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For a few minutes, I allowed myself to live in the fantasy constructed yesterday on the dock. Breathing in the scent of her—fruity shampoo, warm skin, and the lingering salt of the ocean—made it easy to pretend this was real life. We could wake up, make pancakes, read the paper, and maybe drive into town later for truck parts or ice cream without checking the rearview mirror. I was just a man who had found his person, and the world outside the cottage walls didn’t exist.

But the world did exist. And as the light strengthened, turning the gray stripes to a pale, dusty yellow, the guilt began to creep in. It started as a dull ache in my gut and expanded until it was a physical pressure pressing down on my chest, suffocating the lingering warmth of the night.

I’d turned off my phone.

Severing the connection to reality was a deliberate, selfish choice to buy one night of peace. I wanted to take her to bed and sleep next to her without the specter of Nash or the paparazzi hovering in the corner. Prioritizing my desire over her safety meant the bill was now due, even if the night had been one of the best of my life. I let it happen because I wanted to feel something other than duty.

Carefully extricating myself from Sutton’s grasp, I slid my arm out from under her head and replaced it with a pillow. She stirred and murmured something unintelligible before burrowing her face into the soft cotton to seek warmth. I froze, but her breathing deepened again, settling back into a steady rhythm.

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, my feet hitting the cool floor. Snagging the shorts I’d worn last night, I pulled them on and walked silently out of the bedroom, closing the door until it clicked softly into the latch. The weight of my phone in the pocket was solid and ominous against my thigh. The living room was quiet, the air conditioning humming its low, artificial note.

As I entered the kitchen, my gaze went instantly to the counter. Sutton’s burner phone lay black and silent. I stared at it while a cold sense of dread washed over me. The protector was supposed to be the sentinel on the wall. Instead, he’d fallen asleep at his post because he wanted to be happy.

With a deep, endless sigh, I pulled my phone from my pocket. I pressed the button, and the screen flared to life.

Then the vibration started.

It wasn’t a single buzz, but a continuous, angry spasm in my hand. Message after message cascaded onto the screen, the device shaking violently as it tried to catch up with twelve hours of panic. The timestamps revealed a steady escalation that had started yesterday evening, right around the time I was kissing Sutton on the dock, oblivious.

Five missed calls from Hunter. Two from Harper. And a dozen text messages from numbers I didn’t recognize—reporters who had somehow scraped my contact info.

I opened the text thread with Hunter. My brother-in-law was in security, and he knew the situation with Sutton. He wouldn’t panic easily. His messages were short, precise, and terrifying.

Hunter (8:45 PM): Ben, are you with her? I’m hearing chatter on the police scanner about a bunch of press moving this way down Hwy 1.

Hunter (9:30 PM): Reporters are swarming Conch Republic Brewpub asking about a mystery celebrity and a firefighter. They have a description of your truck.

Hunter (10:15 PM): I have a contact at the Sheriff’s office. A PI pinned a location request on your address. I’m securing the access road to your cottage. Call me when you get this—I’m assuming you’re lying low for now, but we’re moving down the DEFCON scale rapidly here.

I gripped the edge of the counter with one hand, the blood draining from my face until the room tilted. They weren’t just looking. They were here. While I was sleeping with Sutton, while I was holding her and promising she was safe, the wolves had been circling the perimeter, setting up their tripods, and waiting for morning.

Assessing the narrative was critical. We needed to know exactly what we were walking into. I quickly opened the browser on my phone, but I didn’t even have to type the URL. The search bar suggested the top trending topic immediately.

Sutton Vale and Firefighter

I clicked the link for TMZ but didn’t have to search for the story. It was the banner headline, splashed across the top of the screen in a font that screamed scandal.

EXCLUSIVE: SUTTON VALE FOUND. POP STAR HELD IN FLORIDA KEYS "HIDEOUT" WITH VIOLENT EX-CON.

The headline was a gut punch, but the photos were a lethal injection. On the left was a glamour shot of Sutton from a red carpet, looking ethereal and fragile in a silver gown, her eyes wide and vulnerable. On the right was the photo sitting on my mantle.

My mugshot.

It was grainy, taken under the harsh fluorescent lights of the booking center the night I beat the living shit out of a tourist in a bar fight. The buzz cut stripped away any softness. My lip was split and swollen, a dark line of dried blood trailing down my chin. Two black holes of rage stared defiantly at the camera. I didn’t look like a paramedic, or a hero. I looked like exactly what the headline claimed: a thug. A danger. A monster.

As I scrolled down, nausea rose in my throat like bile. The article was a hit piece designed to destroy credibility and paint a picture of instability.

Sources confirm the troubled singer, who vanished roughly a week ago amid reports of a mental health crisis, has been tracked to the remote property of Benjamin Coleridge, a local firefighter with a dark past. Coleridge, 37, has a documented history of assault and battery, including a bar fight that left a man hospitalized...

They had dug it all up. The plea deal. The anger management classes. The probation. They had spun the narrative perfectly to fit Nash’s agenda. Sutton wasn’t a woman escaping a controlling ex-husband. She was a mentally unstable girl-child who had fallen into the clutches of a violent local.

I dropped the phone on the counter, the plastic clattering loud in the silence. Leaning over the sink, I braced my weight on my arms, breathing hard as the room spun around me.

I was the liability.

My strength and my walls were supposed to be enough to keep the world out. I had promised her a fortress. But I wasn’t the shield—I was the weapon Nash was using to execute her. Bringing her here, letting her stay, and sleeping with her had handed her ex the perfect ammunition to secure his conservatorship.

“Look at her judgment,” he would say to a judge, pointing at my mugshot. “She ran away to live with a violent felon. She isn’t safe. She needs to be managed.”