Chapter 67 Lines Across Oceans
Eli’s POV
My phone buzzed again while I was still staring at Harper’s last text, like it wanted to make sure I understood.
Mariah is spinning your Council refusal as high risk extremism. Sentinel Gate just won a big domestic contract. The Lattice is consolidating.
I read it twice. Then a third time, because my brain kept trying to turn it into something less real. Like if I stared hard enough, the words would rearrange themselves into better news.
Sloane sat on the bed behind me, cross legged, laptop open, eyes fixed on numbers like she could beat them into obedience. The lamp light made her look softer than she had any right to be after everything. That almost broke me more than the text.
I walked into the bathroom so she would not see my face do whatever it was about to do, shut the door, and called Lucas.
He picked up on the first ring, voice raw. “Tell me you’re calling because you miss me.”
“I miss the version of you who slept,” I said.
A humorless exhale. “Yeah. Me too.”
I leaned on the sink, staring at my own reflection. Zurich hotel lighting made everyone look like they were about to confess a crime. “How bad is it,” I asked.
Lucas did not pretend. “Ward’s bleeding from a thousand paper cuts,” he said. “Not from bullets. From whispers.”
“Whispers from who.”
“Council aligned agencies. State buyers. Partners who like keeping their names clean.” His voice tightened. “They are quietly telling governments we are unreliable because of you.”
“Because I slept with a client,” I said. The words tasted like rust.
“Because you fell in love with the wrong target,” Lucas corrected. “They do not care about ethics. They care about control. And you are a bad variable.”
The shame hit anyway. Not for wanting Sloane. I refused to be ashamed of that. It was the collateral damage that made my gut twist. Ward’s people, my people, caught in the splash zone.
“How many clients,” I asked.
“Two major ones already asking about Sentinel Gate,” he said. “Three more circling. And internally, it’s splitting us.” I could hear papers shifting on his end, like he had a list and hated that he knew it by heart. “Some of the team is loyal to you. They would walk into fire. Others just want stable paychecks and no Council trouble. They have families. They are tired. I can’t even blame them.”
I closed my eyes. The sink edge bit my palm. “I built Ward so no one ever had to lose a client again,” I said. “Now my name is turning into a hazard label.”
“Eli,” Lucas said, voice softer. “We were always going to hit this fork. You just got us there faster.”
My throat tightened. “That is supposed to help.”
“It does,” he said, more blunt now. “Because if it wasn’t you and Sloane, it would have been something else. Some contract. Some telemetry deal. Some blackmail. They want everyone on a leash. Ward only looked free because we hadn’t tugged hard enough yet.”
I swallowed. “So what now.”
“We keep cutting ties,” he said. “We refuse Council collars. We take the short term pain. Or we sell out and keep the lights on while they eat us alive from inside.” He paused. “And for what it’s worth, I’m not selling out.”
I opened my eyes, stared at the mirror. “Tell Mom you’re alive,” I said, because it was the closest thing to affection I could manage without cracking.
He gave a tired laugh. “Tell your billionaire to stop trying to fight the world alone.”
I hung up and stood there a moment longer, phone heavy in my hand, feeling like I had just watched my company get pushed closer to a cliff.
When I came out, Sloane looked up immediately, reading me in one scan.
“Bad,” she said.
“Bad,” I admitted.
She did not ask for details yet. She just patted the bed beside her, a quiet order.
I sat, and my phone buzzed again. Ash this time.
“Ward,” he said the second I answered, voice low and clipped. “Quick update from the local channels. MI5 and a few European agencies are uncomfortable with the Lattice’s reach, but they’re moving like molasses. Lots of concern, not much action.”
“Because action makes enemies,” I said.
“Because action makes headlines,” Ash replied. “And no one wants their name attached to starting a war they might not win.”
A notification popped up from Alina before I could answer. A file, short and brutal. A list of smaller companies that had resisted Council offers and then got bled dry. DDoS that never stopped. Clients spooked away. Leadership hit with scandals. Quiet deaths by paperwork.
Sloane leaned over, reading it on my screen. Her jaw tightened.
“They don’t just kill people,” she said softly. “They kill options.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They kill the space where people can say no.”
She shut her laptop partway, like she needed the room to breathe. Then she looked at me, eyes sharp, voice too calm.
“If Mercer falls,” she said, “I walk away with the skills that built it. If Ward falls, do you?”
The question hit harder than Lucas’s call. Because it was not about money or headlines. It was about who I was when no one was paying me to be that man.
I stared at the floor for a second, then forced myself to meet her eyes. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I built Ward like it was a second skin. I thought I’d die with it.”
“And now.”
“Now I’ve been thinking about a life after,” I said, the words coming slow. “Teaching. Training protectors who understand the difference between guarding and owning. Maybe starting something smaller. Cleaner. No investors with hidden knives.”
Her shoulders eased a fraction. “A hybrid,” she said, almost to herself. “A lab and a security think tank. Away from Wall Street. Away from all their tentacles. Something we design with transparency baked in.”
We sat there, the world outside the window quiet for once, like it was giving us a single breath. For the first time in weeks, the future did not look like a hallway full of cameras. It looked like a room we might build.
My phone buzzed again, sharp and urgent. Mila.
Need you both on a secure call. Someone inside Mariah’s firm wants to flip. They have Council docs and they say your names are all over them.
Sloane’s eyes lifted to mine.
Hope had barely stepped into the room, and already the war had found the door.