He put his hands back on the keys. His fingers didn’t move.
A face-to-face conversation was what Ian deserved. Hours of it, probably. Isaac owed him every detail—Fallon, the operation, the cops, the unknown threat, the choices Isaac had made that put the team at risk. Ian would listen. Ian always listened. And then he’d decide what to do about it.
But the resignation couldn’t wait for that conversation. Isaac had walked away from an active operation. He’d used Zodiac resources—Peter’s time, the safehouse network—for personal reasons. He’d compromised his objectivity on the Endicott detail from the first night Fallon had shown up in Austin.
Every day he stayed on the roster without disclosing any of that was another day he was lying to the man who’d given Isaac a life to be proud of.
His throat tightened. He swallowed against it and typed.
Ian—
I’m submitting my resignation from Zodiac Tactical, effective immediately. I know this isn’t how you deserve to receive this information, and I’m sorry for that. I owe you a face-to-face conversation and a full explanation, and I promise you’ll get both as soon as I can make it happen.
I can’t give you the details in an email. What I can tell you is that this isn’t a decision I made lightly, and it isn’t about Zodiac. The work matters. The team matters. You gave me something I’ll never be able to repay, and I need you to know that I understand the weight of what I’m doing.
I’ll come to you. Soon. And I’ll tell you everything.
—Isaac
He read it twice. It was everything that mattered and nothing that explained it.
His hand was on the mouse. The cursor hovered over send. A small blue button that would end the career he’d spent years building. The only thing he knew how to do.
His jaw ached. He’d been clenching it without realizing.
He clicked send.
The email disappeared from his screen. The sent folder updated with a timestamp that would sit there forever, marking the exact moment he’d done it.
Isaac closed the laptop. He pressed his hands flat against the lid and leaned forward over the desk, his weight on his arms, his head dropped between his shoulders. The study was dark except for the faint glow of the power light on the laptop beneath his palms.
He stayed like that for a long minute. Then he straightened, pushed the chair back, and stood.
He walked through the house. Past the kitchen, past the living room with its cold fireplace, through the back door and onto the porch. The evening had settled in completely. The lakewas a dark mirror below, the trees black against a sky turning from deep blue to black. The air was cool and still.
He lowered himself into the rocking chair at the far end of the porch. The wood creaked under him. He set his hands on the armrests and looked out at nothing.
The chair moved. A slow, aimless rhythm. The lake held still. The dark pressed in.
Isaac sat with what he’d done and let the quiet take the shape of every name and mission and late-night debrief that he’d just signed away. He didn’t have any answers for what his future was going to look like.
The door opened behind him.
Fallon came out slowly, wrapped in a blanket, pulled tight around her shoulders, her bare feet careful on the porch boards. Her hair was loose and her face was soft with sleep.
She didn’t go to the other chair.
She crossed the porch and lowered herself into his lap. Like she knew he needed her.
He did.
Not to talk it out, not to tell her what he’d done. Just to be with her.
His arms came around her before he’d decided to move them. She settled against his chest, turning her face into his neck, her knees drawn up beneath the blanket. The rocking chair adjusted to their combined weight and kept its rhythm. Back and forth. Slow and steady.
The lake was black glass. The sky had filled with stars, thick and scattered and indifferent to everything happening beneath them.
He’d given up his career. She had someone hunting her. Neither of them knew what came next.
But right now, on this porch, in this chair, none of that mattered. The weight of her tucked against him. Her breath against his neck. The blanket cocooning them both.
That was what mattered.
