The precinct was nearly empty when he found her.

Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, turning everything pale and tired. She stood in front of the case board alone, jacket off, sleeves pushed up, staring at the web of names like if she looked long enough it would confess.

He stayed in the doorway.

He told himself it was about the case. The group she was circling didn’t scare easy. They erased problems. Shifted money like smoke. Made witnesses forget what they’d seen. He’d been patient with them—slow, methodical, invisible.

Her certainty did something to him. A pull beneath the ribs. The same pull that kept him coming back here instead of handling it his own way.

She’d underline a name, tap her pen against her lip when she was thinking. Little habits he catalogued without meaning to. Without permission.

He moved closer without thinking. Close enough to feel the warmth of her shoulder, to see the faint exhaustion under her eyes. He wanted to reach out. Smooth the crease from her brow. Tell her he’d watch the shadows so she didn’t have to. Wanted to say her name the way it lived in his head when he was alone. Wanted to ask her to stop—not because she couldn’t handle it, but because he couldn’t handle the thought of something happening to her.

There was too much he couldn’t give her. Too much blood on his hands. He didn’t belong under these lights. He belonged in alleys and unfinished buildings and places where men like the ones she was hunting felt brave.

It would be easier if she were reckless. Easier if she were naive. But she wasn’t. She was brave in a way that didn’t need noise. Careful.

Methodical. Human.

That was the problem . He wanted her safe. He wanted her out of it. He wanted—God help him—to be the one she leaned on when the weight got heavy. Not the shadow in her doorway. Not the man she pretended not to worry about.

The wanting wasn’t loud. It didn’t burn.

It ached.

It sat in his throat when she brushed past him to grab another file. It settled in his hands when he had to stop himself from touching her. It followed him back into the night when he left without saying what he meant.

If they came for her, he would end it. Quietly.

Completely.