Page 138 of The Exit Strategy

Hudson:…

Great. What’s he going to accuse me of now?

Hudson: I’m proud of you, Spite-Berry.

I stare at the screen until my eyes are so dry I fear they’re stuck.Proud of youis not a phrase that regularly comes out of Hudson’s mouth, and it strikes my chest in a location I didn’t know I had real estate for.

Cole groans behind me, and it spurs me into action.

Opening my Google Drive, I forward Hudson everything. The LLC files. The shell structure. The address. The property management company I’d found. I send him the timeline, the dates, the forged signatures. It’s all laid out in so much detail that not a single piece of evidence could be refuted.

I made sure of it.

And Hudson will know exactly what to do with all of it—he always does.

I put the phone down on the nightstand, and my spine unknots by about 15 percent.

Huh.

A deep breath, and another 15 percent relaxes.

I asked Hudson for help, and he…showed up. Even knowing he would, I’m still surprised. Is that another character flaw? Not only did he agree to help, it took him less than ninety seconds to do so.

I’ve spent a lifetime thinking of these guys as a hindrance to my life, but what if I got it all wrong? What if they’re an asset I refused to lean on because of my own stubborn insecurities?

This is definitely growth.

Cole’s hand wraps around my left breast in his sleep—a tether tying us together—and I nearly jolt in place.

Not from his touch.

But because now that I’ve acknowledged my fault line, I know Cole suffers the same affliction—he doesn’t ask for help either.

Not even from friends he’s had since elementary school—even when they show up day after day.

Fen runs PR for The Haven.

Hudson’s firm handles their legal matters.

Nolan calls him on his shit because that’s what brothers and best friends do.

But they do it allin spite ofhim, not because he asked.

I can’t even recall a single instance where he’s asked them for help.

I just did the one thing he’s never done.

“Oh, Cole. How did we fall so astray?” I whisper, rolling once again to study his peaceful sleeping form.

We’ve been doing things all wrong, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to make him see that.

Asking for help might be the Achilles heel that finally does us in for good.

“Your thoughts are louder than Stanley’s megaphone,” he rumbles without opening his eyes. “Why are you awake?”

This close, I memorize the texture of his face, the start of crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes, the freckles that show how often he spends time in the sun.

“It’s late,” I whisper. “You didn’t set an alarm.”