Page 29 of Fractured Loyalties
“You’ve been watching him,” she says.
“Yes.”
A beat of silence.
“Why?”
“Because I was already watching you.”
Now she does look away. Not down, but out the window, where the reflection of firelight casts shadows on the glass.
I don’t speak again until she turns back.
“And I need you to understand this wasn’t about control. It was about protection. He came too close too many times. And you never saw it. You never would’ve.”
Her throat works, but she doesn’t speak. Her hands tighten again around her knees.
“You’re angry,” I say.
“I’m…trying to decide if I should be.”
“I’ll accept either answer.”
More silence. Then, without warning, she lifts the folder and begins flipping through the pages. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t flinch at the images. Her face stays unreadable until the final page.
Then she says, “You knew I was in danger, and you didn’t alert me early enough.”
“I waited too long, yes.”
Her voice lowers. “That’s not the part that scares me.”
“What does?”
“You, knowing how to find all this. And doing it so quietly.”
I look at her without flinching. “That’s who I am. And it’s why you’re still safe.”
She holds the folder for a long time after the last page.
I wait.
Not because I’m patient. Because I’ve trained myself to be.
Eventually, Mara sets it down on the coffee table. Her fingers are light, careful, like she’s afraid to disturb the weight of the truth it contains.
Then she says, “You said you did this for protection.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s all?”
Her tone isn’t angry. It’s something worse. It’s curious.
“No,” I admit. “That’s not all.”
She nods once. Slow. Like she’s confirming something she already knew.
Her voice lowers, not soft but dangerous in its steadiness. “Then what else?”
