The summer night in Sweet Auburn draped itself over Atlanta like a lover's sigh—warm, heavy, and alive with promise. The air carried the scent of fried dough from a vendor's cart and the faint tang of sweat from the crowd gathered around the stage. Nate Harper stood at its edge, his broad shoulders squared beneath a faded blue shirt that clung to him in the humidity. The dog tags nestled against his chest felt like a secret, a cold reminder of Jamal's laughter lost to an Afghan dust storm. He scanned the sea of faces—veterans with weathered hands, mothers clutching signs, children peering wide-eyed—and felt the weight of their hope settle into his bones.
His voice broke the stillness, rough yet steady. "I'm not here to polish speeches or shake the right hands. I'm here for Jamal, for every soul the system forgot." The crowd surged, a wave of cheers that vibrated through him, but his gaze snagged on a figure across the square. A woman, poised like a panther in a charcoal blazer, her dark eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Simone Carter. He'd seen her name on opposition memos, felt her shadow in the whispers of D.C. elites. Something about her—maybe the way she held herself, unyielding yet brittle—stirred a flicker of unease in him.
Simone leaned against a lamppost, her phone warm in her hand as Victor's text glowed: Leak's live. Hit him hard tomorrow. The fabricated report about Nate's PTSD—a night in Kandahar where he'd frozen, they'd spun—was already rippling through the newsfeeds. She should've felt the thrill of a job well done, but her stomach twisted as she watched him. His words weren't polished; they were raw, carved from a grief she couldn't fathom. Her silver bracelet, a gift from her mother, gleamed as she adjusted her grip, its weight a tether to a past she'd buried beneath ambition.
Their eyes met across the distance—his green, unguarded; hers masked but searching. He stepped down, moving toward a veteran whose hands shook as he pinned a campaign button to his jacket. Nate's touch was gentle, a quiet strength that made Simone's breath catch. She shouldn't care. This was business. Yet her fingers lingered on the bracelet, tracing its edges as if it could anchor her against the pull she felt.
A sharp crack split the night. The crowd gasped, scattering like leaves in a storm. Nate hit the ground, and Simone's heart lurched, her carefully constructed walls trembling as she whispered his name into the chaos.
The gunshot echoed, a jagged tear in the humid night, and for a heartbeat, the world stilled. Nate's knees hit the pavement, dust kicking up around him as the crowd's cheers morphed into screams. His hand instinctively pressed to his chest, fingers brushing the dog tags, grounding him as his Marine training kicked in. No pain, no blood—just the sting of adrenaline and the roar of chaos. A rally sign toppled nearby, its bold "Harper for Congress" smeared with the dirt of panic.
Simone's breath caught, her sunglasses slipping as she pushed off the lamppost. Her mind raced—instinct telling her to run, duty tethering her to the scene. She'd seen the glint of a scope from a rooftop across the square, a sniper's silhouette vanishing into the dusk. Her clients wanted Nate derailed, not dead. This wasn't her play. Yet her legs moved toward him, heels clicking against the cobblestones, drawn by a pull she couldn't name.
"Get down!" Nate's voice cut through the din, rough but commanding, as he waved a volunteer—Lena, Jamal's sister—behind a vendor's cart. His eyes flicked to Simone, narrowing with suspicion. She froze, her blazer suddenly too tight, her composure fraying. He didn't trust her—how could he, with her shadow cast over this mess?—but there was something else in his gaze, a flicker of recognition, as if he'd seen the crack in her armor.
Sirens wailed in the distance, red and blue lights slicing through the twilight. A young cop, barely out of training, stumbled toward Nate, radio crackling. "You okay, sir?" Nate nodded, rising with a grunt, his hand brushing dirt from his jeans. Simone stepped closer, her voice low, steady despite the tremor in her chest. "That wasn't random. Someone's scared of you."
He turned, his green eyes locking with hers, and for a moment, the noise faded. The air between them crackled, charged with unspoken questions—her guilt, his wariness, the heat of a connection neither wanted. "And you're not?" he murmured, his voice a gravelly challenge.
Before she could answer, Lena rushed over, her nurse's instincts kicking in as she checked Nate's pulse. "You're lucky, you stubborn fool," she snapped, her tone softening with sisterly concern. Simone stepped back, her bracelet cool against her wrist, a silent witness to the storm brewing inside her. She'd come to bury him politically, not watch him dodge bullets. But as the crowd thinned and the police cordoned off the square, she knew one thing: this wasn't over.
Not by a long shot.
The night deepened over Sweet Auburn, the streetlights casting long, wavering shadows as the police cordon tightened. Nate stood apart from the flurry, his broad frame silhouetted against the glow of a patrol car's lights. His jaw clenched, the taste of dust and adrenaline lingering as he replayed the gunshot in his mind—a sound too familiar from Kandahar nights. Lena hovered nearby, her arms crossed, her dark eyes sharp with worry. "You need to get checked out," she insisted, her voice a mix of nurse and sister. He waved her off, his gaze drifting back to Simone.
She stood a few paces away, her blazer slightly askew, the silver bracelet glinting as she adjusted her sunglasses. The crowd had thinned to a handful of gawkers and officers, but her presence felt louder than the sirens fading into the distance. She was a paradox—polished yet unraveling, her poised exterior cracking under the weight of what she'd witnessed. Nate's chest tightened. He didn't know her, not really, but something in her stillness called to the part of him that still ached for connection, buried beneath layers of guilt and gunfire.
"Mr. Harper?" A detective approached, notepad in hand, his voice cutting through Nate's thoughts. "We'll need a statement. Any idea who'd want you dead?"
Nate's lips twitched, a dry humor surfacing. "Take your pick—half the establishment, maybe a disgruntled voter." His eyes flicked to Simone again, catching her flinch. She knew more than she let on; he could feel it in the way her fingers tightened around her phone. But before he could press, she turned, her heels clicking a retreat toward the shadows of a side street.
"Wait," he called, the word escaping before he could rein it in. She paused, glancing over her shoulder, her profile sharp against the amber light. For a moment, neither moved, the space between them a taut wire humming with unspoken tension. Her lips parted, then closed, as if weighing a confession against a lifetime of strategy.
"I'm not your enemy," she said finally, her voice soft but firm, carrying the weight of a promise she wasn't sure she could keep. Then she was gone, swallowed by the night, leaving Nate with a pulse that wouldn't steady and a question he couldn't shake.
Lena touched his arm, pulling him back. "She's trouble, Nate. You feel it too, don't you?" He nodded, but his mind lingered on Simone's retreating figure, the curve of her wrist, the flicker of doubt in her eyes. Trouble, yes—but maybe the kind he couldn't walk away from.
The detective cleared his throat, pulling Nate into the logistics of the night—witness accounts, security footage, a sniper's escape. But as he answered, his thoughts drifted to the leak that had hit earlier, the fabricated PTSD story that had nearly derailed him. Simone's name hovered behind it, a shadow he couldn't ignore. Yet tonight, she'd looked at him like a woman unraveling, not a puppet pulling strings.
By the time the police released him, the square was quiet, the vendor carts packed away, the air thick with the promise of rain. Nate walked to his truck, Lena at his side, her silence heavier than her words. As he slid into the driver's seat, his phone buzzed—a news alert about the rally shooting, speculation already swirling. But it was the memory of Simone's voice, low and unguarded, that stayed with him as he drove into the night, the city lights blurring like tears he refused to shed.