The heat in Lower Manhattan presses against me like a second uniform.

It seeps beneath the edges of my armor, crawls down my spine, fogs the inside of my visor until the world is a blur of color and movement and noise. Thousands of voices rise and fall in uneven waves, chants slamming into the buildings and echoing back distorted, angrier.

I should be in the command van.

That’s where Lieutenants belong — behind glass and monitors and radios, issuing orders, watching the city from a distance.

But I am here.

Front of the line. Shield planted. Boots squared. Lieutenant Vincent Monovan, NYPD, standing like a barricade between the city and itself.

Because she is here.

My wife.

I saw the flyer this morning on the kitchen counter, bright and defiant beside her half-empty mug. I didn’t need to read it twice. I already knew she’d be at the front. She always is. Loudest voice. Highest sign. Heart first, safety second.

I didn’t tell her I rearranged the entire deployment map. Shifted units. Moved barriers. Took this block for myself.

If she was going to stand in front of riot shields today, she was not going to stand in front of strangers. The crowd surges and I lift my head. And there she is.

God.

Even in a sea of bodies and signs and noise, I find her without trying. Like my eyes have memorized the shape of her. Hair already escaping its tie. Face flushed, eyes burning with that beautiful, infuriating conviction that made me fall in love with her long before I admitted it.

She scans the line, searching.

Then she finds me.

Her breath catches when she recognizes the dent in my helmet, the way I brace my stance, the man hiding behind layers of black armor and rules. A slow smile curves across her mouth.

And then she walks straight toward me. Every instinct in my body screams at once.

Stop. Turn back. Please.

She stops so close her chest nearly touches my shield. Her breath fogs the visor. For a second the world narrows until there is nothing but her eyes and the thin, ridiculous wall between us.

“Vinnie,” she mouths.

My name on her lips still ruins me, even through plastic and steel.

“You look awfully stiff today, Lieutenant,” she murmurs. “Need help loosening that vest, husband of mine?”

I close my eyes.

Just for half a second.

Because if I don’t, I’m going to reach for her.

Every part of me is screaming to pull her back, tuck her under my arm, drag her out of this chaos and lock her somewhere safe where nothing can touch her. I imagine her hands bruised, her voice hoarse, her body knocked down by a surge of strangers and my stomach turns cold.

“Move back, devushka” I say, forcing my voice into something official, something hard. “This line is dangerous.”

She doesn’t listen. She never does.

Instead, she laughs — soft, bright, completely unafraid and leans closer, eyes glittering as she searches my face through the visor.

“Is that concern, Lieutenant?” she whispers. “Or are you just pretending you don’t know me?”

Behind me, officers shift. Radios crackle. Somewhere a chant turns ugly. I don’t move my eyes from her.

Because if I look away, I won’t know where she is. And if I don’t know where she is, I can’t protect her.

I take one controlled step forward with the line. Official. By the book. My shield nudges her back just an inch, and I use the motion to lean down, hiding my mouth from the cameras.

“If you get hurt today,” I murmur, voice low, “I will never forgive you. Do you hear me?”

Her expression softens for just a heartbeat. Then she smiles again, gentler this time.

She lifts her hand and presses two fingers to the visor, right over where my mouth would be.

Blows a kiss.

I stay frozen, staring at her as she returns to chanting all while looking at him with that faint smile of hers, even playfully winking at me.

And my eyes never stop watching her.

I don’t care about the cameras. I don’t care about those watching from the van.

I care about one woman in a thousand bodies.

And I swear to God, nothing is touching her today.

Not while I’m standing here.