Page 74 of Too Broken to Love

To hide.

To get the hell out before the cops came.

But this wasn’t a game, and these men weren’t cops.

Frank rolled her off him. Pain seized her torso as she landed hard. She pressed a hand to her ribs, still throbbing from the impact. They weren’t broken like Hudson’s, but everything else was wrecked beyond repair.

This wasn’t just about Frank and his cursed gift to find her and wreak havoc. Nor was it about protecting the people she loved from falling victim to his scams.

This was about protecting their lives, including her father’s.

Hudson had called her a survivor, and he’d been right. She’d been fighting to survive her whole life and won. She wasn’t about to lose now, not with her whole life—with Hudson—ahead of her.

Closing her eyes, she breathed slowly and steadily until she got to a place where she could focus.

It wasn’t hard to get there. She’d been conditioned to enter a similar mindset playing adventure games. Frank may have taught her survival skills, but Hudson was her stability. She didn’t need to be with him to draw from his strength. She could feel him in her heart and soul. Without a doubt, she knew he’d always be with her, no matter how far apart the universe sent them.

The van veered left. Tessa gripped Frank’s knee for support.

He brushed her fingers with his thumb. “They’re planning to kill me, and I’m going to die knowing I failed you.”

Shadow laughed. “You’ll drown after we dump you in the bay.”

Tessa threw her arm across Frank’s shoulders even though she knew defending him was useless. “He can’t swim.”

Frank gripped her forearm like it was a life jacket. His ragged nails bit into her skin.

“They know that, Tessa. They’re gonna make it look like I drowned so they can get rid of me and blame me for some rich guy’s murder instead of a guy named Nathan, or something like that, who did it.”

Alarm blared through Tessa like a tornado siren. “Nathaniel?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

The siren picked up force and shattered Tessa’s eardrums. Nathaniel wasn’t just a pompous prick. He was a murderer with access to everyone she loved.

Frank twisted and latched onto her arm. “Don’t let them throw me in the water.”

She shoved him off her. “Then maybe you should have learned how to swim instead of being a no-good drunk.”

He straightened himself against the wall and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Tessa. All those adventures I took you on. I made you face your fears, but I wasn’t strong enough to face my own. I didn’t think you’d learned anything from getting arrested, but⁠—”

Her nerves pulled taut as she jerked Frank’s hands from his face. “What do you mean made me face my fears?”

“I paid the cops to haul you in so you wouldn’t be afraid of getting arrested.”

The truth hit her like a fist. Something twinged in her neck and broke in her heart. “It was all fake?” Her hand flew to her cheek. Pain flared hotter than her fear and rage combined. “You staged the whole thing?”

“I missed adventure games with my little girl. You were growing up.”

Frank’s words sped up along with the impact of his psychological coercion.

“Tessa, baby, I did it to help. I thought if I taught you that getting arrested was no big deal, we could be a team again.”

Frank’s warped justification for his manipulative stunts throbbed through her skull. The van and the moment narrowed to nothing but her, Frank, and a single question pounding in a blinding, steady beat.

What kind of father does that to his daughter?

Hudson shot his leg across the back seat of the SUV and kicked Nathaniel. “Think harder.”