Page 84 of His Wall

I crossed to the couch. I sat. He came over and sat beside me. Close. His knee against mine.

I told him.

"His name is Rafael Torres. He's FBI. Financial crimes. He was my partner six years ago. The first time I worked an undercover financial embed."

He listened. He did not interrupt.

"We were also together. Against Bureau policy. We were together for two years. We were quiet about it, but it was real."

I looked at the laptop on the coffee table.

"I had a witness long ago. A woman who said she had information that would close a case I had been building for nine months. She was a witness who looked perfect on paper. Clean record. Family in the area. Reasons to talk. My handler at the time wanted more verification before we moved on to what she was telling us. I thought he was being slow. I went around him. I vouched for her. Torres was sent into the field alone to verify the next piece based on her account."

A breath.

"She was lying. The whole thing was a setup. Torres walked into an ambush in a parking garage. Two men. They cut him from the shoulder to the hip with a knife and left him on the concrete. He was alone for eleven minutes before backup got there."

I was looking at the laptop. I could not look at his face.

"He survived. The doctor said it was eight minutes between him and bleeding out on that floor. He was in the hospital for two weeks. He came home. He could not lift his left arm above his shoulder for four months. He had to do physical therapy three days a week for a year to get it back."

I swallowed.

"He never blamed me. Not once. He said it was the witness's fault and the people who paid her, and that I had done what I thought was right. He was — " My voice broke a little. "He was kind about it."

I pulled my knees up under me.

"I ended it anyway. Not with a conversation. I did not have the words. I just stopped. I stopped answering his calls. I stopped going to the apartment we were building toward. I asked for a transfer to long-term embeds. I changed units. I changed apartments. He came home from a follow-up appointment one Tuesday and I was not at the address I had been at the week before. I never told him I was leaving. I just left."

I made myself say the next part.

"I have not loved him in a long time, Julian. I have not loved anyone since. What I feel for Torres is not love. It is shame. It is the shame of a woman who failed at her job and almost killed the person she was supposed to keep safe and then could not even break up with him to his face. That is what is on the other end of that phone call. Shame. And he is coming here tomorrow morning because the last time I was in danger, he was in a hospital bed, and he is not doing that again."

I did not let myself finish more than that.

He pulled me into him.

His arm came around my back. His other hand was at the side of my face. He pulled me down against his chest and I let him. My face was against the warm cotton of his shirt and my hand was a fist on his sternum and his chin was on the top of my head, and he did not say anything. He did not tell me it was not my fault. He did not tell me I had done my best. He did not tell me I had nothing to be ashamed of.

He just held me.

I let him.

For the first time, I let someone hold the weight instead of carrying it alone.

We stayed on the couch.

My legs were across his lap. His hand was on my ankle. The afternoon light was coming through the curtain I had pulled closed for security, low and warm against the carpet.

My laptop pinged on the coffee table.

I leaned forward. I opened the lid.

Priority alert from Harlow.

I clicked through.

A financial news outlet had published a story. Vanguard Group Targeted in Hostile Bid Citing Founding-Era Capital Concerns. I read the byline. I read the dateline. I read the lede.