Chapter 62 Back to the Scene
Sloane’s POV
The little blinking dot on Mila’s map sat right over a city I had spent years trying not to think about.
“Council revived certain dormant IPs from the Berlin hotel hack,” she said, tapping the screen. “They are using them as a relay for summit data and internal comms. Not their only route, but a favorite.”
I stared at the spot. Berlin. The place I had chosen once because it was supposed to be neutral ground. Anonymous. One night off the record.
Of course it had never been that.
“So Berlin was not just a random summit plus a bad idea in a hotel bar,” I said.
“Looks like it was one of their first theaters,” Mila replied. “A test stage. Cameras. Network load. High value targets. You were there. They saw you. They liked the view.”
Possibly where they first circled my name in red.
I felt anger rise, hot and sharp. “We go back,” I said.
Eli’s head snapped up. “Sloane.”
“They are rerouting through the place they first watched me,” I said. “That is where their arrogance is. Where they think we will never dare to look again. That is where they will be sloppy.”
“Or very prepared,” he said. “That city is loaded land for you. And for us. It is personal and tactical. That is a bad mix.”
“All of this is a bad mix,” I said. “London is crawling with them. The Council level just branded me hostile in an app. They are using the same tools they built on my work to taunt us. I am done letting Berlin live as pure trauma in my head. I want it to be a crime scene we can investigate.”
He looked at me for a long second. Fighting me. Fighting himself.
Then he nodded. “Short hop,” he said. “Smaller footprint. Different hotel. We do it on our terms.”
The flight from London to Berlin was barely long enough to finish a coffee. This time I watched the ground come up with my jaw clenched. The city’s shape still felt familiar in my bones. Old streets. New ghosts.
In the car from the airport, we took a route that would not have made any sense to anyone watching without context. To me, it was a tour of the worst map in my life.
The original summit hotel came into view as we turned a corner. Sleek glass. Bright logo. Same entrance where I had walked in as Lena, all nerves and sharp edges.
My heart stuttered. My hand tightened on my knee without permission.
Eli’s fingers slid over, quietly, and twined with mine.
I did not pull away.
The hotel we had booked this time was smaller. Discreet. No summit banners, no tech bros in matching hoodies loitering in the lobby. The desk clerk glanced at our passports and badges, made no sign of recognizing Mercer or Ward.
One suite. One bed. No adjoining door charade. When the door shut behind us, it was just us and a king size mattress and a city full of cameras outside.
We did not even pretend this was purely professional anymore. That ship had been sunk back in New York, and burned in London for good measure.
Eli did his sweep, methodical. Vents. Mirrors. Smoke detector. Under the bed. He found the usual hotel CCTV in the hallway, nothing hidden in the room. No unexpected pings on Mila’s scanners.
“This one is just a hotel,” he said. “For now.”
I let myself exhale.
Later, when the sky was dark and the air had that damp bite Berlin does so well, we pulled on hoodies and anonymous jackets and walked.
The city smelled like rain on old stone and street food. My muscles remembered the route without asking my brain. Turn right here. Cross there. The original hotel rose out of the night like a bad decision.
We stopped across the street, in the shadow of a closed café. Hoods up, hands in pockets, ghosts pressed tight against my ribs.
“That window,” I said, nodding at the fifth floor. “Third from the right. That was my room. I thought hiding my badge and letting my hair down made me invisible.”
He followed my line of sight. “And the bar.”
We both looked at the corner of the lobby where the glow of the bar cut through tall glass. I could see tables, chairs, a bartender polishing glasses. Different faces. Same script.
“That is where I first saw you,” I said. “You walked in and my entire risk profile went out the window.”
“I have thought about this street,” he said quietly, “more than any street in New York.”
I turned to look at him. His face was half shadow, half city light. The admission sat there between us, simple and heavy.
“I came here to be nobody for a night,” I said. “Instead I got kidnapped by an algorithm I accidentally helped write.”
He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “You picked the wrong city for anonymity,” he said. “Or the wrong bar.”
We stood there for a while, two shapes in the dark watching a building that had seen too much of us. My chest felt tight and oddly lighter at the same time. Facing it as a location, not just a nightmare, shifted something.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Mila.
Local contact at old hotel security willing to talk, her message read. Says he remembers the night the Americans and the young billionaire stayed. Can you meet at eight a m, staff entrance.
I showed Eli. He nodded.
“Back to the scene in the morning,” he said.
As we walked back to our new hotel, I glanced over my shoulder one more time. The original hotel loomed, glass gleaming, cameras quiet.
For the first time since Berlin, I did not feel like the only one naked under their gaze.
Tomorrow, for once, we would be the ones asking questions.