run an elite private security firm, and I've had eyes on you for the past ten years." He dropped his duffel bag on the floor and turned to face me, his expression hard. "It means I've known about every threat, every incident and every near-miss. And it means I'm done watching from a distance while you get yourself killed."
Ten years.
He'd been watching me for ten years.
The bat slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor, but I barely noticed. All I could do was stare at him, trying to make sense of the words coming out of his mouth.
"You've been watching me," I said slowly. "For a decade. Keeping tabs. Making sure I was safe."
"Yes."
"But you never called."
"No."
"Never texted. Never sent a letter. Never showed up to explain why you left."
His jaw tightened. "No."
The anger hit me like a wave, so sudden and so fierce it nearly knocked me off my feet.
"My fatherdied,Hudson." My voice cracked on the words, but I forced myself to keep going. "Two years ago. He had a heart attack in his kitchen, and by the time the paramedics got there, he was already gone. I buried him in the same cemetery as his parents, in a plot he'd picked out himself because he'd always been practical like that. And you weren't there."
Something cracked in his expression. "Betty."
