Chapter 17
Gabe
Geneva’s citizens move below us like nothing has changed. They don’t know a woman died because she agreed to testify. Evie’s phone is in her hand. She hasn’t sat down since she opened the message.
“They’ll meet,” she says. “Off-site. Not the main office.”
“Who’s they?”
She finally looks at me. “The woman from the NGO. The one who coordinated Lina’s transfer.”
I wait. There’s got to be more.
“She says she has documentation. Authorization records. Names.”
“And she’s just handing this over?”
“She’s scared,” Evie says. “I sent her the photos. Of the facility. Of Lina.”
I exhale slowly. “Evie—”
“I know,” she cuts in. “But it worked. She’ll talk.”
“When?”
“In an hour.”
I shake my head. “No.”
Her jaw tightens immediately. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I get to say it’s a bad idea,” I reply evenly. “You pushed a frightened source with evidence of a death. Now she wants to meet off-site, in an hour, with no preparation. That’s not cooperation. That’s panic. And panic gets people killed.”
“Or it gets them to tell the truth,” she counters.
“Evie—”
“I’m going,” she says, pulling on her coat like the decision is already made.
Because it is.
I don’t stop her.
But I follow.
The café is small—tucked between a dry cleaner and a bookstore, the kind of place locals use when they don’t want to be noticed. No tourists. Minimal lighting. A single exit at the front. Side door. Likely a back door through the kitchen.
I hate it immediately.
I take the table with my back to the wall. Evie sits across from me, calm and focused, like she’s prepping for oral arguments.
A woman arrives twelve minutes late.
Mid-thirties. Dark coat. ID badge clipped to her bag but turned inward. She orders tea.
She sits, glances around, then speaks to Evie in rapid French.
Doesn’t touch her tea.
Evie struggles with the French, but she’s got her phone out to help with the translation.
I catch fragments: transferred, emergency, orders.
Nothing worth coming here in person for—yet.
Evie leans in, responding with stilted but even-keeled French. Her posture is open, inviting trust.
The woman’s hands shake as she reaches into her bag.
That’s when I clock them.
Outside the door.
Two men. Late twenties, early thirties. Not dressed like locals. Not moving like tourists.
They enter.
Scan.
One clocks me immediately. The other moves toward the counter but doesn’t approach it.
Positioning.
Not ordering.
“Evie,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t look at me. She’s focused on the woman, who’s now pulling a thin folder from her bag.
“She was moved under emergency Department of Homeland Security authorization,” the woman says in accented English, possibly taking pity on Evie’s struggle with her French. “DHS. Signed off by someone in Washington. Someone with access to sealed transfer protocols.”
Evie’s eyes sharpen. “Who?”
“I don’t have the name,” the woman whispers. “But I have the approval code. It traces back to an office in—”
The door opens again.
A third man.
Older. Heavier.
Taking up residence near the exit.
Blocking it.
My pulse kicks.
“Evie,” I repeat, firmer now.
She glances at me, irritated. “I’m in the middle—”
“Now.”
The woman across from us goes pale. She sees it too.
“You shouldn’t have sent those photos,” she whispers, shoving the folder across the table toward Evie. “They know you’re here. They know what you’re after.”
Evie’s hand lands on the folder.
I’m already standing.
“We’re leaving,” I say.
Evie looks up at me, anger flashing. “Gabe—”
“Now.”
The man at the counter shifts. His hand moves to his coat pocket.
Not casual.
Tactical.
I step around the table, putting myself between Evie and the room. “Get up. Walk to the door. Don’t look back.”
Evie hesitates.
The woman bolts.
Out the side door into the alley, folder forgotten on the table.
The man near the exit moves toward us the instant she’s gone—like her leaving was the cue he’d been waiting for.
I don’t wait to see what’s in his pocket.
Evie hesitates—phone already rising, thumb finding the camera icon, some instinct insisting she needs proof before she needs safety.
“Evie—”
My hand closes around her wrist, phone still unlit in her palm. “Now.”
She doesn’t get the shot.
“Gabe, what—”
“Move.”
I guide her toward the door, body angled to shield her. I’m not gentle. I do not ask permission.
The man steps in front of us, hand already coming out of his pocket—
I don’t let him finish.
I drive my shoulder into his sternum, hard enough to knock him sideways into the doorframe, and shove Evie through the opening.
“Run.”
She does.
We don’t stop until we’re three blocks away, ducked into a crowded tram station where bodies and noise provide cover.
Evie’s breathing hard, eyes wide, the folder clutched against her chest.
“What the hell just happened?” she demands.
“You got made,” I say. “They followed the woman. Or they followed you. Either way, that meeting was a setup.”
“She gave me the file—”
“She gave you bait,” I snap. “And you almost took it.”
Her face goes red. “I know that. I’m not disputing that we needed to leave.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“What I’m disputing,” she says, voice low and furious, “is that you didn’t tell me.
You didn’t say ‘we need to go, now, here’s why.
’ I had my phone up—I was trying to get their faces, something we could actually use—and you grabbed my wrist before I could even get the shot.
You hauled me out of there like my opinion doesn’t matter. ”
“There wasn’t time for a vote.”
“There’s never time with you. That’s exactly the problem.”
We don’t speak again until we’re back in the hotel room.
She closes the door. Hard.
“I needed ten seconds. That’s all. Ten seconds where you tell me what you see instead of just deciding for both of us.”
“I had ten seconds. I used them to get you out alive.”
“That’s not the point—”
“It’s exactly the point.”
She exhales, some of the fire draining out of her, replaced by something rawer. “You don’t understand. My whole life, people have made decisions about my safety without asking me. My father. The men at work. Every single one always knows what’s best. I can’t—I won’t be someone people just move.”
“I’m not your father.”
“I know that.” Her voice cracks slightly. “I know that. But it still felt the same, for about ten seconds. And that terrifies me more than the men in the café did.”
“I hear you. But I’m struggling, because I think you’re willing to die for this case.”
“And you refuse to think about why. You don’t care about why. You’re willing to control me to stop me.”
She speaks with the force of a slap—exactly as intended.
I step closer, my voice low and equally hard. “That’s not what this is.”
“Yes, it is,” she snaps. “You don’t trust me to assess risk. You don’t trust me to know when to walk away. You think I need you to protect me from myself.”
“I trust you. I don’t trust the people trying to kill you.”
“Then why won’t you let me do my job?”
“Because your job will get you killed!”
The silence that follows is thick. Charged.
She steps closer, brown eyes blazing with hints of gold. “You don’t get to decide what risks I take.”
“I’m not deciding—”
“Yes, you are,” she interrupts. “You’re deciding I’m more important than the case. You’re deciding I’m worth saving even if it means someone else doesn’t get justice. You’re deciding for me.”
“Because I don’t want to watch you die!”
Jesus. How fucking hard is it to understand.
She glares.
We’re standing too close now. Close enough that I can see the rise and fall of her chest, the flush in her skin.
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is asking me to stand by and do nothing.”
She exhales, shaky. “You think I don’t know the risks?”
“I think you don’t care what it costs as long as you win.”
“You’re wrong.” She shakes her head. Takes a step back. “It’s got nothing to do with winning. It’s about keeping my word. It’s about preventing this from happening to vulnerable people. It’s doing something when I can. It’s about justice.”
“I stand corrected.” This time, I glower. “Doesn’t change a damn thing.”
“I think you care too much,” she counters. “About me. About this. About whatever this is between us that you won’t admit you want.”
That stops me cold. “What does that mean?”
She searches my face. “You keep me at arm’s length, Gabe. You flew across the Atlantic to protect me, but you’ve never let me in. Why?”
“That’s not—”
“You pulled me out of that café because you panicked,” she says, voice softer now, edge mostly gone. “Not because it was the best decision for the case. Because you couldn’t handle the idea of something happening to me—of losing me.”
I don’t answer.
Because she’s right.
And I don’t see a damn thing wrong with that.
“You want me around, but you keep me at a distance. What are you so afraid of?”
“It’s nothing to do with fear.”
“Bullshit. You’re frightened. Of wanting me. Of what happens if you let someone who matters in.”
Those big eyes are bright. Furious. Alive.
And I’ve never wanted anything more than to pick her up and shove her against a wall and let her know what it’s like when I hold nothing back.
“That’s not fair,” I say, voice gravel.
“No,” she agrees. “But it’s true.”
We stand there, inches apart, the air between us crackling.
I should step back.
I don’t.
Neither does she.
“You don’t get to do this,” I say quietly. “You don’t get to act like I’m the one holding back when you’re the one who maintains boundaries you’re not ready to cross.”
Her breath hitches. “What makes you think I’m not ready?”
“Because if you were,” I say, voice dropping, “you wouldn’t still be standing so far away.”
The challenge stands between us.
For half a second, I think she’s going to close the distance.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
My hand twitches at my side, aching to reach for her.
Then her phone buzzes.
The spell breaks.
She pulls the phone from her pocket with shaking hands.
Her face drains of color as she reads.
“What?”
“Rhodes,” she says, and her voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to the woman who was just inches from my mouth. “The NGO contact. Her phone went dark. Deleted from personnel directory.”
Fuck.
“She quit,” I say.
“Or they took her.”
The reality of the case crashes back in.
For the best.
“You were right to push.” It’s a reluctant admission, but one she deserves. “She was willing to talk. And the photos would have been useful.”
“And you were right to pull me out,” she admits. “They were waiting.”
Neither of us moves.
“This isn’t the end of this.” After I say it, I recognize my statement could be misconstrued, so I add, “We’ll figure this out.”
She looks up at me, eyes still bright. “Yes. We will.”
But she doesn’t mean the case—or that’s what I choose to believe.
She walks away, stopping at the bedroom threshold. She doesn’t look over her shoulder, instead speaking to the room in front of her.
“I need space,” she says quietly. “Not protection. Not control. Space.”
Then she closes the door.
I stand there for a long time, staring at the paneled door, heart rate elevated, processing.
This case just escalated.
So did everything between us.
And I don’t know which one is going to break first.