Page 89 of Fractured Loyalties
It’s about access.
I type one line into the system’s internal chat:
"Where did this job really come from?"
I don’t expect an answer. Not right away. Not from Lydia. She’s asleep by now, or pretending to be.
I leave the message blinking.
The clock on the wall ticks softly, each second folding into the next like a breath I forgot I was holding.
Mara’s still asleep.
But I’m not.
I won’t be. Not until I know what I’ve invited in.
Because there’s more than one way to break a system.
And the quietest ones always start with a name you didn’t say out loud.
I shut the panel and kill the lights.
The house settles.
And I wait.
Chapter 17 – Mara - Tell Me Where It Hurts
It’s sometime past three when I wake up. The room is dark, but the kind of dark that feels heavy, not empty. The kind that hums with the echo of someone else’s presence even when they’re gone.
I roll onto my side, the sheets whispering across my skin. Elias isn’t here.
I don’t panic.
Not yet.
He didn’t leave me.
He’s just somewhere else in this house, thinking too hard or watching too long or bleeding into silence like he always does when something in his world shifts.
I get up slowly, dragging the hoodie he left me back over my shoulders. It smells like cedar, static, and restraint.
The house is quiet, but not dead. Somewhere deeper in the walls, I hear the faint tick of a monitor, the low hum of tech that never sleeps.
I follow it.
Barefoot, silent, I walk the corridor that connects the living space to his private office. The door is cracked open.
He’s in there.
Alone. Back to me. Shirtless, the ink on his skin like scars laid out with surgical precision. His shoulders are tense, braced over the edge of the desk.
I don’t speak.
Just lean against the frame until he feels me.
His head lifts a fraction. No words. No welcome.
