JAKE

I stood in front of the building for a few moments.

People brushed past me on their way in and out, badges swinging, phones pressed to their ears, their lives still tethered to the place I'd just untied myself from. But I, for the first time in a long time, had nowhere to be.

There was no case file waiting for me, no suspect to chase, no obligation except the quiet question of what now?

I had pulled a few strings and lined up some offers from insurance firms. They were all good positions with solid futures, and they were ready to bring me in whenever I said the word. But I needed a few weeks of relative peace first, just to breathe and actually sit with this new reality and feel it in my bones.

With one last look at the federal building, I got into my car and let myself drive with no real direction. But the city's traffic made that impossible, and I ended up parking near the West 72nd Street entrance to Central Park on the Upper West Side.

The moment I stepped out of the car, the familiar chaos of New York pressed in around me with joggers cutting across the sidewalk, a guitarist tuning strings under a tree, and a line of food carts crowding the curb by the park entrance.

Steam curled from a hot dog cart, carrying the smell of onions and mustard; a vendor rang a tiny bell to draw attention, unbothered by the cold March breeze. I wandered toward him without thinking.

I ordered a hot dog, and when the vendor gave it to me, I stared at it in amusement, shaking my head. Out of every possible place in this city, every restaurant, every bar, every "you're free now" option, I had chosen a ten-dollar street hot dog as my first meal as a civilian. It was a little pathetic, if I was honest.

But standing there, in no hurry, with the weight of the past years finally loosening its grip, it also felt... right.

I finished the sandwich and then grabbed a cinnamon-sugar churro from a cart, figuring it was as good a companion as any for a walk to the Bow Bridge.

I took a seat on a bench overlooking it and took a bite. It tasted... fine. But nostalgia has its own flavor.

Emma and I used to come here a lot... on lunch breaks spent racing across the park because the museum food bored her. Or after hours, when the city was quieter, and we could walk hand in hand without watching the clock.

This was also the spot where I had given her the first real gift, the tiny necklace she never took off until... everything fell apart.

I let out a slow breath. It was strange how a place could hold you by the throat even after you tried to cut every tie to it. Stranger still, how memories that were supposed to fade only sharpened with time.

I took another half-bite of the churro that suddenly tasted bitter in my mouth and stared at the bridge, letting myself remember her, just for a minute. Remember her laugh. How her fingers felt when they were intertwined in mine. The way she looked at art, like it was a language, and she had been fluent in it since birth.

And the way we looked at each other before everything we loved collapsed under its own weight.

I swallowed hard. It had been seven months since she had walked out of that prison gate.

I hadn't planned to go. Honestly, I had spent a week telling myself not to because it was wrong, unethical, and... unnecessary. We were over; our last conversation in that warehouse should have been enough for closure.

But on the morning of her release, I found myself behind the wheel anyway, driving all the way up to Connecticut. I parked behind a line of cars, far enough that no one would notice me, and still close enough that I would see her the second she stepped outside.

The engine was off and my sunglasses on, shielding my eyes from the August sun while my mind scrambled for every excuse it could invent.

It told me I was just making sure she was okay. I just wanted to know she made it out whole. I wouldn't talk to her. I wouldn't be seen. I would just... see her. That was all.

And when the gates buzzed open, I sat straighter, waiting until the moment she appeared, and I felt my breath being knocked out of my lungs.

She was dressed in simple civilian clothes, her hair longer, falling against her shoulders. Her face looked softer, lighter, and there was a quiet steadiness in the way she carried herself that made it hard to look away.

Before I could take a breath, she was already running straight into Eric's arms. I heard her laugh, a familiar sound that made something in my chest loosen, and then crack entirely open, like someone had finally undone a knot that had been pulled tight for too long.

She made it. She was whole. She was still Emma.

That fire that drove me insane and made me fall in love with her in the first place was still burning. Maybe even brighter. And maybe truly free for the first time.

I let out a breath, whispering to myself, "You're going to be okay, Emma. You're going to make it."

And she had.

I kept tabs on her quietly, from a distance. I told myself again that I was just checking, just to know she was safe, steady, rebuilding.

But the truth was simpler... I missed her. More than I had allowed myself to admit.

I had hoped that time would sand down the sharp edges, make the wound ache less. It didn't.

Every time I tried not to think of her, she still found a way in. And it was because she had never really left. Not my mind, and definitely not my heart.

But the thing about love was that it didn't erase everything. It didn't clean the slate. At least, not completely.

Ego stayed. Pride stayed. And remnants of that hot, stabbing anger I had felt when I found out stayed, as well.

I had forgiven her. God, I had forgiven her long before I even realized it. But forgiving didn't mean forgetting the way she gutted me, the way she lied to my face, the way I looked at her and didn't recognize the woman I loved.

And I wasn't proud of it, but part of me still flinched when I remembered the worst moments. Part of me still wondered how I had missed it. How the hell I, an FBI agent, got played like that.

So yeah, there was pride. There was ego. There was a bruised part of me that didn't want to risk being blindsided like that ever again.

And then there was the guilt.

She had been through more than most people could survive. She rebuilt herself inside those walls, built a program that was still helping women long after she left, and now... she was still rebuilding, still rising.

I kept replaying that thought until it hardened into something that almost sounded rational.

Maybe we were better off without each other.

Maybe what we had couldn't exist anymore, not in the way it was.

Maybe trying again would just destroy us twice.

And if I reached out now, after everything she had clawed her way through, would I help her, or would I just pull her backward?

It felt selfish and reckless, like I would be taking something fragile and steady and shaking it just to see what would happen.

So I stayed away... or tried to. But distance from someone you never stopped loving didn't heal anything. It was just a quieter kind of pain...

And I had tried to move on. I really did.

My mom, my sister Kaylee, and of course, Chloe, had ganged up on me so aggressively that I was convinced they had a group chat titled something like Operation End Jake's Bachelor Era.

And because I was a functioning adult—or tried to be—I went on dates. I even tried to make it work more than a couple of times.

It just never did.

Every woman was kind, smart, funny, someone any rational man would've been lucky to end up with. But they weren't her.

So, every time I sat across from someone new, I felt like I was performing a version of myself that didn't quite fit anymore. And it wasn't fair to them or even to me, when I knew from the start that none of those dates had a future.

And now, I was taking things slow. Baby steps. My mother hated that phrase. She still called every week to remind me she wanted grandchildren before she turned ninety.

As if summoned by the thought, my phone lit up with Mom.

I couldn't help the laugh that slipped out before answering. "Hey, Mom."

"Well?" she said, barely containing herself. "Did you do it?"

"I did it."

I heard her let out a soft rush of relief she didn't even try to hide. She and my dad had supported my decision from the second I confessed I was thinking about leaving the Bureau. They said they wanted me happy. I didn't think they had seen me happy in a long time.

"I'm driving up today," I told her. "I want to see you and Dad."

She squealed, making me blink, before saying, "I'll make your favorite dessert. Drive safe."

When I hung up, I stared at the Bow Bridge again, the last of my churro forgotten beside me.

For the first time in a long time, the future was unknown, a blank page. And maybe I was finally ready to write something new.