Chapter 61 Allies with Teeth
Eli’s POV
Mutual consequences. The words from the Council app still burned on the back of my eyes when we closed the door on the hotel conference room.
We had commandeered one of the smaller meeting spaces on a lower floor. No windows, solid walls, a single long table. Sloane at one end, laptop open. I took the chair to her right, close enough to read her breath even if I could not read her thoughts. Ash sat opposite, and Mila and Diaz joined via screens propped in the middle, faces flickering under bad hotel lighting.
“Mutual consequences means what,” Ash asked. “Beyond the obvious melodrama.”
Mila snorted. “Targeting Ward’s other clients,” she said. “If they cannot buy us, they can try to make us toxic. Leaks about Eli’s past, about my allegedly questionable methods. Harsher, smarter hits on Mercer infrastructure. Maybe even legal games in countries where they still have pull.”
“Character assassination for dessert,” Diaz added. “If they are already throwing Berlin audio around, they can scrape a lot more from old archives.”
I felt Sloane’s shoulders tighten beside me. We had barely recovered from the last round of that game.
“They will go after perception,” she said. “If they can make every ethical stand look like recklessness, they win even when we keep the systems running.”
“So we widen the field,” I said. “We do not stand alone and wait. We bring in others who are sick of being pushed.”
As if summoned, the knock came.
The woman who stepped in wore none of the summit’s fake humility. Slim black dress, leather jacket, dark hair pulled back, eyes that took in everything in one sweep.
“Alina Marković,” she said, accent sharp as the line of her jaw. “Thank you for seeing me on short notice.”
She had a reputation. Brilliant, ruthless, running a mid sized European cyber firm that had refused several very generous Council deals. Not on anyone’s leash yet, though plenty had tried.
She closed the door herself and sat without waiting to be invited, crossing one leg over the other.
“I have been courted by your new friends as well,” she said. “They do not like that I say no. They prefer us docile.”
“You are not known for that,” Sloane said.
Alina’s mouth curved. “Nor are you. Which is why this is interesting.”
She did not waste time.
“I can offer fragments,” she said. “Names of lesser Council members, not just the poster faces. Rumors about internal splits. There are government actors who are uneasy with how far this has gone. They will not come to you directly, but they talk. I listen.”
“Price,” I said. No sense pretending this was charity.
“First right of refusal,” she said. “On any future joint operations between Mercer and Ward targeting Council infrastructure. And access to some of your non critical APIs. Sanitized, of course. I do not need your core. I need your eyes.”
She was ambitious. That much was clear. But when she talked about internal splits, her gaze flicked to the side where Mila’s tile sat on screen, and I saw something else. Calculation, yes. Not stupidity.
“Why help us,” Sloane asked. “You could sit this out. Let us and the Council tear each other apart and swoop in for the contracts afterward.”
Alina shrugged. “I like my work visible,” she said. “I build things I want my name on. I do not want to wake up one day and find out my tools are running a prison camp algorithm in a country whose name my board cannot pronounce. Also,” she added, eyes shifting to me, “they made the mistake of trying to recruit me using you two as cautionary tales. I do not enjoy being manipulated.”
Her gaze lingered on me a breath longer than necessary. “You must be very persuasive,” she said, lips quirking. “To make a woman like Sloane walk out of that room instead of signing.”
Heat crawled up my neck. Sloane’s jaw ticked, just a fraction.
“We will not hand you the keys to Mercer,” Sloane said. “But we can agree to limited trade. You get certain APIs under strict terms. We get your intel. And first right of refusal is conditional on you not suddenly deciding the Council pays better.”
Alina smiled. “I admire a woman who negotiates like she was born with a knife,” she said. “We have a deal. For now.”
They shook. Her fingers had rings that looked like they could crack skulls.
As she stood to go, she gave me one more long, amused look. “If you ever get tired of playing bodyguard to one impossible woman,” she said, “call me. We can make very interesting trouble.”
Sloane’s eyes went glacial.
When the door closed behind Alina, the room seemed to inhale.
“If you ever trade me for a Balkan cyber queen,” I said lightly, trying to bleed some tension, “I will understand.”
Sloane turned to me, an incredulous look flickering over her anger. “Please,” she said. “She would fire you for insubordination within a week. You are mine.”
The word slipped out of her mouth like it had been waiting.
Mine.
Half joke. Half truth. It landed in my chest like a weight and a warmth at the same time.
We both felt it. The air changed. Her eyes widened a fraction, as if she had heard herself only after the word was loose. I did not tease her for it. I just let the warmth sit there, terrifying and right.
Mila’s face popped up larger on the nearest screen, breaking the spell. “Sorry to interrupt your feelings hour,” she said. “But I have a present.”
She flicked a packet into our shared folder. “Trace from the Council back end,” she said. “New node lit up about fifteen minutes ago. Guess where.”
I opened the file. Routing diagrams. IP blocks. A little blinking dot on the map.
Berlin.
Connected neatly to the original hotel CCTV hacks. To the first time Sloane had tried to be no one and failed.
“Berlin is calling,” Mila said. “Again.”
I looked at the dot, then at Sloane.
Past and future were not done with us yet.
“Looks like we just got our prologue and our next target in one,” I said.
Her mouth set. “Then we answer it on our terms,” she said.
The Lattice had just reminded us where this had started.
We were finally in a position to answer.