CHAPTER 17
When your path becomes blurry, remap out how to get to your final destination.
Invisible lines are drawn, and we both stay on our sides, making the following weeks after Finn’s confession trudge by like we’re both walking through quicksand. We’ve agreed to keep things professional, but the tension between us is impossible to ignore, seeing that our worlds collide constantly.
The decision doesn’t sit well with Finn, or at least that’s how it appears.
His mood plummets, and it isn’t just me noticing.
Raven’s gaze follows him like a hawk, concern etched into her face.
And I can tell she’s putting the pieces together, sensing I have something to do with it.
The way she looks at me says it all. She’s gearing up to talk to me about it.
I’m not sure what I’ll say. I’m still warring with my own decision to keep Finn at a distance. I can see he’s hurting. It’s obvious now that I know about his injury. He struggles through pain each day. Maybe even searching for answers about his past—memories he can’t access.
I have a lot of those answers, ones I could share. However, doing so would reveal who I am to him and open more than a can of worms. It would burn the fake identity I’ve used to get the job, and rip the past wide open for him to sift through.
I’m not ready for that.
It would ruin everything I’ve been sent here to do.
I know where his old notebooks are, though, and those might help.
The ones he journaled in after his dad passed, all the way up until he left for that last tour of duty.
He wrote in one daily, pouring his thoughts onto paper, all the things he would never say out loud.
They were a window into his soul after he left, giving me a deeper understanding of how his mind worked.
Before running from New Mexico, I re-read and memorized each word. Then I found a hiding spot for them, somewhere his shitty landlord wouldn’t think to check.
Over the years, the words have faded from memory.
But I’ve thought about those notebooks more times than I can count.
I’ve berated myself many times over the years for forgetting the words and for not taking them with me somehow.
I’ve even considered flying out here to retrieve them, but seeing them again would’ve reopened the old wounds I’d fought so hard to close.
Not to mention, returning here had once been my greatest fear.
Facing Veno and his crew wasn’t something I could do on a whim.
It needed proper preparation. I needed a solid plan and to know how to protect myself.
I’d also spent years in therapy dealing with the trauma he’d put me through.
That had all taken time, which was what I’d needed so that when I came for him, I’d be doing it with a clear head and not be ruled by emotion.
Now that I’m here, it’s not as scary. There’s also a good possibility, given how different I look, that I could look him in the eye and he wouldn’t recognize me.
Or at least that’s my hope.
I’ve been keeping tabs on him when I can, and the shock of seeing him again has worn off. But facing him is a different matter, and it’s one I’ve been mentally preparing myself for because I know that day is just around the corner.