Chapter 45 Pull Me Back from the Edge
KADE
From up here, the Hudson looks like ink.
Freighters move south as brake lights streak red across the water. Somewhere out there, Amanda is probably sleeping. Or lying awake thinking about everything I’ve put her through. Either way, she’s better off.
The wind cuts through my jacket, sharp and cold for the middle of June.
Fitting. Everything feels sharp and cold now.
I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes, working up the will to do what needs to be done.
What should have been done eight years ago when I first realized I was poison to the woman I loved.
I programmed the text to send at 3:15 a.m. About thirty minutes from now, Cal will get a message telling him where to find my bike, my apartment keys, and a note explaining that none of this is Amanda’s fault. That she shouldn’t blame herself for what I’m about to do.
Because that’s the thing about Amanda. She’ll find a way to make this her responsibility. She’ll convince herself that if she’d just forgiven me faster, loved me harder, been willing to trust again, I’d still be alive.
But that’s not true. This is on me. All of it.
The betrayal. The lies. The way I stole eight years of her life by disappearing. The way I stole more by coming back. The way I made her fall in love with me twice just to break her heart again.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. Nothing matters except making sure Amanda gets to move on with her life without me dragging her down.
I lean forward slightly, testing my balance. The water rushes beneath me, dark and endless and final. It would be quick. Cleaner than a bullet, less messy than pills. Just a moment of falling and then nothing.
No more missions. No more blood on my hands.
No more watching Amanda look at me like I’m a stranger wearing her husband’s face.
The wind picks up, whistling through the cables, and for a second I almost lose my grip.
My heart lurches, and I realize that even now, some part of me wants to live.
Some stubborn, pathetic part that still thinks maybe—
“Stop being a dumbass.”
I nearly lose my footing, whipping around to see Cal standing about ten feet away, hands in his pockets like he’s just out for a midnight stroll instead of preventing a suicide.
“What the fuck?” I grip the cables tighter, my heart hammering. “How did you—I programmed that text for three fifteen. You’re not supposed to be here yet.”
Cal shrugs, unbothered by the fact that I’m balanced on the edge of a bridge. “The moment you put that thumb drive in your system, I had access to every single thing you own. Including your phone, your schedule, and your really shitty contingency plans.”
“Fucking figures. Should have known better than to trust tech from a guy who hacks people for fun.”
“Yeah, well. Here we are.”
We stare at each other. Cal doesn’t move closer, doesn’t try to rush me or talk me down with platitudes about how life is worth living. He just waits, like he’s got all the time in the world.
“You’ve been tracking me this whole time?” I ask.
“Since you left the warehouse. Figured you’d do something stupid.” He tilts his head. “Just didn’t think it would be this stupid.”
“There’s no use trying to stop me.” My voice comes out flat and empty. “Don’t tell Amanda, okay? She’ll blame herself, and she’s been through enough. Let her think I just left town or something. Let her move on.”
“I’m not gonna tell Amanda anything,” Cal says, his voice steady and matter-of-fact, “because nothing is gonna happen. You’re going to step back onto solid ground, be a man, and fight for the woman who loves you.”
I stare at him. Process the words. They don’t land the way he probably wants them to.
“That’s easy for you to say.” My voice sounds distant even to my own ears.
“I’ve been watching Amanda for a long time, so I know how you and Izzy got together.
Izzy never held what you did against you.
She just forgave you and moved on like it was nothing.
You never knew what it was like to have your heart torn out and handed back to you in pieces. ”
Cal’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in his eyes.
“You’re right. She didn’t hold it against me.
” He pauses, looking out at the water for a moment before continuing.
“But that didn’t mean I didn’t hold it against myself the entire time I was doing it.
That I didn’t feel like the biggest piece of shit alive for lying to the woman I loved every single day.
For manipulating her feelings, for watching her fall for someone she thought I was instead of who I actually am. ”
He takes a step closer, just one.
“You think it was easy watching her laugh at my jokes, knowing they were based on data I’d stolen from her phone? You think I didn’t hate myself every time she trusted me with something personal, knowing I already knew all her secrets?”
His voice gets rougher, more honest than I’ve ever heard it.
“I spent months lying to her face, watching her build feelings for someone who didn’t exist, all while telling myself it was for her own good. Sound familiar?”
It does. God, it sounds exactly like what I did to Amanda.
“But here’s the difference between us,” Cal continues.
“I decided to earn her forgiveness every single day. To prove to her that the man she fell in love with was real, even if the circumstances weren’t.
I decided to show her that lying to her was the worst thing I’d ever done and that I’d spend the rest of my life making sure it never happened again.
“And I haven’t found a way to make it up to her, even now,” he adds quietly. “But I think spending the rest of my life trying is a pretty good way to start.”
I shake my head. The motion feels mechanical. “It’s different. Amanda doesn’t want me. She said it herself. She told me to leave.”
“Bullshit.” Cal’s voice gets harder. “She said she needed time to figure it out. And what do you do? Come out here and play victim and rob her of yet another decision that she asked you to give her the space to make.”
The words hit, but they don’t penetrate. It’s like hearing them through water.
“You’re a real selfish son of a bitch, you know that?
” Cal continues, and now there’s real anger in his voice.
“Eight years ago, you decided what was best for her without asking. You decided she couldn’t handle the truth, decided she’d be better off without you, decided to break her heart to keep her safe. ”
He takes another step closer.
“And now you’re doing it again. She asks for time to process the biggest betrayal of her life, and instead of respecting that, instead of giving her the space she needs to make her own choice, you decide she’d be better off with you dead.”
I don’t respond. Can’t respond. The words make sense in a distant, academic way, but they can’t reach the hollow place inside me.
“She doesn’t love me anymore,” I hear myself say. The statement is fact. “Not after what I did.”
“Doesn’t she?” Cal raises an eyebrow. “Because from where I was standing, watching her hold a gun to your throat while crying her eyes out, it looked like she loves you so much it’s killing her.”
Fuck, he’s right. Amanda wasn’t just angry in that warehouse. She was heartbroken. Devastated. The kind of devastation you feel when someone you love destroys you.
“She’s terrified of trusting you again, and you know what? She should be. You’ve given her every reason not to trust you. But that doesn’t mean she stopped loving you.”
I step back from the edge. Not because his words convinced me. Not because I suddenly see a path forward. But because standing here takes effort, and I don’t have any effort left. My feet hit solid concrete, and I just… stop.
Everything stops.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the ground. Then my legs give out, and I sink down to sit on the cold pavement, back against the barrier. The metal cables dig into my spine, but I barely feel it.
Cal moves closer, watching me. “Kade?”
My words are somewhere, but I can’t access them. My hands rest on my knees, and I stare at the asphalt between my boots.
Eight years. Eight years of missions. Eight years of targets and objectives and next steps. Eight years of waking up with a purpose: kill the next name on the list, eliminate the next threat, get one step closer to coming home to Amanda.
And now? There’s nothing. Bergen’s dead. The Petrovs are dead. The mission is over. The threats are gone. And Amanda doesn’t want me.
That’s what this is. Mission failure, and now there’s no next objective. No new target. No briefing telling me where to go and what to do and how to proceed.
Just… nothing.
I don’t know how to function without a mission.
For a moment, we’re just silent in the dark, two men who’ve made terrible choices in the name of protecting the women they love.
Box trucks drone along the upper deck, a harbor horn shivers the truss.
New York keeps breathing, and I find something oddly comforting about that.
Life goes on, even when it feels like your world is ending.
“The thing about Amanda,” Cal says after a while, “is that she’s stronger than you think she is. Stronger than you’re giving her credit for.”
“I know she’s strong. She’s the strongest person I know,” I manage to say.
“Then trust that strength. Trust her to make the right choice for herself, even if it’s not what you want.”
“And if she chooses to walk away?”
“Then you’ll have to live with that,” Cal says quietly. “But maybe she won’t. Maybe she just needs to see that you’re willing to fight for her the right way this time.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I admit. “I don’t know how to prove I’ve changed when I keep making the same mistakes. I don’t know how to win her back without pushing her further away.”
Cal is quiet for a long moment, staring out at the city lights.
Then: “I think I have an idea. If you’re willing to try.”