Chapter 4: Caught

The second the revolving doors of PIERCE Tower spat her back onto the sidewalk, Sloane tipped her head toward the gray Chicago sky and let out a breath that was one syllable away from a scream.

What have I done?

She'd just accepted a job — been hand-picked — by the man whose DNA her six children were currently running around her apartment on. The most powerful CEO in Illinois. The stranger from the elevator she had spent three years convincing herself she would never see again.

Okay. She gripped her portfolio and started walking. Don't panic. Think.

Could she call tomorrow and decline? She could say the commute was too far. Say she'd received another offer. Say literally anything that wasn't I cannot work twenty feet from you because together we accidentally created a set of sextuplets and I'd very much like to keep that information on a need-to-know basis forever.

She was so deep in her own head that she almost walked past it.

Almost.

The shouting cut through the Loop noise like a blade — sharp, theatrical, unmistakable.

"I can't walk! I can't walk! My leg — oh God, my leg is destroyed!"

Sloane stopped.

Twenty feet ahead, an old man had arranged himself dramatically on the pavement beside a gleaming black Rolls-Royce Phantom, both hands clutching his left knee, face twisted in what might have been agony or might have been a community theater audition.

A driver stood over him, jaw tight, voice rising. "Your leg? Sir, the car wasn't moving. You walked into my bumper — I have the footage—"

"Footage?!" The old man's wail hit a new register. "You people and your cameras! You hit me and now you want to hide it? Someone call the police! Call an ambulance! I'll never walk again, God help me—"

A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, murmuring, phones half-raised.

Don't, Sloane told herself. Not today. Walk away. You have enough problems.

"You should be ashamed!" she heard herself announce loudly, stepping forward. "He's clearly hurt and you're standing there arguing about cameras?"

The old man's head swung toward her with the speed of someone who had just located an ally.

"Yes! This young lady sees the truth! Witnesses — I have a witness!"

The driver stared at Sloane with barely contained disbelief. "Ma'am, the car was in park—"

"Then why is he on the ground?" Sloane snapped. She turned to the old man and crouched down. "Sir, do you want to document this? I'll help you. Take your phone out — let me photograph the scene before anything gets moved."

"Bless you." The old man thrust his phone toward her with the gratitude of a man who had just been handed an Oscar. "You're an angel. A saint."

Sloane took the phone.

Then she stood up, turned around, and walked away with it.

Fast.

"HEY—" The old man's voice cracked. "That's my phone! Stop her! STOP—"

Sloane glanced over her shoulder. The old man was on his feet — both feet, full weight, moving at a speed that suggested his leg had made a miraculous recovery — and closing the distance between them with zero difficulty.

He skidded to a halt six inches in front of her, chest heaving, eyes wild.

"Give. Me. My. Phone."

Sloane looked him up and down slowly. "I thought your leg was destroyed."

The silence that followed was the most specific kind of silence — the kind that falls when a man realizes he has been completely, publicly, and irrevocably caught.

His face went through several colors. "You—"

"Yeah." Sloane held his phone out. "We're done here."

She turned back toward the driver, who was staring at her like she'd just defused a bomb with a hair pin.

"He's fine," she said. "I saw everything. You're clear."

"Thank you." The driver exhaled, his whole body deflating with relief. "Seriously, Miss — thank you. I didn't know what to—"

She didn't hear the movement behind her.

What she heard was the driver's voice — "Look out—" — sharp and urgent, slicing through everything else.

Sloane turned.

The old man had a brick in his hand — an actual brick, pulled from God knows where — and his arm was already swinging.

Everything happened in fractions of a second. She saw the brick. She saw his face, ugly with fury. Her body locked.

Move. Move. Why aren't you—

She squeezed her eyes shut.

The impact never came.

Instead — a sound. A sharp, sickening crack, like a green branch snapped clean.

Then screaming.

Sloane opened her eyes.

Declan Pierce had the old man's wrist in one hand. He'd caught the brick mid-swing, redirected it, and now he held that wrist at an angle that made her stomach turn — controlled, deliberate, merciless.

The old man's knees buckled. The brick hit the pavement.

"Since you wanted something broken," Declan said quietly, "there you go."

One smooth, surgical motion. The wrist snapped.

The old man's scream tore up the block. Sloane didn't move. Couldn't. The sound was so close and so wrong — she'd never heard a bone break in real life, and it turned out real life was nothing like the movies.

Two men materialized from the building entrance and hauled the old man away, his screaming fading as they rounded the corner.

The street went very still.

Sloane became aware that she was shaking — just slightly, just in her hands — and locked them together in front of her to stop it.

"Mr. Pierce." The driver straightened immediately, his voice carrying the specific deference of a man who had just watched his boss casually commit what most people would classify as excessive force. "This young woman — she spotted the scam. Helped me."

Declan's eyes moved to Sloane.

She met them. Refused to look away. She absolutely, categorically refused to let him see that her heart was slamming against her sternum hard enough to bruise.

"It was nothing," she said. Her voice came out steady. Surprising. "I was in the right place. Anyone would have—"

"Most people walked past," Declan said.

He took one step toward her. Just one. But somehow that one step rearranged the entire geometry of the sidewalk.

"I need to catch my train," Sloane said quickly. "So—"

His hand closed around her wrist.

Not rough. Not gentle. Just — certain. The grip of a man who had decided something and saw no reason to negotiate about it.

Sloane looked down at his hand. Then up at his face.

Let go, she thought. Please let go before I do something stupid, like remember what those hands felt like three years ago, or worse — before he remembers too.

"You're not taking the train," Declan said.

It wasn't a question.