Chapter 70 Under Fire, Under Oath
Sloane’s POV
The first shot sounded like the sky cracking open.
Eli slammed me behind a parked van so hard my shoulder hit metal, pain flashing white. His body came down over mine immediately, a shield that smelled like rain and soap and the faint bite of gun oil. Glass shattered somewhere down the street, raining onto the sidewalk like sharp hail. People screamed. Someone dropped a bag and it burst, cans rolling and clattering like they were part of the attack.
My lungs forgot what they were supposed to do.
“Stay down,” Eli said, voice low and brutal, right by my ear.
I tasted rust. Fear always made my mouth do that, like my body was trying to bleed out through saliva.
Another crack. A streetlight exploded above the café entrance, sparks spraying. The motorcycle engine roared again, too close, then skidded, rubber shrieking against wet pavement. I caught a glimpse under Eli’s arm. A helmeted rider. A glint of a gun hand. The headlight swung toward us like an eye.
Eli shifted, placing his shoulder to block the angle. His hand pressed my head down, palm firm against the back of my skull.
“Don’t look,” he ordered.
Of course I looked anyway.
Across the street, a couple bolted into a doorway. A man tripped, caught himself, ran again. Phones dropped and skittered. The neat Swiss street turned into a stampede in seconds. There was no elegant countermeasure for this, no patch, no board resolution. Just chaos and choice.
Eli’s arm tightened. “Move,” he said, and dragged me along the van’s side toward the alley gap between buildings.
My heels slipped on wet stone. My hands clawed for balance. He shoved me into the alley with his body at my back, then turned, scanning the street with a focus so sharp it felt like a weapon.
“Eli,” I whispered, like saying his name could keep him from stepping into the open.
He glanced at me once, quick. “Breathe,” he said. “In. Out. Now.”
I sucked air in, shaky and shallow.
A new shadow hit the alley mouth, and my heart tried to punch through my ribs.
Ash.
He moved fast, suit jacket gone, expression flat and lethal. He grabbed my elbow, guided me deeper into the alley without yanking like I was luggage.
“Right,” he said to Eli. “Rider’s peeling off. Left turn, second street. Tossed something, maybe the weapon, into the gutter.”
The engine sound faded, swallowed by the city blocks.
Eli stayed still for one more heartbeat, eyes tracking the last angles. Then he turned to me, hands on my shoulders. His thumbs pressed the tops of my arms like he was checking if I was still solid.
“Hit,” he asked.
I blinked at him. “What.”
“Are you hit.”
I ran my hands over my body, stupidly. Coat. Ribcage. Hip. No blood. No wet warmth. Just shaking.
“No,” I managed.
His eyes closed for a second. A tiny collapse he would never allow anyone else to see.
We heard sirens. Police. Swiss, efficient, and still too slow for the fact that someone had just tried to erase me on a street full of witnesses.
Ash lifted a finger to his ear, listening. “Officers coming in from the main road,” he said. “We need a story.”
Eli’s jaw tightened. “Random street crime,” he said.
My stomach twisted. “They shot at me.”
“And if you say that out loud,” Eli said, voice low, “every camera in this city will point at you for the next week, every conspiracy clown will crawl out, and the Council will get the exact spectacle they want. We handle this quietly.”
Quietly. Like being hunted was a private inconvenience.
I wanted to argue. My throat wouldn’t form words.
Ash nodded once. “We were caught near a panic moment,” he said. “We moved. No injuries. We don’t know why. End.”
Police rounded the corner, weapons up, shouting in German. Eli lifted his hands, calm, spoke to them in short sentences. Ash backed him, smooth and local. I stood behind them and let my body keep shaking while my face pretended it wasn’t.
Back at the hotel, the suite door shut and the world finally stopped pressing in from all sides.
My knees went weak. I folded onto the edge of the bed like someone had cut my strings.
Eli came to me instantly. “Hey,” he said, dropping to a crouch. “Look at me.”
I tried. My vision blurred. I blinked hard, and tears came anyway, hot and furious.
He cupped my face. “You’re safe,” he said. “You’re here.”
“I hate that you can’t promise that,” I whispered.
He didn’t lie. He just pressed his forehead to mine. “I can promise I’m not letting go,” he said.
Something inside me snapped, not in a broken way, in a desperate way.
I kissed him.
Hard. Hungry. Like I needed to prove we were still alive and still ours. His hands slid into my hair, holding me steady. He lifted me onto the bed without breaking the kiss, stripping my coat off, then his shirt, mouth never leaving mine for long.
“Tell me to stop,” he breathed against my lips.
“Don’t,” I said, and pulled him closer.
We tore through fabric and fear together. He pushed my dress up, hands rougher than usual, then gentled when he saw my face tighten. “I’ve got you,” he said, and the words hit the exact part of me that had been bracing for impact.
When he slid inside me, slow and deep, my breath broke. Pleasure rushed in sharp waves, tangled with the echo of gunfire. I wrapped my legs around his hips, holding him there like if I let go, the world would take him.
He moved harder, faster, the bed creaking under us, the hotel lamp throwing shaky light across his shoulders. My nails dug into his back. I came with his name on my tongue, my body shaking in a way that finally felt like release.
After, we lay tangled, sweat cooling, my ear pressed to his chest.
His heartbeat was steady. Human. Real.
I counted it anyway.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Harper.
I reached for it with a hand that still shook.
US update: contract decision delayed. Rumors say a classified security concern about Mercer’s CEO’s associations. They’re using you two as pretext now.
I stared at the message until the letters blurred.
Eli’s hand tightened around mine. “They’re not done,” he said quietly.
No, I thought, stomach sinking.
They’d just started aiming for the future.