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“Ziggy called me, two days ago.” He turned to Iris, his hands in fists at his side. “And I’ve been trying to track you down. Why are you not at the hotel?”
“Because, hello—my brother is here. And his fiancée. And maybe, have you thought that if I was staying at the hotel, that would be the perfect place for someone to find me?”
Oh. He drew in a breath. “Fine. But you…you…” He closed his mouth. Ground his molars.
“What happened at the game?” Shae said softly.
Hud had this. He rounded and held up a hand before Iris could start. “The defensive end for the Thunder took her out.”
“It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident!” Hudson roared. “I saw the hit. I saw his route. He wasn’t blitzing Jackson. He was blitzingyou.”
Her eyes widened, just a little.
“Thank you. And maybe it had nothing to do with whoever wants you dead, maybe it was just some game rage, but…”
“But we need to find out.”
Hud looked at Ned, whose mouth had gone tight around the edges.
“You know where this guy lives?”
“Ziggy is finding out.”
“She’s not our only resource.” He pulled out his phone. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Werner Vogel.”
Ned nodded, then stepped out of the room.
He turned back to Iris. And then all of it just dropped—all the anger, the adrenaline, the panic—it simply washed out of him. He collapsed into the chair by her bed.
“Hud?” She sat up, then grimaced, leaned back. “Aaah.”
“What. Is it your head?”
“No. I have two cracked ribs.”
He looked away, his hands tightening on the armrests. Closed his eyes.
Good grief, he almost felt like crying.
“You okay, Hud?”
He looked back at her. Not even a little. But he didn’t know how to say that. Yeah, he’d rushed to the hospital like some lovesick idiot. Called himself her fiancé.
But really, what was going on? He just stared at her. “I don’t know.”
Ned came back into the room. “I got an address.”
Hud hit his feet. “Let’s go.”
Ned nodded, looked at Shae. “Stay here. We’ll be back.”
“Spoken like a couple of John Wicks.” Shae stepped up to Ned, grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “Please don’t end up in gulag.”
Silence. She raised an eyebrow.
