Chapter 37
JUDAH
The train to New Haven was packed as college freshmen from campus as they trekked into New York City to explore it for the first time.
They were insufferable.
I sat back and closed my eyes as another mind-numbing day of clerical drivel came to an end.
At least I had a purpose when I was undercover.
Observe. Record. Report. Occasionally beat someone up.
What was I even doing here?
All I had done for the last eight hours was transcribe reports from other UCs. It was a tease. My chain of command was torturing me with the knowledge of how much progress other operations were having. At least once a day, I overheard conversations about “the Valentine situation.”
I was the Valentine situation.
It was bureau humiliation at its finest.
Curious eyes watched me as people filtered on and off the train at each stop. I couldn’t blame them. I stood out like a sore thumb on a good day.
After weeks of being called a kidnapper and having the fake mugshot the bureau used for my cover with Valentine plastered all over the news, I’d had the cops called on me at least fifteen times.
The gun holstered to my belt was enough to shut most of them up. I tuned out the whispers.
All it truly made me wonder was if Amelia had to do the same. If she was being stared at when she went to the grocery store. If people asked if she was that girl while she was getting coffee.
I had to play my cards carefully. I was on a short leash with the FBI. If I went anywhere near Amelia immediately after being cleared, they’d use that leash to strangle me.
I’d expected a restraining order from her.
Hell—a restraining order would’ve seemed like a love letter.
Then again, Judah Greear was even harder to find than Jude Graham.
For months, Cole had done me a solid and had a constant rotation of his associates keeping tabs on Amelia and Joel.
Frankly, it was an easy job for them.
Joel was constantly being escorted around by the FBI as they prepared for the Valentine trial. And Amelia? She never left home.
Not once.
It pissed me off when Cole reported that Jake Hastings had been by a few times in the last week to bring her food. At least he’d never stayed more than an hour.
I’d gotten a buddy of mine to hack into the Alcott University server to see if she was still going to teach this year and let out a sigh of relief when the updates were that she had changed her in-person courses to be mostly online. She’d only have to physically be there for a few hours each week.
But part of it made my gut sink.
Was the change to teaching online purely out of convenience, or was it because she was struggling?
I knew the answer.
I glanced at my watch as I shuffled off the train at New Haven-Union with the college crowd. I’d grab the bus to Amelia’s apartment, then pick it up again to get back on the train to Newark that left at nine.
I didn’t even know why I’d bothered coming up here. I’d marked the date on my calendar of when I thought the bureau wouldn’t give a shit if I made contact with her and had been counting down the days like a kid waiting for Christmas.
Just because I had been cleared during the internal investigation didn’t mean there wouldn’t be repercussions for going rogue. The FBI didn’t take kindly to people thinking independently.
The streetlights around Alcott University began to flicker as I jogged off the bus and headed down the sidewalk.
Amelia’s apartment was within walking distance of the bus stop. I dropped my head and slumped as I walked—the way I used to when I was undercover.
Passersby stared as I strode by, their eyes going from my head to my belt to my gun. The damn thing felt like it weighed a cool half-ton. I had grown accustomed to not wearing it undercover. I forgot how people stared when they saw me carrying, whether I was on duty or off.
I straightened and walked tall.
It was strange to unlearn all those habits after being Jude the criminal rather than Judah the agent.
I woke up each morning in a panic, startled to open my eyes at my new place in Newark rather than my cover’s apartment in Atlantic City. That never happened when I was with Amelia, even when we were at the safe house in the mountains.
When I was with her, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I missed Cordelia. I even missed the constant cigarette smoke that lingered between her door and mine. Relationships like that were the collateral of clandestine life. I’d never see her again.
Dim light glowed from Amelia’s unit as I slipped into her apartment complex. The lamp by the couch was on, if I had to guess.
I jogged up the stairs, even though every logical atom in me screamed to turn around and leave.
I’d seen combat. I had watched people die. On occasion, I’d been the one to inflict that outcome. Not much scared me.
But Amelia?
She did.
She fucking terrified me.
I picked up my pace on the next set of stairs. I couldn’t wait to see her, even though I knew she’d probably slam the door in my face.
Or she’d call the cops on me.
That’d be the cherry on top of a shitty first week back to work.
The 911 transcript would be posted in the break room by Monday morning like it had been cut from the Sunday comics.
Still, I didn’t hesitate to knock.
I’d take her full fury if it meant laying eyes on her. I had to see for myself that she was okay.
I waited a few seconds, then knocked again.
No answer.
She wasn’t the type to leave lights on.
I knocked again and waited some more.
And some more.
Every few minutes, I’d knock. I was certain that, at some point, her neighbors would get annoyed and tell me to beat it.
That’s where the badge and bureau credentials came in handy.
I knocked one more time, fully expecting to be met with silence the way I had been for the last hour, when the door opened.
My heart seized at the sight of her.
“Hey,” I croaked as I took her in.
Amelia’s hair was sopping wet, soaking into her waffle-knit pajama set.
She was fresh-faced, like she had just gotten out of the shower.
The fabric hung off her willowy frame, poorly hiding the fact that she hadn’t been eating enough.
Gone were the freckles that had sprouted across her nose and cheeks after our hikes in the mountains.
Dark circles shaded the skin beneath her eyes.
She was pale and her cheeks had begun to hollow.
I had done that to her.
Not Valentine. Not the FBI.
Me.
“I thought you were my dinner,” she said, glancing at the doormat to see if there was a takeout bag beneath my feet.
I wanted to reach out and touch her. To cup her cheeks. To pull her into my chest. To hold her.
Telling her I was sorry seemed useless. I knew she wouldn’t forgive me. She had no reason to. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
“I can go pick up something for you,” I said. “I’d . . . I’d like to talk.”
Her stare was blank. She didn’t even look hurt. Maybe that’s what was most startling. I expected her to be angry and yell at me.
But she was just . . . vacant. A shell of a person. A ghost.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said solemnly, though I didn’t miss the way her throat constricted or the way her lips tightened.
“I have some things I’d like to say to you. If you’ll hear me out.”
Her eyes cut away as she reached to close the door. “That’s not necessary.”
“Please—”
“Goodbye, Judah,” she said softly as she shut the door and immediately locked it.
Fuck. I rested my forehead on the door and closed my eyes as I listened to the muffled tears on the other side.
A throat cleared behind me.
Dammit. When had I stopped noticing everything? I was always on alert.
Joel Hawthorne stood behind me. A plastic grocery bag full of something that smelled like Thai food hung from the crook of his arm. He had downgraded from crutches to a cane. Honestly, it worked for him.
I expected him to beat me with it. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did.
Instead, he did last thing I expected.
Joel extended his hand. “Thank you,” he said.
All I could do was blink.
“Honestly, with what I put my sister through, I deserved to have my kneecaps broken. I needed the wake-up call. I don’t know what would have happened if you—you know—hadn’t happened.”
I shook his hand.
Joel cocked his head toward the apartment. “And thank you for looking out for her. And for me. Cole’s pretty cool.”
“He is.”
“Scary as fuck, though.”
I cracked a smile. “He is.”
Joel and I switched places as he unlocked the door to head inside.
“But now it’s my turn to look out for her the way I should have all along.
And I know I shouldn’t be making threats to you since you’re a Fed and all, but if you ever come near her again, I’ll return the favor and break her baseball bat on your knees.
” He slipped inside. “Have a good night.” That Hawthorne twin did slam the door in my face.
I let out a long sigh and resigned myself to my future hospital stay after reconstructive knee surgery.