Page 75 of In the Shadows
"Does Lila know?"
"Not yet. I thought you should tell her."
"Thanks for that."
"You're welcome." Caleb's mouth twitched—almost a smile. Then it faded. "There's something else we need to discuss."
"Let me guess. My future."
"Your decision to throw away twelve years of service for a woman you've known for two weeks."
The words landed like a slap.
"That's not?—"
"Isn't it?" Caleb's voice was harder now. "You've already told me you're thinking about staying. You've already compromised the mission timeline to protect her. And now you're planning to—what? Walk away from everything? Set up house in a beach town and pretend the last decade didn't happen?"
"I haven't decided anything."
"You decided the moment you accelerated the evidence release. The moment you chose her safety over operational efficiency." Caleb stepped closer. "I'm not saying it was wrong. I'm saying you need to own it."
Ronan was quiet long enough that the silence became a tell. "What do you want me to say?"
“There's something else." Caleb's voice dropped. "Three of your past operations have unresolved principals. Two are in federal custody. The third isn't. I'd want to know where that third one is before I bought a house here."
"I know where he is."
"Then keep knowing." Caleb looked out at the water. "Because if he ever decides you've made yourself a target —"
"He won't."
"You can't know that."
"No." Ronan was quiet for a moment. “I am aware of the risks I'm prepared to take.”
"I want you to tell me the truth. Not the version you've been telling yourself. The actual truth." Caleb held his gaze. "Do you love her?"
The question hung in the salt air.
Ronan thought about Lila in the FBI interview room, spine straight, voice steady, fighting for her father's memory. About her hand in his on the drive home. About the way she'd looked at him in her office two weeks ago, when he was still a stranger, and she was still deciding whether to trust him.
"Yes," he said. "I love her."
It was the first time he'd said it out loud. The first time he'd let himself admit it, even to himself.
Caleb nodded slowly. "Then you know what you're risking. Not just your career. Your life. Hers."
"The syndicate will have other concerns after tomorrow. Lawyers. Prosecutors. Prison."
"The syndicate is bigger than Blossom Springs. You know that. We've been tracking connections to Miami, Jacksonville, and offshore operations spanning half of the Caribbean. Caldwell is a node, not the center." Caleb's voice dropped. "If you stay here, you're painting a target on yourself. And on her."
"So what's the alternative? Run? Disappear into another cover identity and spend the rest of my life pretending I never met her?"
"That's how this works. That's how it's always worked."
"Maybe I'm tired of how it works."
They stood facing each other, the Gulf wind pulling at their clothes. Two men who had trusted each other with their lives, now standing on opposite sides of a line neither of them had expected to draw.
