Bella Graves

CASE: N/A The letter said she wanted a divorce. Hell of a thing to find waiting for you, especially when it's the last thing in the world you want. But I couldn't blame her. Bella, my wife, had stood beside me through more trouble than any woman should ever have to endure. She'd seen things that would keep most people awake for a lifetime. She'd been threatened, hunted, and even kidnapped because of me and the line of work I chose. And through every damn nightmare, she'd stayed. But a man has to wonder how much a woman can take before even love isn't enough. So there I was, walking into a mediation room to sit across from the woman who'd been my rock and figure out how to dismantle the life we'd built together. I loved her. God help me, I still did. But I couldn't keep dragging her through the kind of hell that followed me like a bad debt. The trouble was, I couldn't just hang up my badge, put on a clean suit, and pretend the world outside didn't exist. There were things keeping me on these streets that I couldn't discuss, not even with the woman I trusted most. Secrets buried so deep that if they ever saw daylight, they'd make the Vatican look like a den of saints. And believe me, that was saying something. There were forces moving behind the curtains, secrets capable of changing the course of history, and somebody had to keep an eye on them. Apparently, that somebody was me. I wanted to be the husband Bella deserved. I wanted Sunday dinners, quiet evenings, and a life where the phone didn't ring at three in the morning with another corpse waiting to be identified. But wanting something and getting it were two different things. As I took my seat across from her, I realized this might be the toughest case I'd ever faced. No suspects to interrogate, no crooked politicians to threaten, no back-alley informants to lean on. Just me, Bella, and a question I couldn't answer. How the hell do you save the woman you love from a life you're not willing to walk away from?