Chapter 26 Welcome to the Crosshairs
Sloane’s POV
The headline sat on Eli’s tablet like a slap.
Billionaire in the Woods with Her Bodyguard. The photo was grainy, blown up from too far away, but I knew that dock, that lake, the curve of his shoulder and the way I leaned just slightly toward him. Someone had watched the only place that had felt even remotely safe and turned it into content.
I scrolled, jaw clenched. Comments bloomed underneath. Half of them calling me reckless or unprofessional, the rest spinning fantasies about us, little ship tags already forming. They did not know my real name in Berlin, but they knew it now and they had glued it to his.
Shame flared hard. Not for wanting him, not exactly, but for letting myself laugh on that dock, for forgetting, for one stupid hour, that everywhere we went might have a lens waiting. Anger chased it. Apparently I could not exhale without someone monetizing it.
By the time we crossed back over the river toward Manhattan, I had read enough to feel sick. I shut the tablet and watched my city grow in the windshield, the towers sharp and glittering, every one of them full of people ready to pick apart whatever story they thought I was telling.
Outside Mercer, the sidewalk was a wall of cameras. Flashes popped the second the SUV door opened.
“Ms Mercer, is this your boyfriend?”
“Are you hiding a relationship with your bodyguard?”
“Is your disappearance connected to the attack?”
Eli stepped out first, hand coming back for mine, his body angling so he was between me and most of the chaos. His palm was a firm pressure at my back as we moved. His face was carved from stone, which seemed to only excite the ones with lenses. To them it probably looked like a scene from a movie. To me it felt like walking through fire in bare feet.
Inside, the lobby hush was worse. Employees pretended to be enthralled by their screens. Some did not bother, phones tilted just enough to catch our reflections framed by the very article I had just read.
Ava materialized at my elbow, cheeks flushed. “The board called an emergency session,” she whispered. “They are upstairs.”
Of course they were.
In the executive conference room the air was thick with cologne and self righteous indignation. Richard Kline looked personally offended, as if I had cheated on him with the idea of being human. Some faces were tight with real concern. Others, calculating, already rearranging chairs in their heads.
Richard opened his mouth. I could have scripted it.
“None of us are questioning your commitment,” he began, which meant he was. “But certain images circulating this morning raise serious questions about optics, judgment and governance. In light of recent events, the market may perceive an inappropriate relationship with contracted security and a lack of transparency around your whereabouts.”
I let him finish his little speech. I did not look at Eli standing at the back wall.
“When someone tries to put you in a van,” I said, voice cool, “you do not put your chief executive in a glass box. You take her somewhere secure with the people paid to keep her alive. That dock was a secure undisclosed location with my contracted lead, following a credible threat. There is speculation, yes. There is no evidence of misconduct.”
Half truth. The feelings sitting under my ribs were not in any contract.
That did not stop them. They wanted an independent ethics review. Of my conduct with Ward. Of Ward’s role. Of whether Mercer had adequate controls. One quietly suggested I pause my direct involvement in some decisions until the review was complete, for stability.
“Stability,” I said, “will not come from decapitating leadership in the middle of coordinated cyberattacks and a government contract we are two weeks from closing. That will look like weakness to every competitor and every bad actor watching. I am not stepping aside because someone with a long lens has a rent payment due.”
Legal counsel cleared her throat. Mariah Chan, smooth as always, dark hair in a perfect twist, soft voice that made people forget she was holding a blade.
“No one is asking you to step aside entirely,” she said, hands folded like a school teacher. “We are simply suggesting some corrective optics. On paper, we can temporarily reassign Mr Ward as lead, while keeping him embedded for practical continuity. To reassure regulators, we might also consider bringing in an external compliance focused security partner to work alongside Ward. I have excellent recommendations, all vetted, familiar to our investors.”
There it was. A third party at our throat, wrapped in the language of oversight. Her gaze slid right over Eli when she said it, like he was already a detail footnote.
I met her eyes and let her see that I understood. She smiled faintly.
When it was over, when the motions were made and votes queued up and everyone had had their say, I walked back to my office feeling like my own building had shifted under my feet.
“Investors are calling nonstop,” Ava said, slipping in behind me. “PR has five statement drafts for review. Media requests every ten minutes.”
“Tell PR to sit on their hands until I read anything that has my name on it,” I said. “No one speaks for me without my approval.”
She nodded and vanished.
Eli stood by the window, shoulder to the glass, visible from the building across the way. I wondered if some camera was already pointed at him, at us, capturing the angle of his body in my office. Optics were now part of every equation whether I liked it or not.
“They want an ethics review,” I said, dropping into my chair. “They want you moved off as lead in name, maybe for real later. They want another firm at the table. All, of course, in the name of my safety.”
He was quiet a beat. “If me stepping back keeps some of the heat off you, I will do it,” he said. “I can work from the shadows. I have done it before.”
“Every time I let someone else pick the people around me, they turned on me,” I said, meeting his eyes. “My father. Noah. Half this board. I am not doing that again. You are here because I chose you. I am not letting them swap you out for some tame compliance poodle.”
Something loosened in his shoulders at that, just a fraction.
After he left to wrangle Ward on his side of the mess, I opened my secure account, the one only a handful of people knew existed. One new message blinked at me. No sender name I recognized.
Tonight’s board minutes were illuminating. Subject line.
Inside was a transcript attachment of the closed door portion of the meeting I had just left. Every exact phrase. Every suggestion Mariah had made, word for word. Beneath it, a single line.
They are not your only enemies in the room.
I stared at the screen, the familiar sense of violation and opportunity rising together. Someone with board access was feeding my unknown adversary. Or my adversary was sitting closer than I had ever allowed myself to think.