Page 185 of Fractured Loyalties
I shake my head. “Not yet. Not until I know what he knows. What Volker gave him. What he left out.”
Kinley’s voice crackles over the comms. “Two left. Both retreating. No eyes on the van anymore. It’s gone.”
“Let it go,” I say. “We have what we need.”
Lydia rejoins us in the living room, rifle slung casually across her back. She looks almost bored. But her eyes never stop moving.
“That was sloppier than usual,” she says, brushing mud off her sleeve. “Whoever they were, they weren’t professionals.”
“They were desperate,” I reply. “And desperate men don’t last long.”
Mara leans against the wall, arms crossed. She’s trying to look unaffected. But her foot is bouncing—barely a twitch, but I see it. She’s vibrating with the need to do something.
“You’re not used to waiting,” I tell her.
She lifts her gaze. “No. I’m used to hiding.”
I walk to her, close enough that her breath stutters. “You’re not hiding anymore.”
She stares at me for a long second, then says, “Then stop treating me like I’m something to be guarded. I can be useful.”
“You are,” I say, softer now. “But the things coming for us don’t play fair.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Neither do I.”
I exhale slowly. She means it.
Kinley enters through the back, snow dusting his shoulders. He tosses a bloodied patch down on the table—a shoulder insignia, torn from one of the dead men.
“Recognize it?” he asks.
I nod. “Ex-military. Private blacksite in Bratislava used years ago. Mercs-for-hire. Someone paid them.”
“Not Volker,” Lydia says. “He doesn’t outsource.”
“No. But someone else might’ve, to cover tracks.”
Mara walks to the patch and picks it up, holding it like it might bite. “Could Vale have sent them…to warn us?”
“If he did,” I say, “he’s even dumber than I thought.”
But I’m not sure. Not anymore.
Because if Vale knows his brother is alive, and he still sent men after me...then the game’s changed. And it’s not just Volker playing anymore.
It’s everyone I thought I had history with.
And maybe some ghosts I thought were long dead.
Lydia is cleaning the barrel of her rifle in the far corner, her movements brisk and mechanical. Kinley’s at the window again, watching the tree line like it’s about to grow teeth. Mara sits on the armrest of the couch, her hand absently worrying a cut along her knuckle. None of us speak.
Then my phone vibrates.
Not the secure one. The unlisted one. The line no one uses unless they want to bleed.
I answer without looking at the number.
“Speak.”
