“I know.I would’ve preferred it to come from you.”I hold his eyes when he finally looks up.“But I understand why you didn’t tell me.”
He blinks, brow creasing, head tilting just slightly like he genuinely can’t figure out how that’s possible.“You do?”
“Yes.”I search his face.“This is Erica’s story, not yours.You were protecting her.”The rest sits heavy between us, unspoken.
You gave up everything.
As he holds my gaze, something moves through him—relief, maybe, or the edge of it.His shoulders drop a fraction, he looks away, and then he lets go of me.
“Maddox, I’m not angry at you.What you did for her—” I stop because the words feel too small.“You walked away from everything you’d built.Your career.Your family’s security.Everything.”I shake my head slowly.“That’s not a small thing.I need you to know I understand the size of it.”
His stares intently, and for a moment, I think he’s going to close both the proverbial and literal gap between us.But something shifts in his expression, and then the warmth in him pulls back by degrees as he takes a few more steps away from me.
“Grace.”He heads for the window, the distance between us growing.“What are you going to do with this?”
The question hits me somewhere tender.“What do you mean?”
“The feature.”He turns back, and his expression is plain to read, like the answer should have been obvious, like it should have been my first thought, too.
“That’s not—Is that seriously where your head went?”
“You’re a journalist.”He crosses his arms.“A good one.You don’t walk away from a story.You said so yourself, and you recently lostthebig one.”
And there it is.He’s not wrong about who I am or the recent loss, but he’s using it against me, and the distinction matters enormously.
“Sure, you know why I’m here, how I got this assignment, that I lost the story.”Though my voice stays quiet, there’s a sharpness to it now.“But that story… This is different.”
He stays silent, but his jaw tightens.
“Yes, I’m driven and determined, but that story was about my brother.”I hold his eyes, willing him to stay with me.“This has nothing to do with that.This is about you, but not really.”
My entire body aches, muscles tense, needing him to understand the distinction.“I’m not someone who uses people, Maddox.This isn’t your story.And there’s the right thing to do, the truth, and then there’s avarice and cruelty.People have already been hurt, damaged, lost because of Erica’s addiction and all that came with it.There isn’t?—”
I pause, running a hand through my hair as if to clear my head, make my words get through to him.“I thought you understood that about me.”
“I do.”His back is now to me.“And that’s the problem.”
He might as well have stabbed me for how the cold truth of his words carve into me.“Excuse me?”
“You go after the truth.It’s who you are.”Still looking out the window, shoulders tense, his voice drops.“It’s why I—” He stops for a beat.“Erica didn’t even supply the drugs that killed Beto.Beto did.And Marcos knows that and still?—”
He cuts himself off hard, jaw snapping shut, and the silence stretches.
“Marcos still what?”I keep my voice careful, level, needing him to explain this to me.Not for some story but to know how I can reach him, show him I’m not a threat.
He shakes his head and spins to face me, and that’s when I see he’s shutting down.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”He spreads his hands, frustration and wariness moving across his face.“I can’t say anything without you asking more questions.Without you?—”
“Without me what?”The hurt narrows into something exacting.“Maddox, I’m standing here, in your home, having just found out you sacrificed your entire career to keep a woman out of prison, and your first instinct is to assume I’ll weaponize it?”I don’t raise my voice.I don’t need to.“Who do you think I am?”
He meets my eyes, and something in his expression breaks open slightly before closing again.“I think you’re someone who doesn’t know when to stop when it comes to truth and justice.You mean well, and you want to make things right.”
It comes out quiet, almost gentle, and I think that might be the most honest thing he’s said in the last ten minutes.“And you lost the story of a lifetime that mattered so much to you.And this one, it has teeth that go deeper than Erica, and I can’t—” He exhales hard.“I can’t be the reason any of it comes apart.”
I grapple for another way to come at this, to get through to him, putting aside how every word out of his mouth makes me bleed.
But none of it matters with the next words out of his mouth.“I’m not doing this.”