Chapter 188. The Decision

The hours after Elara’s revelation were a silent war council in the lodge’s main room. Maps, blueprints of the Geneva conference centre, and dossiers on Dr. Silvia Reinhart and known Curator affiliates were spread across the rough-hewn table. Nadir’s data streamed in on a secured laptop—financial trails, intercepted chatter, properties linked to Janus Holdings near the summit venue. The air was thick with pine resin, woodsmoke, and tension.

Anton stood apart, at the window, watching the Black Forest swallow the last of the daylight. His back was a rigid line. The CEO who had commanded boardrooms and outmaneuvered markets was grappling with a calculation that had nothing to do with profit and loss, and everything to do with blood and bone.

Sabatine watched him, seeing the conflict in the set of his shoulders. The fear he’d confessed in the cellar was now a shared current between them, but it manifested differently. In Sabatine, it was a hyper-focused clarity, channelled into planning a defence. In Anton, it was turning inward, becoming a corrosive doubt.

Finally, Anton turned from the window. His face was drawn, the shadows under his eyes pronounced. He looked at the tactical displays, the evidence of a sophisticated kill-plot, and then at Sabatine.

“We pull out,” he said, the words flat, final. “I’ll cite ongoing security concerns from the blackout. Jessica can draft a statement. I’ll deliver the keynote remotely, from a secured, undisclosed location. It’s the only sane move.”

The room went still. Leon paused in his weapon check. Maya looked up from her laptop, surprised.

Sabatine felt the decision like a physical misstep. It was a safe move. The smart move, by every standard risk-assessment metric. It was also a surrender.

“No,” Sabatine said, his voice quiet but carrying.

Anton’s eyes flashed. “You were the one who wanted to cancel!”

“That was fear talking,” Sabatine admitted, not looking away. “Now logic is. Backing down doesn't just protect you. It signals to them, and to the world, that they won. That their psychological warfare worked. That Anton Rogers is too frightened to show his face. The narrative of your resilience, the entire recovery, crumbles. The Curators spin it as your guilt, your instability. Your investors, who are clinging to hope based on your promised keynote, lose faith. The legal momentum dies.”

He stepped closer to the table, pointing to the summit agenda. “This isn't just a speech. It's a return. It's you reclaiming your place. If you do it from a bunker, you're not reclaiming anything. You're admitting you still live in one.”

“And if I go, I walk into a trap they’ve spent weeks designing!” Anton countered, his voice rising. “They have a Portraitist, Sabatine! She doesn't just know where I’ll be; she knows how I’ll be. What I’ll be feeling. What might make me hesitate, or rush, or make a mistake. They’ll use everything—including you—to engineer my death and make it look like an accident or a tragedy. My life isn't worth a fucking speech!”

“Your life is worth everything!” Sabatine’s own control snapped, the words a raw burst of emotion that silenced the room. He took a breath, forcing calm. “Which is why we don't walk into their trap. We build a better one. Ours.”

He spread his hands over the maps. “We know they’re watching. We know they’re profiling. So we control the feed. We give Dr. Reinhart exactly the portrait she wants to see in the days leading up to the summit: a man cracking under pressure. Strained, paranoid, his relationship with his security chief breaking down. We make you look like a vulnerable, predictable target.”

He looked at Anton, his gaze fierce. “Then, we changed the script. At the summit, you’re not a broken man. You’re a fucking avenger. You use that stage not just to talk about recovery, but to expose them. To name names. To show the world the Portraitist’s report, the threats, the blackout code. You turn their intimate knowledge into proof of their conspiracy. You make the stage the safest place in the world, because the whole world is watching, and you’re pointing directly at them.”

Anton stared at him, the conflict raging in his eyes. The CEO saw the brutal political logic. The survivor saw the mortal risk. The man in love saw the terrible burden he was asking Sabatine to carry—to be both the shield and the bait.

“It’s too dangerous for you,” Anton said quietly, the fight leaving his voice, replaced by a weary dread. “They’ll come for you first. To unbalance me.”

“Let them try,” Sabatine said, a cold, deadly assurance in his tone. “I’m not just your bodyguard, Anton. I’m your partner. And my function isn't just to take a bullet. It’s to ensure the bullet never gets fired. This plan uses my skills, not just my body. Let me do my job. The job you hired me for. The job I choose to do.”

The plea was unmistakable. Sabatine wasn't just arguing for a strategy; he was fighting for his right to stand beside Anton in the most consequential battle of their lives, to be an architect of victory, not just a casualty of a retreat.

The silence stretched. Leon finally spoke, his voice a low rumble. “The remote option has its own vulnerabilities. A broadcast can be hijacked, mocked, undermined. Physical presence carries weight. Stalker’s plan is high-risk, but it’s an aggressive play. It matches the enemy’s escalation.”

Maya nodded slowly. “From a tech perspective, the summit venue has a hardened, isolated network we can potentially control. A remote location is unknown. We’d be defending a digital phantom. Here, we know the battlefield.”

Anton listened to his team. His eyes never left Sabatine’s face. He saw the unwavering conviction there, the fierce, protective intelligence already plotting moves ten steps ahead. He saw the man who had rebuilt a phantom deal to trap Roland Cross, who had found the flaw in an unkillable worm, who loved him with a terrifying, absolute devotion.

To back down was to distrust that man. To refuse his plan was to relegate him to a passive role, to treat him as a liability to be sheltered, not a partner to be unleashed.

The decision crystallized, not as a corporate calculation, but as a leap of faith. Faith in Sabatine’s skill. Faith in their combined strength. Faith that their love, far from being a vulnerability, was the one variable the Portraitist could never truly quantify.

He let out a long, slow breath, the resistance draining from him. “Alright,” he said, the word heavy with reluctant acceptance. “We are going to Geneva. We play their game.” He looked at Sabatine, and a flicker of his old, defiant fire returned. “But we play to win. On our terms.”

Sabatine felt a surge of relief so potent it was dizzying. He hadn't just won an argument; he’d secured the right to fight for Anton in the way he knew best—actively, creatively, ruthlessly.

“Then we have work to do,” Sabatine said, his voice all business again. He turned to the table. “Maya, you're crafting the ‘breakdown’ data feed. We need leaked comms suggesting tension between us, erratic behaviour from Anton, all routed through channels we know the Portraitist monitors. Leon, security for the summit needs to look tight but conventional. We want them to see our ‘plan’ so they overlook the real one. Nadir, I need everything on Dr. Reinhart—her habits, her routines, her own vulnerabilities.”

As the team sprang into action, Anton came to stand beside Sabatine. He didn't speak. He simply placed his hand on the small of Sabatine’s back, a solid, grounding point of contact amidst the swirling plans.

The decision was made. They were walking into the light, into the crosshairs. But they were walking together, one pretending to stumble, the other pretending to watch, both with their eyes wide open, ready to spring the most important trap of their lives. The fear was still there, but it was now a sharp, useful tool. And the summit in Geneva was no longer a date with destiny; it was an appointment with retribution.

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