by Roni Loren
Finn’s attention snapped back to Billings. “What?”
Billings smiled and tucked his hands in his pockets. “We got ’em, Dorsey. We pinpointed the operation where the Long Acre guns originated from.”
Finn rose out of his seat, a bolt of adrenaline rushing through him. “Pinpointed? Like, no doubt?”
“Yes. We’ve been doing surveillance for a while on a major operation out of Mexico. I flew in today to fact-check a few things and confirmed the details this morning,” Billings said. “I wanted to be sure it was the one before I told you. And I wanted to make sure you got first crack at it. We’re going to need a guy on the ground. That’s why I’ve been pushing you to get your act together—so the higher-ups would give you approval to get back on the job. This is your baby. The operation has been around for decades and has brought in countless numbers of illegal weapons for the underground market. We nail these bastards, and it’ll be the takedown of your life.”
Finn’s heart pounded against his ribs. This was what he’d been waiting for. All those late nights in between assignments, painstakingly going through leads. He wet his lips. “How soon would this start?”
“You’d fly back to Virginia with me tomorrow. You’re going to need to go through a psych eval to clear you. Then you have to get caught up on intel pretty quickly. We’ve had some movement in the organization, which is why I’m calling you back early. It’s an ideal time for them to bring new guys in. We need to get you down there, establish your identity sooner rather than later. We need to get these guys to trust you enough to hire you. That’s going to take some effort. This organization is locked down tight and more volatile than Dragonfly.”
Volatile. Code word for more deadly. Finn could feel the adrenaline already, the need to personally dismantle those responsible for taking so many lives. For ruining his. Liv’s.
Liv.
The thought was like a punch to the stomach.
“Can I count on you, Dorsey?” Billings asked, his voice stern. “No one’s going to go after these assholes like I know you will.”
Finn peered over at Liv, who was crouched down to take a photo, her back to him, and he felt like he was being ripped in half. His stomach hurt. His brain was spinning. And his heart ached.
He forced his attention back to Billings. “I need to think.”
To his credit, Billings didn’t push any further. He nodded. “Let me know by tomorrow morning. I have our flights booked for late afternoon.”
Finn nodded, numb. “Got it.”
Billings reached out and gripped Finn’s hand in a firm shake. When Finn moved to pull away, Billings held on for an extra second. “I’m glad to see you’ve got your head back together, Finn. I’m sorry you’re going to have to leave someone you care about, but I’m grateful she dragged you back from the edge. I was worried about you there for a little while. Good work getting back into fighting shape.”
Finn looked away. He didn’t feel together at all. No, he wasn’t flying off the handle anymore, but this…this may be worse. “Thanks.”
Billings left with that, heading back across the short grass of the outfield. He passed right under the sign that said LONG ACRE MEMORIAL FIELD. ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS.
Finn sank onto the bottom bleacher and put his face in his hands.
chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
Liv tilted her camera and looked at the screen. The angle she’d chosen had captured the rich oranges and pinks that reflected off the water from the sunset but didn’t take away from the greens of the trees or the main focus of the shot. She’d caught Finn’s silhouette in frame. A dark outline of a broad-shouldered man looking out at the water. Still. Stoic. Wild Silence—that’s what she’d call the shot.
Finn didn’t know she was photographing him. She’d told him that she’d be in the kitchen, throwing together a salad to go with the steaks he was going to grill tonight. But the sunset had been too good to miss, and when she’d seen him standing there, she’d been compelled to capture the moment. At first she’d assumed he was enjoying the view, but now looking at the shot in still frame, she noticed different details, sensed melancholy. A ripple of worry went through her.
She’d gotten that gloomy vibe from him off and on since the photo shoot with Rey that morning. He hadn’t shown it when he knew she was looking. But his smiles had seemed thin, his jokes scarce—so unlike what she’d gotten used to. Since that night they’d said the l-word, Finn had gone all in. No more brooding. No more tense conversations. They’d been spending long summer days hanging out, taking photos, strategizing about her new business, and making love in between. But today, she’d felt a reserve in him, like she was seeing him through a thick pane of glass.
She’d asked about it over lunch, but he’d shrugged it off and said he was fine. Her gut told her otherwise.
After she snapped one more shot, she set aside her camera and walked down the path toward him. Her shoes crunching on the dry grass had ever-vigilant Finn glancing back. When he saw it was her, he graced her with a dimpled smile, but his eyes betrayed him. Whatever he’d been feeling lingered there for a moment before he turned back to the water. “Hey, gorgeous. You’re just in time for our nightly sunset.”
Our. The word settled in a place that felt far too comfortable. A place she liked far too much. They were developing routines, rituals. Shared things. Even though she understood this was temporary, being here with Finn had seeped into her psyche more and more, making this feel like…home.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty one tonight, even though it’s still eleventy billion degrees out here. We could probably cook dinner without the grill.”
Finn grunted. “Texas in July. Where you can see beautiful summer sunsets and cook a steak on the sidewalk at the same time.”
“That should be the Department of Tourism’s new tagline.”
“Definitely,” he said, but his light tone seemed forced.
“But I’ll take this. Before you know it, we’ll be complaining about the ice storms.”
Something wary flashed in his eyes, and she realized her mistake. She cleared her throat. “I mean, I will. You won’t be around by the time the ice hits. Lucky you.”
“Liv—”
She forced a smile, even though her throat burned. “What? I know we don’t talk about it much. But it’s not a secret that summer will end in a few weeks. You won’t be here for the winter.”
He turned to her, face unreadable. “About that. We need to talk.”
“We do?” Hope swelled in her chest. She didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but for weeks she’d been secretly hoping he’d reconsider, hoping he’d push his leave out further, hoping he’d do something to stay. If he wanted to talk, maybe… “What’s there to talk about?”
He shook his head, and his shoulders slumped. “A lot. Billings visited today.”
“What?” she asked stupidly, the statement blindsiding her. “Billings…your boss?”
He nodded. “That’s who I was talking to at the field. He had a meeting in Austin and drove out to talk to me.”
Her heart picked up speed, her words tumbling out of her. “You said it was someone from the school.”
His jaw flexed. “I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
Wasn’t ready to talk about it. As in this was not good news. This was bad news. The bad news. The guillotine that’d been hanging over them from the start. Her hands trembled, and she forced them into the pockets of her jeans. “Talk about what?”
He let out a long breath and looked to the horizon. “They’ve got my next assignment. Looks like I won’t be seeing the end of summer here, much less winter.”
She felt like she was hearing the words through water. Slow and distorted.
“They want me to leave tomorrow night so I can start prepping for it.”
Her stomach plummeted to her toes,
and her knees tried to buckle. “Tomorrow?”
He looked at her, regret in his eyes. “Yeah.”
Her body had needles in it. Needles and glass. But she tried to keep a grip on her reaction, tried to be mature about it. She’d promised. “For how long?”
“Until it’s done,” he said, resigned. “Months. Years. Who fucking knows?”
“Right,” she whispered. Months. Years. “How dangerous?”
“Liv.” There was a begging note in his voice. The message clear. Don’t ask.
She walked on wooden legs to the Adirondack chair and sank onto the arm of it. She needed to breathe. This was what she’d prepared for. Despite her fantasy of turning things around, she’d known it was a long shot. She’d known this was coming. Not this soon. But in a few weeks. This was the other side of the coin she’d bought. Breathe.
He turned and lowered himself to a knee in front of her. “I’m so sorry. This is tearing me up, too. I love you, and I don’t know how to make this better.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she forced a humorless smile. “There is no way to make it better, right? You told me this would happen, and I said I could handle it. Guess I overestimated my abilities.”
He cupped her cheek. “Livvy, please don’t cry.”
She shook her head and her fingers curled into her thighs, her body hot all over, yet cold inside, all this feeling welling in her. Loss edged with panic. “I want to ask you to stay. I want them to find someone else. I don’t want you to be in danger.” She lifted her gaze to his. “Tell them to find someone else, Finn.”
She hated the desperate tone in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. The words were falling out on their own. She was in that closet again, clinging to his shirt. He was leaving. Hurtling into danger.
“Sweetheart,” he said softly, her face in his hands. “I’m so sorry. I was prepared to quit. I’ve been thinking about it for the last few weeks. Just walking away and figuring something else out.”
Hope raised a flag in her, but it was a flag on fire. She could hear it coming. The but. She filled it in for him. “But?”
He let out a ragged breath and lowered his hands. “But this assignment is tied to Long Acre. I shouldn’t be telling you that because it’s classified information, but you have the right to know. This is the case I joined the FBI for, what I’ve been working toward for years. They found the people who got Joseph and Trevor the guns. People who bring illegal weapons in for so many terrible things. I can take them down. Stop them from doing it again.”
All the air left her.
He shook his head, his eyes begging for understanding. “I don’t know how to walk away from that. I want to be here with you, but…I also made a promise to all the people we lost. A promise to myself. It’s what’s gotten me up every morning since I first joined the FBI.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “It’s my fight. I…need to see it through.”
She wagged her head, tears flowing freely now and frustration building. “But why do you have to be the one do to do it? Why can’t someone else be the hero this time?”
The question made him blink. “What?”
Anger welled in her, and she pushed to her feet. “Why does it always have to be you? Are you the only agent in the goddamned FBI? Is it because you think you failed? Is it because you have some hero complex? What is it?”
He stood. “Liv—”
“No, I’m serious. Whoever these people are, they had a hand in destroying all those lives. My life. Yours. But where does it end? What about the people who made the guns? Or whoever screwed up Joseph and Trevor along the way? Or the security guards who didn’t pay enough attention on prom night?” Her voice was rising now, echoing off the lake. “Nothing’s going to bring the people we lost back, Finn. You can’t save them. Or anyone else. It’s done. All you’re going to do is go and get yourself killed and add another victim to the list.”
His expression darkened.
“But maybe that’s what you want,” she said, unable to stop the deluge now. “To go down as a hero. Be the martyr. Pay some penance you think you owe. Leave the rest of us to deal with the loss of you.”
His stance went mutinous, defenses up. “You think I want to die, Liv? Or leave you? You think all these weeks with you have been a game?”
She looked away.
“I love you. I want to spend my life with you. If I didn’t think it was the most selfish thing I could do, I’d ask you to marry me, to wait for me, to give me something to come home to. I’d promise you this was the last job. But you deserve better than that.”
The admissions gashed at her heart, drawing blood. It was everything she wanted and nothing she could have. “I do. I deserve someone who would stay for me. Who would choose me.”
He gave her a bereft look. “I told you from the start what I had to do.”
She shook her head, feeling hollow inside. “You don’t have to. This is a choice. Don’t pretend it’s not.”
“I have a duty, Liv,” he said, frustration filling his voice and his hands going out to his sides. “Everyone likes to walk around every day pretending the ugly stuff doesn’t exist. But it does, and there are men and women fighting that fight every day. In the military. In law enforcement. First responders. Someone has to do it. I signed up for that. Maybe if someone else had done their job, those guns would’ve never been there on prom night. Maybe the guy in charge of that mission was at home barbecuing steaks with his girlfriend instead.”
The words were like a stinging slap. An argument she couldn’t refute without looking heartless and selfish. “I guess that makes your decision easy then.”
He stared at her, his expression wounded. “If you think that, then you don’t know me at all.”
An utter, echoing sadness filled her, and she hugged her elbows. “Maybe I don’t.”
“Right.” His expression closed off, and he pulled something out of his pocket. “I guess I should’ve left from the start after all. Saved us both the trouble.”
The words hit her like icy rain.
He placed a key on the arm of the chair. “I bought this place two weeks ago. It’s yours. Don’t go back to your job.”
She stared at the key. “What?”
“That way, when I see your photos in a gallery someday, I’ll at least know I did one good thing this summer.” He tucked his hands in his pockets, and his jaw flexed. His gaze shifted away from hers. “Goodbye, Liv.”
Before she could react or respond, he walked past her toward the house, shoulders hunched but gait determined.
She sank to the ground frozen. Numb. Her voice wouldn’t work.
He went inside, and she had no idea how long she sat there watching the door. Eventually, he came out with his suitcase and laptop bag. He didn’t look back. Instead, he turned, went toward the driveway, and got into his SUV. He was gone before she could say a word.
Out of her life just as quickly as he’d come back into it.
Gone.
She pulled her knees to her chest and took the key in her hand, rubbing her thumb across it and letting tears fall.
I didn’t want a house.
I wanted to be home.
chapter
TWENTY-SIX
The banging sound pounded through Liv’s head like the reverberation of a gong. She groaned and buried her face deeper in the pillow. How could she have this horrid headache when she hadn’t even been drinking? Did crying do this?
Boom. Boom. Boom.
She blinked, squinting in the relentless morning light streaming through the windows, and tried to make sense of where she was. Not Finn’s room where she’d been waking up for the last few weeks. And not her own place. She focused in on the thick wooden roof beams, awareness filtering through her half-asleep brain. The living room. Finn’s living room. No, now hers. Finn was gone.
A fresh wave of despair washed over her, and she closed her eyes again, wanting to curl into a ball and stay there. But the booming returned and became more insistent. Not inside her head. The door. Someone was at the door.
Finn?
Her heart leapt at the thought. But why would he be knocking?
She pushed herself off the couch and glanced at the key on the coffee table. Maybe he didn’t have a key anymore. Maybe he was coming back. Maybe he’d changed his mind.
She hurried to the door, though her limbs were still heavy with the kind of sleep you fall into after a long, hard cry. But she made it to the door in record time. She swung it open, and her hopes popped like soap bubbles.
Kincaid stood on the doorstep with a grocery bag in her arms, and Rebecca and Taryn were behind her, all three peering Liv’s way. Kincaid gave her a good up-and-down look, sympathy crossing her face. “Oh, honey.”
Liv frowned and pushed her tangled hair back from her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Triage.” Kincaid stepped inside, moving past her without an invitation. “Rebecca got a mysterious text from Finn asking her to check on you, that he was headed out of town. I figured that could only mean bad things. I brought cake.”
“And coffee,” Taryn said, following her inside and balancing a tray of Starbucks.
“And liquor for the coffee.” Rebecca cradled a bottle of Irish Cream.
Liv braced a hand on the doorframe, watching the women file past her, her stomach knotting up at the words headed out of town. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m really not up for visitors. I barely slept and—”
“Would rather wallow alone,” Kincaid finished. “Believe me, I get it. But we made a deal. No more handling the hard shit solo. We’re here for you. We’ve been preparing all summer.”
“Preparing?”
Rebecca turned, auburn hair neatly tucked behind her ears but regret in her gaze. “We all saw what was happening between you two. It was hard not to see.”
