“We know they’re watching,” she said, her voice steady. “We know they picked me for a reason. And we know whatever they’re planning, it’s meant to pull you off balance. So, we take control of the one thing we can.”
He hated how logical it sounded when she said it—hated even more that she didn’t sound afraid.
“You shouldn’t have to be the one out front.”
“I already am,” she said. “Talking about it just made it official.”
Buddy’s breath caught—not because she was wrong, but because she was right in the one way that mattered. She wasn’t a pawn. She wasn’t a symbol. She wasn’t fragile. She was a woman who’d lost enough to know when running wasn’t an option anymore.
She stepped closer to the counter, fingers brushing the edge of one of the files. “This ends tomorrow, or it starts again. And I’m not willing to live like that. Not with everything we’ve already survived. Not with…” She hesitated, searching for the words. Not shying away from them. Just giving them the gravity they deserved. “…whatever this is between us.”
Buddy swallowed against the knot forming in his throat. “Fallon?—”
She didn’t let him finish. “We deserve a chance at something real,” she said quietly. “Not fear. Not ghosts. Not running in circles because someone else decided our pasts make us easy targets.” She lifted her eyes to his, and the vulnerability there didn’t weaken her—it sharpened her. “If this gives us a shot at taking our lives back, even for one breath, then it’s worth the risk.”
Buddy’s heartbeat kicked hard, too loud in the too-quiet room. He wanted to reach for her. He didn’t. The line between them was thin, but it held a thousand unspoken things they weren’t ready to name. “Tomorrow could go sideways.”
“It could,” she agreed. “But so could doing nothing.”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I can’t lose you.”
She stepped around the table and stopped in front of him—close enough that he felt the warmth of her in the space where his guard usually lived. “You’re not going to.”
Her words weren’t a promise. They were a vow.
A quiet, steady, terrifying vow.
And in the silence that followed, he realized she wasn’t just committed to the plan.
She was committed to him.
Tomorrow would be hell.
But for the first time, the storm didn’t feel like the only thing waiting on the other side.
Chapter Eighteen
The memorial always drew a crowd, but today it felt like the entire damn county had poured itself into the space between the marina and the Crab Shack. Buddy and Sterling moved through the thick press of bodies, the air shimmering with heat and grief and the twisted kind of hope people carried to events like this. Laughter rose above the picnic tables, bright and sharp, colliding with the steady hum of the water and the occasional croak of a frog.
It should’ve felt vibrant.
Instead, it felt like static.
Buddy’s skin buzzed with it, that low, electric warning he hadn’t been able to shake since dawn. Sterling must’ve felt it too—his shoulders too tight, his eyes too alert for a man trying to look casual.
“My first year with the CIA, I was a Protective Agent, and I hated it.” Sterling continued to scan the crowd.
Buddy didn’t look at him. “Why?”
“Because I had to protect high-level officials at functions not all that different than this overseas. Civilians were always involved. If something were to happen, casualties were always part of the risk.”
“You’re not helping.” Buddy rubbed the back of his neck.
Children darted between legs, their clothes sun-bleached, arms sticky from melted popsicles. Teen volunteers ferried donation buckets. Someone shouted near the dunk tank, another person threw a beanbag toward the ring toss, and someone else cursed when they dropped their funnel cake.
This was good. Normal. Joyful in ways that almost didn’t make sense considering the event’s purpose.
Perfect camouflage for a monster.
