Colby's POV
I felt bad that I have been missing for the past couple weeks. Julia has been such a trooper about all of this, but I could see the light inside of her dimming.
I was so glad I could spend her birthday with her. She didn't bring up the fact it was her birthday which made me believe she thought I had forgotten it.
The truth was I had been planning to get her a phone for a while now, but was scared since it was so trackable.
It's been a week since she has had it though and I could see the excitement in her eyes when she would get to talk to the girls.
It was good to see her be able to talk to them since I knew she was so lonely.
It had been a long month since we had gotten back from LA. I was gone most of the time, scoping the city in hopes to find Adam or at least the gang he was with.
It was hard work but I was starting to think we were onto something.
"Did you want to come with me today?" I asked as Julia wrapped her arms around my waist from behind while I brushed my teeth.
"Yeah." She said quietly and pressed her cheek against my back. "Okay. Get ready then." I said with a laugh then rinsed my mouth out.
I watched as she went to get dressed. I had to admit that living with her again has been so nice.
Getting to wake up with her every morning and going to sleep with her beside me made the hard days worth it.
We got ready then made our way to base. "Are you leaving me right now?" Julia asked as we got situated in my office.
"No, I have to do a couple things here then I'm gonna have to leave." I said as she nodded. "Perfect." She said with a smile then looked at the sketchbook she was sketching in.
She would look up at me occasionally, catching my eye every few seconds.
"What are you doing?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the computer screen.
"Drawing you." She hummed causing me to laugh. "What?" I asked and looked over at her. "See?" She asked and held up the sketchbook.
On the paper was the beginnings of a picture of me. It wasn't close to being done but I could tell by what she had so far that it was me.
"That's really good, Jules." I said causing her to grin. "Thanks." She said then turned it back towards her so she could work on it some more.
We worked in silence for a while before it was time for me to leave.
"Alright, sweetheart. I'll be back later tonight." I said then stood up. "I don't want you to go. I'm not done with my drawing yet." Julia said with a frown.
"I'll try to be back early. You can finish it then." I said then leaned down and kissed her. "Be safe, I love you." She said as I nodded.
"I will. I love you, too." I said then grabbed my gun and my phone and made my way out of the room.
I didn't really want to go to work today because it was become tedious. Nothing we did was coming to any conclusions which was frustrating.
We haven't had any casualties or anything lately though which was nice.
"Jeremy. Let's go." I said as I knocked on his door. "On it." He said loudly as I crossed my arms.
When he opened the door he looked at me and nodded once. "Sorry for making you wait." He said as I nodded.
"It's fine." I said blandly then started to walk down the hallway. It actually wasn't a big deal at all but I couldn't have people thinking I would wait on them all the time.
"Is Will at his post?" I asked as we went upstairs and to my car. "Yeah. He and Jeff are there. No sign of Adam yet." Jeremy said as I nodded.
"I'm gonna give him a call when we get to our post." I said and started the car.
We had a system where we were at key places that Adam has been spotted and we watch for him. We've seen him a couple of times but it was always a little too dangerous to try and grab him.
We needed him while he was alone.
When we got to our post, which was a random gas station in the city, I called Will.
"Mr. Brock." He answered after a couple rings. "What's been going on?" I asked and kept my eyes fixated on the door of the gas station.
"Nothing here. Haven't seen anyone really at all." He said as I nodded. "I'm sick of trying to find this fucker." I said as Will chuckled.
"Yeah, he's a hard one to catch but I think we're so close." He said as I nodded. "Yeah. Update me if anything happens." I said and crossed my arms.
"Got it, boss." Will said then hung up. "He usually comes here on Thursdays so he should make an appearance today." Jeremy said with optimism.
"Here's hoping we can actually get to him though." I said with a sigh.
I think being with Julia has genuinely made me softer because I was having full on conversations with my gang members.
It was both dangerous but slightly satisfying. It was hard not having a social life for so long but I still couldn't get to close to these guys.
Jeremy and I were always the closest though. He gained my trust immediately with how quickly he was willing to help Julia when she got shot all those years ago.
Since then we haven't been super close but he was someone I could confide in and he really did respect me.
That's why I usually was with him on these sorts of jobs. I couldn't handle being surrounded by another one of the idiots in my gang.
"There he is." Jeremy pointed out as Adam got out of a black van. "He's with the two guys he's always with. I think we need to just get them all together." I said with a sigh.
I didn't want to do that because it would draw more attention to us and it was harder to grab three people than just one.
I think Adam was onto us and that there wasn't going to be many opportunities to grab him.
"We need to formulate a better plan in order to get him. We'll follow him around a little bit today then we can go back to base and work on a plan." I hummed.
As much as I wanted to just jump him and throw him in a car, we couldn't do that. He was much stronger and smarter than we had originally planned, which made this so much harder.
I needed to be safer because I had someone to live for now.
Julia wouldn't forgive me if I was risky and got killed.
Jeremy and I ended up following Adam around for a while, trying to get some more information on his paths and where we was spending his time.
This was the worst part of our job. I missed the action and I missed actually killing people.
It was kinda fucked up to think like that, but it was true.
This was the boring shit I hated doing.
When we got to base I made my way back to my office. It had been an annoyingly long day and all I wanted to do was go home and hang out with Julia.
I walked into my office to see that Julia wasn't in there though.
"Jules?" I asked and looked around. It was weird for her to not be in my office.
Granted, she could have gone to the bathroom but it didn't seem like her to just roam the halls like that.
I left the room and went to see if she was maybe in the gym or in the bathroom.
While I was on the way, Will was rushing towards me with a panicked look on his face.
"What's wrong?" I asked, noticing he was holding some sort of paper in his hand.
"I found this." He said as my brow scrunched. I took it from him, looking at the paper that seemed to have tear stains on it.
My mind was racing as my eyes traced the handwritten words that were sprawled on the paper.
Colby,
I hate that I have to do this to you but I can't stay here any longer. I can't live my life in fear anymore and I can't live my life with you. It's for the best that we're away from each other. My life has been turned upside down too many times and I need to find some normalcy. I hope one day you forgive me. I love you and I always will.
Love, Jules.