Page 157 of The Exit Strategy

“Hmm?” His gaze cuts to mine, assessing, planning, taking my measure.

“Did you know?”

He exhales through his nose. A long, slow exhale. The kind a man uses when he’s trying to decide which version of the truth will hurt the least.

“He texted me the night before you did, asking for help. I had my suspicions when he left Boston, but I had no idea it was all…this. I can almost understand why he didn’t tell me back then, but if he had, if he’d thought to even go to my motherfucking father, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Does Nolan know?” I press my cheek against the cool glass of the window beside me. My internal body temperature makes it feel like I’m boiling alive in my own skin.

“No,” he says, using the least Hudson-like tone I’ve heard from him in years. There’s no bark, no fight, just the tone of a man who has always cleaned up my messes while ensuring I learned a lesson.

“I— The repercussions of this could be…bad, Junie.” I feel his focus on me, but I don’t turn his way, and he releases a harsh breath. “Your parents are truly… But this? I had no idea Cole was carrying this. I knew Natalie had stayed in contact with him. I knew he was…holding something back. I knew that something changed him on a molecular level when he left Boston, but I was too much of a coward to push a friend I’d known since kindergarten, even though that’s obviously what he needed at the time. We all…let him walk away without understanding why.”

“You’re not a coward, Hud.”

“Maybe not, but I let him be one, and that might be worse.”

I have nothing to say to that.

Hudson’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. His jaw clenches until he’s one giant wall of muscle. He’s not crying. Hudson doesn’t cry. What he’s doing is worse—he’s revisingin real time twenty-five years of his own behavior. I watch it happen in his profile. The line of his jaw. The flex of his forearm.

He’s rewriting what he thought he knew to now include all the facts.

“Junie.”

I’m almost scared to hear his conclusion. “Yeah?”

“I want you to know something. Before we get back.”

Blood whooshes in my ears, but I nod.

“Everything your mother said is wrong.Everything. She was a horrible human who lost her heart long before you were born. You’re not responsible for what that cunt of a woman, Natalie, did to you either, and you’re not responsible for what she’s done to him since. You’re not responsible for whatever fucking bullshit your father pulled. And…” He meets my eye. “You’re not responsible for Cole’s silence.”

I open my mouth to stop him. It’s too much, but as is Hudson’s way, he steamrolls over me.

“You’re not responsible for any of the six years he spent sacrificing himself, or whatever idiotic thing he did to protect us all. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m saying this as your friend, and I’m saying it as your lawyer. But the thing I really need you to hear, as your family, is that had any of us known what Natalie was putting you through, we would’ve stopped it—Cole would’ve stopped it. I promise you that, Juniper. You are the biggest pain in my ass, but you’re my family, and we will find a way out of this mess.”

Holding off tears is suddenly a lot harder to do.

“Whatever you decide to do—whatever version of Juniper Mercer you need to be tonight—you’re allowed. You have a right to that. Not that you need permission, but you’reallowed to process however you feel is best. The people who love you will still love you in the morning. Including me. Including Fen. Including Nolan. And, God help us, including the man we just left behind.”

“Hud.”Please stop. Please stop talking. I’m not strong enough tonight. I’m just not.

“I’m not telling you what to do, Juniper. I’m simply telling you that whatever you choose, you won’t be alone.”

My chest cracks then, and tears escape—but only for a count of ten. Silent, graceless, embarrassing tears that I wipe off with the back of my wrist, then swallow them down and call on my strength because Juniper Fucking Mercer does not break.

Hudson doesn’t look at me. He keeps his eyes on the road, but he does reach into the breast pocket of his tux and pull out a handkerchief, which he hands me.

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“It’s a lawyer thing.”

I shake my head. “Hudson Tenney carries a handkerchief.”