Page 131 of In the Shadows
“I never left.”
“No.” A beat. “I guess you didn’t.”
The call ended. Ronan stood on the dock with his phone in his hand and the sun warm on his face and the sound of the water doing what it always did—moving, shifting, finding its way around whatever stood in its path.
Lila was at the kitchen table when he came inside, her laptop open, a stack of council paperwork beside her coffee cup. She looked up when the screen door creaked.
“You’ve got a look,” she said.
“What kind of look?”
“The kind that means you’re about to tell me something and you’re not sure how I’ll take it.” She closed the laptop. Gave him her full attention. “What is it?”
He sat down across from her. Put his phone on the table between them.
“Caleb called. There’s a new operation developing. Mobile. Same kind of pattern we found here—shell companies, falsified permits, local officials looking the other way.”
Her expression didn’t change, the light behind her eyes dimmed, then steadied. He’d seen that shift before—the moment between hearing the words and deciding what they meant.
“He wants you to go.”
“It’s the first assignment for my new position. I am going to run it from here.”
She was quiet. Processing. He could almost see the calculations happening—the same sharp intelligence that had built a five-year investigation out of margin notes and stolen files, now trained on him.
“Run it how?”
“Strategy. Coordination. Intel analysis. Someone else goes into the field. I work the operation remotely—same way Caleb supported me when I was here.” He held her gaze. “I don’t leave. I don’t go undercover. I don’t lie about who I am or why I’m in a town. I sit at this table with a secure laptop and I help people who are doing what I used to do.”
“And the danger?”
“Less than before. Operational coordination is low-profile. Nobody in Mobile would know my name or my face.” He paused. “But I won’t lie to you. There’s always risk. The work itself carries risk. And I understand if that’s not something you want in your life.”
Lila looked at the phone on the table. At him. At the window behind him, where the inlet was visible through the new curtains Grace had made.
“You want to do this.”
It wasn’t a question. She’d seen it on his face the moment he walked in.
“I spent twelve years doing this work because it mattered. Because the towns that get targeted—places like Blossom Springs—don’t have anyone else. And walking away from that completely, pretending it’s not happening somewhere else—” He stopped. Tried again. “I’m not the man who fixes docks and goes to flower-arranging classes and has nothing else. I want to be. Parts of me are. But there’s another part that needs the work. Not the danger. Not the covers. The work.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“Ronan, I’ve known since the day you I first met you.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “You’re not a man who retires. You’re a man who evolves. And if Caleb is smart enough to figure out how to keep you without losing you—” She squeezed his fingers. “Then I’m smart enough to live with it.”
“It means the laptop stays. The secure channels. Encrypted calls at odd hours.”
“It means someone else’s town gets what mine got. Someone looking out for them who actually gives a damn.” She held his gaze. “That’s not a sacrifice, Ronan. That’s a gift.”
He turned her hand over in his. Traced the lines of her palm with his thumb. The hand that had held her father’s files. That had gripped the podium at the sentencing hearing. That had taken a key to this cottage and called it home.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know. You’re very predictable.” But her eyes were bright. “Now tell me about Mobile. What are we dealing with?”
“We?”
