Jade:“Please just tell me you’re safe.”
The concern in her words scraped against something raw inside her chest and made breathing even harder. Zeus barked, a sharp and frantic sound, and she twisted in her seat to look at him through the partition.
He was standing now, his paws pressed against the partition, every muscle tense. He was watching her with eyes that saw too much and were pleading,“Come back, you’re leaving and need to come back.”
“I’m okay,” she said, repeating the lie as if that would make it true.
His ears flattened. He didn’t believe her; he never believed her lies.
The warehouse flashed behind her eyes. Zeus clearing the room, moving ahead because she’d sent him, and then the suspect lunging and Zeus engaging and Maddox frozen because for one second—just one fucking second—she'd seen Titan instead. Seen the explosion. Seen?—
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles went white.
Everyone you love, you put in danger.
Titan. Dead because she made the wrong call.
Zeus. Nearly killed because she hesitated.
Leah. Gone because Maddox couldn't, wouldn't, let her in.
Leah's voice, three years old but sharp as yesterday. “You're too closed off. I can't do this anymore. I can't be with someone who won't let me see them.”
And now Jade, who'd gotten past the walls somehow, who made coffee the way Maddox liked it and had clothes in her drawer and looked at her like she was something worth keeping.
Jade, who was about to lose everything because Maddox couldn't keep her distance, couldn't be professional, couldn't protect the people she?—
The phone buzzed again.
Her chest hurt. Actually hurt, like something inside had cracked. She rubbed at her sternum through her uniform shirt, trying to ease the pressure, but it just kept building.
Three options, all terrible. There was no path that didn't lead to someone getting hurt.
Unless…
The thought surfaced slowly, like something rising from deep water.
Unless you take the choice away from them.
If she ended it with Jade now—cleanly, definitively, no room for negotiation—then Jade's contract would be safe. Jade could keep working, keep helping the officers who needed her, keep building the programs she'd designed. The relationship would be over, documented as terminated, and Chief Marten would have no reason to penalize Jade for it.
Jade would be safe. She would be hurt, but safe.
And Maddox would still have her job. Still have Zeus. Still have the career that was the only thing she was good at, the only identity she had left.
It made sense. Cold, brutal sense.
End it before it ends you, before you destroy her, before she sees what you really are.
The shaking in her hands spread to her whole body. She gripped the steering wheel again, trying to anchor herself, but the logic was already lodged in her bones. The decision was already made, even though every cell in her body was screaming against it.
Zeus barked, sharp and desperate.
"I'm sorry," Maddox whispered. "I'm so sorry, buddy."
She didn't know if she was apologizing to him or to Jade or to herself.
Her phone buzzed again. She picked it up this time and looked at the screen through the blur in her eyes.
