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"You know why I'm asking."

If I walked away from this console I was going to fall apart. Staying was the only thing keeping me in one piece.

"I know. But whoever takes over has to build that picture from scratch in the middle of an active situation. That's a gap in the information and that gap costs time." I looked at him. "I can do this."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he pulled a chair next to my station and sat down.

"I'm right here. The second you can't do this, I'm pulling you."

"Understood."

I requested police tactical and SWAT. In a hostage situation, fire pulls back and law enforcement takes over the scene, but the dispatch channel stays open because the information still flows through us. I opened the cross-agency channel so fire, police, and EMS could hear each other. I gave the responding units the address, the situation, the number of people inside. Two. An armed subject and a fire captain.

Alex's radio was still transmitting.

"Sit down, Captain."

"I'm fine standing."

I pulled the headset tighter against my ears.

"You know, I had a whole life planned with her. I was going to buy us a house in Lincoln Park, somewhere with a good neighborhood and good schools. I was going to marry her. I had the ring."

Every part of me wanted to pull the headset off. Hearing Declan describe the life I'd walked away from tore something open I thought I'd sealed shut. But Alex was on the other end of that channel, and I was not going to leave him.

"She left in the middle of the night. Took everything. She didn't even leave a note. Six years I spent wondering what I did wrong. And then I see a video of some firefighter kissing her at a school play."

The tactical channel cut in. "Dispatch, Unit 14. On scene. Establishing perimeter."

"Copy, Unit 14."

Patrol was arriving. Through Alex's radio I could hear Declan still talking, and on the tactical channel I could hear units checking in, and I was holding both at the same time.

"Unit 22 on scene. Securing the south entrance."

"Copy, Unit 22."

"You're living my life." Declan's voice was getting tighter. "You're in my house, cooking dinner for my kid, sleeping in my bed. And she just let you walk in and take it."

"Nobody took anything from you, Declan. She left because she was afraid of you."

"I never touched her. I would never touch her."

Through Alex's radio, the bullhorn from the street bled in. "This is the Boston Police. Put down your weapon and come out with your hands up."

Neither of them responded to it.

"She saw what you did to that man in the parking lot. She was pregnant. She saw it and she ran."

Alex said it without hesitation. He told Declan the truth I'd carried alone for six years, and he said it on an open channel in a room with a gun because Declan needed to hear it.

"That guy owed people money. That was business."

"Janine didn't see business. She saw the father of her child beating a man who couldn't stand up."

The tactical channel crackled. "Dispatch, SWAT Alpha. On scene. Staging east side. Awaiting authorization."

"It doesn't matter anymore. None of it. My people cut me off. The police have been following me since the rink. My own guys won't take my calls." He laughed, and the sound was hollow. "I'm a dead man, Captain. Either they get me or your cops do. So that's not something I need to worry about anymore."