Chapter 17 #2
Her breath stopped. “Choose what?”
“Between love and duty.” His voice rose, broke, then steadied into something terrifyingly honest. “Between saving the woman I’m falling in love with… and saving the next innocent girl who gets caught in the crossfire of someone else’s sick game.”
Falling in love with.
The words landed on her chest like a brick. Hard. Heavey. And real. He'd said it. Actually said it. And he wasn't taking it back, wasn't softening it with maybes or eventuallys. Just standing there, raw and exposed, like he'd ripped himself open and didn't care who saw.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. She wanted to say something—anything—but her throat locked up.
“It’s why my marriage ended,” he said, pacing again, hands flexing open and closed.
“But I made her choose because I couldn’t be the man she wanted at home and the agent I needed to be in the field.
” He pointed toward the spread of files.
“Simon tried to force me into the same goddamn corner. He taunted me with the idea that I had to choose between saving the victims or catching him. And in the end, two girls who were within reach died because I chose to slap the cuffs on him.”
Chest heaving, he shoved aside a stack of papers aside.
“And now this asshole—this EJ Vance, if that’s his fucking name—is trying to make me choose between you and some girl who hasn’t even screamed yet.”
She'd known this was eating him alive—everyone knew.
Had seen it in every rigid line of his body, every hour he refused to sleep, every time he stared at that list he carried in his pocket like it held answers it would never give.
But watching him say it out loud—watching him break open and bleed all this fear and guilt onto the floor between them—that was different.
That was him trusting her with the worst parts of himself.
The parts that kept him up at night. The parts that haunted every case he'd ever worked.
Fallon’s knees softened. She inched closer. “Buddy…”
“How the hell do I do that?” He slammed both palms on the desk. “Tell me, Fallon. How does anyone make that choice and then turn around and live with the consequences?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not when she could see—finally, painfully—what she hadn’t understood before.
He wasn’t angry at her. He wasn’t angry at the situation.
He was furious at himself. At the shadows he couldn’t shake.
At not being able to save them all. At the way the past had dug its claws into him and refused to let go.
And for the first time—truly, the first time—Fallon saw the mirror.
Saw exactly what Keaton had been implying earlier.
She saw herself and Buddy so clearly.
Two people defined by grief and guilt.
Two people who didn’t know how to stop punishing themselves for tragedies they hadn’t caused.
If Fallon stopped punishing herself, she’d have to accept that Tessa was truly gone. Memory wiped out. Her loss would be in vain.
It was easy to blame herself for surviving.
And Buddy? He blamed himself for not being God.
Her breath stuttered out. “Stop pacing and look at me.”
He did. Slowly. Like he was afraid of what he might see.
Fallon stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “You can’t choose between me and some hypothetical victim. You can’t choose between Tessa and anyone else. You can’t choose between what you lost and what you want.”
He shook his head hard. “But that’s the—”
“No,” she said softly. “You can’t. And you never should’ve been asked to. Not by your ex-wife. Not by Simon. Not by anyone. But you don’t have to play the game by their rules. You just don’t.”
He went completely still.
Fallon’s throat tightened. She had no idea if she was right.
But she knew deep down she was holding onto the guilt because she’d been so afraid that if she let it go, she’d no longer feel the sting of her friend’s life.
Buddy needed to separate the choice from the game.
“You keep thinking you failed those girls—all of them. But you didn’t.
You did everything you could. Yes, people died.
But so many more lived because you made the only choice you could have.
You had to put that bastard away. Otherwise, so many more would have been sold into sex slavery.
But you still carry those deaths like anchors tied around your waist.”
Something flickered in his eyes—pain, recognition, shame.
“And I know,” she whispered, “because that’s exactly what I do with Tessa.”
“That’s very different.”
“Is it? Because I made a choice. A selfish one, and Tessa vanished. I’ve always believed that if I changed that one decision, everything would be different.”
“But you might not be here,” Buddy said. “You might’ve been the one…” his words trailed off as he ran a hand over his stubbly face.
“I think…” Fallon swallowed hard as all her defenses crumbled like sandcastles at high-tide and pooled at her feet, “…we both live life as if being alone is what we deserve. You, because you feel like someone or something made you choose. And me because I made one single decision that destroyed my best friend’s life. ”
Silence tightened around them—heavy, intimate, suffocating.
She had no idea if she’d gotten through to him, but she had a lightness in her heart that hadn’t ever been there before.
A sense of freedom spread through her chest like precious oxygen filling her lungs.
There was still a deep wound. A core hurt, and that would take some time to heal.
She had to admit to herself she hadn’t been honoring Tessa the way she should, and that changed now.
She only hoped that Buddy would be able to step outside himself and see that he needed to release the ghosts he carried. Not just for him, but for them.
His eyes softened—just a shift, barely noticeable—but it still made her breath catch.
“I’m scared I’m going to lose you,” he said quietly. “Either because I can’t protect you, or because I can’t give what you need and deserve when this is all over.”
She didn’t flinch, but her muscles trembled. Her skin prickled with heat. “I’m scared I’ll lose myself if I pretend I don’t want this—you. I keep telling myself I’m okay with this being temporary when I’m not.”
The truth settled between them, comforting and sharp all at once. Outside, the others planned for tomorrow, but in this cramped office, the world had narrowed to just the two of them—closer, quieter, strangely steadying.
He rubbed the back of his neck, the movement weary. “I don’t know how to do… any of this. I tried once, and I failed. I broke Callie’s heart, and that’s another thing I haven’t been able to forgive myself for.”
“I don’t know how to do this, either.” Fallon took a step closer, meeting him without hesitation this time. “I’m great at surviving. Terrible at letting anyone get near me. I’ve made a career out of being the last one standing in my own life. Kind of like you. But I don’t want to do that anymore.”
His gaze lifted. It wasn’t hungry or wild or broken. It was honest. That frightened her more than anything—even more than the possibility of him walking away.
“I told myself caring about someone would get me killed—or worse—them,” he said. “I spent so many years believing feelings were a liability. That walls were strength and part of what made me so good at what I did.”
Fallon’s chest tightened—not with fear, but recognition. “Maybe strength isn’t shutting everyone out. Maybe it’s letting the right person in.”
He went still at that—like she’d touched something he kept hidden away.
She'd gotten through. Actually gotten through.
And the look on his face—raw, exposed, like he was seeing her see him—that terrified her more than any threat lurking in the Everglades.
Because this was real. This mattered. And if she screwed this up, if she ran now, she'd regret it for the rest of her life.
They were the same. Both punishing themselves. Both convinced they didn't deserve good things. Both so damn sure that caring about someone would destroy them.
But standing here, watching him break open in front of her, Fallon realized something else—maybe they could save each other. Or maybe they'd just crash and burn together. Either way, she was done running.
She raised her hand, giving him plenty of time to step away. He didn’t. Her palm settled over his chest, the steady, heavy thrumming beneath her fingers.
“You don’t have to choose between protecting people and letting someone care about you,” she said. “You’ve been punishing yourself for so long, you don’t know the difference anymore.”
His breath hitched, warm and uneven.
He lifted his hand and brushed her jaw with his thumb—tentative, reverent, almost disbelieving. “I never meant to drag you into the parts of my life that still hurt.”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” she said. “I walked in. Willingly. Maybe stupidly. Definitely stubbornly.” She leaned into his strong body “More importantly, I’m not walking out.”
A faint, cracked laugh escaped him, the first she’d heard all night. He leaned his forehead against hers. Somehow, the simplest touch was the most intimate thing they’d ever shared.
She breathed him in—warmth, tension, quiet devastation—and let her fingers curl lightly into his shirt.
His hand slid to the back of her neck, steady and warm. “I didn’t expect you. I wasn’t looking for anything like this.”
“Neither was I,” she said. “But maybe that’s why it matters.”
His eyes met hers again—clearer, softer, and for the first time, she saw acceptance in them. Not of her, but of himself. Of what was happening. Of what they were.
The room seemed to still around them. No grand declarations. No promises they couldn’t keep. Just two people who’d spent years hiding finally stepping out of the shadows to find each other.