Page 98 of Only the Hunter

I come around behind the desk again to review his notes.

“How about this? I’ll contact the DOJ Inspector General. It’ll be official and provide a paper trail. Then, let’s ask KOAN, or Rhodes, or whoever, to identify clean FBI agents. People they trust. We’ll parallel path it. We should look at flights.”

Gabe doesn’t move, so I pick up my laptop.

“You don’t have to go back. You can do this from here.”

“I’m the prosecutor. I’m the one who can convene a grand jury. I’m the one with DOJ access, and it’s better to make these requests in person. Leave or not, my bar credentials are intact.”

“You’re also the one they’ve been tracking. The car accident wasn’t random. The surveillance in Geneva isn’t random. You go back, you’re walking into their line of sight.”

“Then I’ll be careful. Safe.”

“How?”

“Visibility. I file the IG complaint the second I land. I copy it to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I make it so high-profile that if something happens to me, it’s obvious.”

This time, he clucks, and his arms cross over his chest once more. “That paints a target on your back.”

“The target’s already there, Gabe. At least this way, I’m the one holding the gun.”

He opens his mouth—I can see the argument forming, the same one from Geneva, the same one that will likely always form anytime he watches me walk toward perceived danger instead of away from it.

Then he stops. Visibly. Like he’s caught himself mid-motion.

“Tell me why,” he says. “Not the strategy. The why.”

It’s such a small thing, wanting my reasoning instead of just fighting my decision, and the action obliterates the frustration I’d been harboring. I feel it in the way my chest loosens, and the sudden urge to hold him.

“Because hiding won’t keep me safe. And even if it did, hiding won’t deliver justice.” I hold his gaze. “Visibility is armor, Gabe. Not weakness.”

He’s silent for a moment, jaw working.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Then we make sure the whole world’s watching when you do it.” Not agreement without a fight. Agreement with eyes open, choosing this because I’ve made my case—not because he’s given up on protecting me.

I text my father’s travel agent, and while I wait for him to do his magic on flights, I sit back mulling over our plan.

“If I do this—if I file against sitting DOJ officials, expose Meridian, push this to a grand jury—I’m done at DOJ.”

Not reassigned. Not sidelined.

Done.

“You don’t know that,” Gabe says, coming around and joining me on the sofa.

“Yes, I do. Best case, I’m the prosecutor who accused her own department of corruption. I’ll never be trusted again. Worst case, I’m fired for insubordination before the investigation even starts.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

It’s a fair question. “Because Lina trusted the system. And I told her she could. And the system killed her. If I don’t fix that, who will?”

Gabe lifts my hand, his thumb brushing over my skin—slow, absent, like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. He rubs the pad of his thumb over the nail I bit to the quick earlier—my bad habit.

“This changes things,” he says.

I pull my hand away.

“Between us,” he clarifies—although I’m not sure that’s better.