She deserves more than that. I do, too.
I set the glass down and stare at the wall, at nothing, at the shape my life has taken in the absence of orders. There’s no op to plan, no cover to maintain, no future already mapped out in classified files.
All I have are consequences that I must live with, one of them being a woman who may never forgive me.
I refill the glass and take a long sip.
I have no playbook, no training on how to win her back or how to manage my life now that I’m not running. I have to get used to this feeling of having stepped off a moving train. I’ve been in motion my entire adult life, and now…I’m not.
I look around at my apartment—one I got because it’s close to her. This isn’t my cover apartment. That was another place—one I could take her to. One with surveillance. No, this one is mine. Temporary, but mine, and I can see the corner of her street if I lean out my kitchen window.
Pathetic.
A sharp knock breaks the silence.
I know who it is, which is why I don’t want to open the door. Every instinct I have says to let the knock go unanswered, to sit here with my drink and my regret. But I get up anyway.
Part of it is respect. The rest of it is a necessity. Some stories don’t end on their own—you have to kill them intentionally.
I open the door and step aside to let Kiera in. She’s still in her all-black power suit, looking like she walked off a government recruitment poster.
“You’re an idiot,” she says by way of greeting.
“Nice to see you, too.”
She glares at me, her hands on her waist. “You quit? Without warning? Without a debrief? You just walked?”
“I gave Director Han plenty of warning.” All three hours of it, and she behaved with more grace than Kiera is.
She narrows her eyes. “Because of her.”
I frown. “Her who?”
“Cut it out, Dom,” she snaps, as she takes two steps closer, her perfume—sharp, expensive—fills the space between us. “You’re throwing away a career most people would kill for.”
“Killbeing the operative word.”
The corners of her eyes twitch in exasperation. “Oh, please! What, you’ve gotten moral clarity after fifteen years?”
Then she reaches out and touches my chest—pressing her palm flat, sliding it up toward my shoulder.
I step away and find my place on the couch again. I pick up my glass. I don’t offer her a drink.
“Dom—”
“Why are you here?”
She rushes up to me and sits next to me. “You know why.”
I raise my glass. “No, I don’t.”
“Come on, Dom,” she murmurs. “You and I…we’re the same person.”
“Let’s agree to disagree.”
She lets out a long, elaborate sigh. It’s a tad dramatic. “Are you really going to ruin your life for a woman who most probably won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole?”
I take a long sip and murmur my appreciation…for the scotch.
