Page 152 of Fractured Loyalties
“You’ve been logging him,” I say.
“No,” he says. “Volker has.”
He spins another feed forward. This one’s different. A warehouse, maybe. Empty except for one figure pacing in a slowarc. The camera angle is strange—like it was filmed through smoke or glass. The face is mostly shadowed.
“That’s Toma Virelli,” he says quietly.
I don’t recognize the name. Don’t ask.
He keeps talking like I’m supposed to already know.
“Volker was tracking them both. Separately. Until Elias stopped running and made himself a fortress.”
My pulse roars in my ears, but I stay still.
He points to the far left screen.
And that’s when I see it.
Me.
Not just the beach footage. Not just clinic feeds. Something darker. My old apartment. A timestamp from nearly a year ago. I’m walking across the room, barefoot, in a tank top. Unaware. Unprotected.
I jerk back from the screen like it burned me.
“That wasn’t supposed to exist,” I say.
He doesn’t blink. “But it does. And Volker used it. This didn’t start again because of what Elias did. It started because of what Elias has.”
I press my knuckles to my mouth, bile pushing up hard.
The screen shifts again. A new file. A name appears.
Jori.
My head snaps toward him. “Who is that?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Vale’s brother.”
The breath catches in my throat.
He keeps going, voice even. “Volker kept him. After the Belgium op. Rewired his memory with chemicals and shock.Thought he could mold him. Use him. But something broke loose. And he ran. Everyone believes he’s dead, even Vale; that’s the lie Volker pushed out.”
I can barely process the words. The details fall like sharp glass—shards I don’t know where to place.
“He’s alive?” I whisper.
“For now,” he says. “But not for long. Volker doesn’t let things slip. Not without consequence.”
My hand finds my chest, trying to calm the storm building underneath it.
“Why are you showing me this?” I manage.
“Because Elias needs to know. And he won’t believe it unless it comes from you.”
The room stills. Screens pulse low in the quiet. The air feels metallic, full of things not meant to be spoken aloud.
I swallow hard.
