Cyrus
Chapter forty-five
Breaking News
Way to keep a low profile.
Bluestone was supposed to be my reset button—a quiet place to recover from my FBI years, get my head straight, spend time with my kid…kids. Still getting used to that one.
I was supposed to coach baseball games, go fishing on weekends, maybe learn how to breathe without feeling like the ground could disappear beneath me at any second.
Instead, my homecoming’s turned into one long chain reaction of what the actual hell.
For a man who’s always built his life around doing the right thing, I’m starting to question what that even means anymore.
The local newspaper crinkles beneath my grip. Because apparently Bluestone still prints physical papers like we’re trapped in 1997. The front-page photo stares back at me in grainy color. Jonah and the guys hauling me over the edge of the bridge. My arms locked around the terrified kid.
His face is mostly hidden against my turnout jacket, thank God, but the fear—and the relief—still bleed through the image clear as day. Fantastic. Exactly what that kid doesn’t need after nearly drowning in a flood current: becoming the face of every news station chasing a heroic rescue story.
Headline: HOMETOWN HERO BUNGEES OFF brIDGE TO SAVE BOY SWEPT AWAY IN FLOOD WATERS. HERO OR FLUKE?
Of course, the article doesn’t mention the kid’s father’s negligence that put him in the river in the first place.
No, no, that’d be too convenient. Instead, four paragraphs dig into my past, painting me as a troubled ex-agent who lost his partner in a botched sting, who blew his shot at a future because of the ‘wrong crowd.’ And of course, having a town with mixed reviews on whether I should be the Chief of Police.
Because everybody is an expert these days.
Gripping the edges of the paper, I read over it, again.
Jordan Addams tells The Daily Press: “Cyrus was the star of everything growing up, had a real future until he threw it all away slumming with the wrong crowd. We, of course, support him as Chief of Police, but these rumors are discouraging. I worry about the example being set to our children.”
If it weren’t for my relationship with Jonah, his sister would have already had her reckoning. She needs to find a new hobby.
Skimming deeper into the story, Fallon’s own mother had a few words too: “Cyrus McCoy left my daughter high and dry when she was pregnant, ran off and made another kid, torched his career at the Bureau, and now he’s back to make a mess of the town.”
Who is this Chief of Police? Can he be trusted to run a town with his haunted past?
Our reporter says these women come from different economic backgrounds, but they share the same sentiment.
My fingers clamp tighter on the paper, stomach turning as the print warps in my vision. Heat crawls up the back of my neck—pressure builds behind my eyes that has nothing to do with exhaustion.
My hands start to shake. I snap the paper down hard enough that it echoes through the room and pace once, twice, trying to outrun the feeling building in my chest. It doesn’t work.
The trash can takes the hit instead. The lid bangs against the wall as I shove the paper inside, a little more force than necessary, like that might fix anything. Does anyone even verify facts anymore? Since when did speculation turn into front-page news?
There are real problems in this county—roads falling apart, an economy barely holding together, healthcare stretched thin, kids slipping through the cracks while suicide rates climb—and somehow this is what they choose to print.
Me. Us. A story built on half-truths and guesswork because it sells better than reality. And they didn’t even get it right.
My family is going to be collateral damage in the media’s hunger for clicks.
That’s what this has become. Not news—people chasing fifteen minutes of relevance and burning whoever stands in the way. It’s exactly why I can’t stand the internet. And the worst part? The selfish part? It’s not the article. It’s not my job. It’s not even me.
It’s Fallon.
We were finally getting somewhere—real momentum, real connection. More time together, fewer walls between us every day, like we were both learning how to exist in the same space without flinching.
And now this—
This could be the thing that shoves her right back behind them.