Madly Yours (Nora Reed) novel Chapter 232

Jude pressed his lips together, unable to argue. He let out a heavy sigh. "So, what's your plan now?"

"Keep looking, obviously. Just without his help."

Jude stared at him in disbelief. "You're just going to burn your bridge with Hudson?"

"It's not exactly burning a bridge if there was never a solid connection to begin with. I only reached out to him in San Francisco because I didn't know the territory and needed a local heavyweight. Besides, he isn't the only Lancaster in town."

"You want to team up with Silas?" Jude frowned. "But I heard Hudson completely crippled his influence. He's barely a blip on the radar anymore."

"I think you're forgetting about a certain black sheep in the Lancaster family."

Jude opened his mouth to speak but ultimately closed it.

Fine. Even without keeping close tabs on the Lancasters, Jude knew Hudson and his estranged uncle, Lawrence Lancaster, were locked in a vicious power struggle. If Finnian aligned himself with Lawrence, there was no telling what kind of fallout it would bring down on Hudson.

Letting out another sigh, he turned and pushed open the door to head back into the dining room.

As the heavy door clicked shut, Finnian was left standing alone in the quiet corridor. In no rush to leave, he leaned back against the wall and lit a cigarette. He took a long drag, the swirling smoke obscuring his sharp profile.

He lifted his arm, his gaze locking onto the faded red cord tied around his wrist.

He stared at it for a long time before finally crushing the dying cigarette in a nearby ashtray. Without looking back, he strode toward the parking garage.

Back in the dining room, Jude's expression had already smoothed over into his usual calm and collected demeanor.

He sat across from Hudson and raised his glass. "Hudson, I was out of line today. I shouldn't have kept you in the dark."

Meanwhile, deep within a nameless, decaying alleyway in Northampton.

The air was thick with the stench of mildew and the sour reek of fermenting garbage. Telephone poles were plastered with a chaotic collage of cheap flyers, half of them torn off, the remaining paper fluttering helplessly in the bitter wind.

Dorian Chase stood in front of the Dilapidated Tenements. Huge chunks of plaster had peeled away from the building's facade, exposing the dark, crumbling concrete underneath. Half the windows were shattered and patched over with cheap plastic tarps, while others were missing their frames entirely, gaping open like hollow, rotting mouths.

He glanced down at the address on his phone, confirmed he was in the right place, and stepped inside.

The hallway lights had clearly been dead for years. He flicked on his phone's flashlight, the beam sweeping across the filthy floor and illuminating more garish flyers plastered over the walls.

Dorian took the stairs to the third floor, walking all the way to the door at the very end of the corridor before raising a hand to knock.