Chapter 7 Proximity Protocol
Eli’s POV
My neck screamed before my eyes were open. That was the first sign I had broken one of my own rules and slept in a chair. The second was the weight of a blanket slipping off my arm when I shifted.
Sloane was still on the couch where I had left her, curled on her side, dark hair a spill across the pillow. At some point in the night she had inched closer to the edge, like her body was trying to shorten the distance between us even while her brain insisted on walls.
I got up slowly, every joint cracking in protest, and tugged the blanket back over her shoulder. She did not wake, just made a small sound and burrowed in. For a second I let myself watch the slow rise and fall of her back. Then I turned away. She had asked me not to leave her alone, not to stand over her like some creep cataloguing how she slept.
By the time the sky outside began to lighten, the dining table had turned into an ops center.
Whiteboard propped against one wall, scrawled timeline in my handwriting. Berlin summit. First weird probes on Mercer network. Garage attempt. Photo under pillow. Hidden camera above bed. Arrows between each point, question marks where we were blind. Building schematics spread out beside it.
Mila hunched over her laptop, the photo and the dead microcamera already sealed in evidence bags, fingers flying. Diaz sat with a stack of printed logs and a grim expression, highlighter trailing neon across months of access entries.
“Paper and ink analysis, full resolution check, find me printer profiles,” I told Mila. “On the camera I want make, model, batch if you can get it. I want to know which factory line stamped that board.”
“On it,” she said, not looking up.
“Diaz, go back six months on building access. Night shifts, maintenance, any unlogged entries. Then call my contact in Berlin. We need a name on whoever pulled hotel footage after the summit.”
He nodded, already dialing.
Sloane appeared around eight, bare feet soundless on the hardwood, wearing leggings and a Mercer hoodie that had seen better days. Hair scraped into a messy knot, no makeup, glasses perched on her nose instead of contacts. For a second, the contrast to the woman in heels and sharp suits yesterday knocked me off balance.
She glanced at the whiteboard, at the papers, at us. Then she set her laptop down and sat opposite me like we were about to start another board meeting. “What am I missing?”
I laid out what we knew, what we did not. She listened, jaw tight, fingers curled around her coffee mug. When I got to my recommendation she started shaking her head before I finished.
“You should stay in for the next forty eight hours,” I said. “Work remote. Let us get ahead of this before you start parading in and out of the building again.”
“I do not parade,” she snapped.
“You know what I mean.”
“I have a company to run.”
“You also have someone for whom Berlin was important enough to print and plant in your bed.” I kept my voice even. “They escalated from distance to your pillow. We treat that as a red alert. Short term, we reduce exposure.”
Her eyes flashed, that stubborn spark right behind the fear she would not admit to. Independence as armor. I understood it too well.
A beat. Then she exhaled through her nose. “Forty eight hours,” she said. “No longer.”
“Forty eight for now,” I agreed. Small victory.
I uncapped a marker and wrote it on the board. At the top, in bigger letters, I added Proximity Protocol.
“In public,” I said, “you are never more than a few steps away from me. No solo bathroom trips, no detours to wave at someone in the lobby. At home, I am always within shouting distance, especially at night. There will be at least one other operator in the lobby every time you enter or leave the building. We tighten your circle. No more wandering down to the garage alone.”
“Great,” she muttered. “I have my own personal orbit now.”
“It is better than having a van in it.”
Later, when the sun had fully cleared the skyline, I rolled the rug back in her living room and turned it into a makeshift mat.
“You already did basic self defense,” I said. “We are going to refresh with what actually happened in that garage.”
Her jaw ticked but she nodded, stepping into the space in a tank top and yoga pants, small brace still strapped to her wrist. I showed her how the man had come at her, where he had grabbed, the leverage he had tried to use. We walked through breaks and counters, slow at first, then faster.
At one point I caught her wrist, twisting the way he had. She froze. Her pupils blew wide, breath stuttering. For a second she was not here. She was back against cold concrete with a needle at her skin.
I dropped her hand immediately, stepping back, hands open. “Sloane. Look at me.”
Her chest heaved. She did not move.
“Sloane.” Softer this time. “You are in your living room. It is morning. There is coffee on the counter. I am here. No one is touching you.”
Her gaze snapped up to mine like she had just remembered I existed.
“Breathe,” I said. “In. Out. Match me.”
I exaggerated it, slow and steady, until her breath gradually synced with mine. Color crept back into her face.
“I am fine,” she said eventually, voice rough.
“I never said you were not,” I replied. I did not offer pity. She would have taken it as an insult.
My phone buzzed in my pocket while she walked to get water. Mom, the screen read. Of course.
“Another high risk gig?” she asked when I answered, skipping hello. She had a sixth sense about these things. “Eli, your father and I watched the news. This woman. The garage.”
“It is under control,” I lied, watching Sloane refill her glass. “I know what I am doing.”
She sighed, talked about coming home for a weekend, not burning myself out. I made the right noises and hung up feeling tighter than before. Past failures had long arms.
That evening I cooked in her absurdly expensive kitchen. Simple stuff. Pasta, vegetables, chicken. Sloane sat at the island with her laptop, screen glow painting her face, fingers flicking over keys even while she absently took the plate I slid in front of her.
“This is edible,” she said after a bite, surprise slipping through.
“High praise,” I said.
She dodged any question that strayed outside schedules and security. No hobbies. No family. No mention of anyone she went home to before I moved into her hall. It was work and risk and nothing else.
When the dishes were done, a contact in Berlin finally sent what I had been waiting for.
Hotel CCTV had been accessed twenty four hours after our night. The intrusion route used the same IP relay pattern that had been hammering Mercer’s network.
Berlin had not been separate. It had been the first move on a board I had not known existed yet.
I found her on the balcony, hair down now, leaning on the rail, the city a field of stars below. From the doorway, for a terrible second, it looked like she was just far enough over that a slip would send her into empty air.
“Sloane,” I called, sharper than I meant.
She startled. Her foot slid on a wet patch of stone.
I lunged as she tipped toward the edge, my heart stopping on the way down.