When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “For leaving. For making you wonder.”
“You’re here now.”
“Yeah.” He straightens, takes a shaky breath. “I’m here now.”
“There’s something else,” I say after a beat, because the guilt is eating at me and someone needs to name it.
He glances at me. “What?”
“Nina doesn’t know about Vicente. About your history with him.”
Chris’s jaw tightens. “I know.”
“She’s going to find out eventually. She’s too good at her job not to dig into their pasts. And if Vicente starts talking about his relationships...” I let the implication hang.
Chris stares into the distance, his mind going somewhere I can’t follow. Whatever he’s turning over, it’s eating at him.
“She’s going to realize we kept it from her,” I continue. “Both of us. I know protocol dictates we keep it quiet.” I exhale slowly. “But we need to think about what happens when she connects it herself. It might be in her best interest to be read in, is all I’m saying.”
Chris is quiet for a long moment.
“She doesn’t have clearance, Wyatt. For any of it.” His tone hardens. “Operation Broken Heart, my cover identity, the specifics of my relationship with Vicente—none of that exists at her level. And there are things about that operation that even the Agency doesn’t need to—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “The point is, she can’t know.”
The way he stops himself tells me enough. There are details he kept out of his reports. Things that happened with Vicente that he never documented.
He’s right, and I know it.
“But if she figures it out on her own?—”
“Then that’s different. That’s her connecting dots from information Vicente gives her voluntarily. But us actively putting it in front of her?” Chris shakes his head. “That’s a career-ending violation. She’s had two sessions with them, Wyatt. The second was just yesterday—gave us solid intel that tracked with what Tatiana pulled together. She’s building real rapport. You want to contaminate that by telling her that every question she asks Vicente about his romantic history could be about me?”
Nina’s strength as a therapist comes from her ability to see people as complex rather than simply dangerous. If she knew that one of Vicente’s more recent relationships—one that ended in betrayal—was with Chris, her whole approach would shift. Every question would carry different weight.
“She deserves to know the risks?—”
“She deserves to do her job without having to second-guess every breakthrough.” His fists clench, knuckles white. “The second she knows, everything changes. Her approach, her instincts, her ability to read him cleanly. She stops being a therapist and starts being a woman trying to navigate her boyfriend’s ex.”
I want to argue, but there’s logic in what he’s saying. Nina’s therapeutic process relies on genuine curiosity, authentic engagement. If she knew that every personal revelation from Vicente might be about Chris...
But the alternative feels like another betrayal. Another way we’re making choices for her instead of trusting her to handle the truth.
“She’s stronger than you think.”
“I know exactly how strong she is. That’s not the point.” He exhales slowly, and something in his voice softens. “Vicente and Arturo are dangerous, Wyatt. Not just operationally—personally. They don’t separate business from intimacy. Every relationship is transactional, every connection is leverage.”
The fear underneath his words catches me off guard. This isn’t just about operational security. It’s about Chris being terrified that his past will reach out and hurt someone he loves.
Someone we love.
“You think he’ll figure out her connection to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I used a different identity when we were together, but had to come clean when we took him into custody. He’s had time since then to dig deeper into who I really am.” Chris’s jaw works silently. “He knows about my family, my career, our shared connections. But if he starts mapping out the people I’m involved with now, romantically...”
Something makes me pause. This operation was Chris’s idea. The therapeutic intel pipeline, the undercover setup—he’d been pushing for better access to Vicente and Arturo for months. But now that it’s happening, now that Nina is the one sitting across from them—he wanted better intelligence, but he never wanted her to be the one at risk.
“You’re regretting this,” I say quietly. “The whole operation.”
