Page 96 of Fractured Loyalties
I pull the blanket back and slide in beside her. She doesn’t resist. Her body molds into mine, back to chest, the way it always fits too perfectly. My arm wraps around her middle. I feel her breath stutter just once before it evens out.
“You always hold this tight?” she asks.
“Only when I’m scared if you’ll vanish.”
Her fingers curl over my wrist.
“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
No promises beyond that. Just tonight.
But for now, it’s enough.
Mara falls asleep again eventually. I know the second it happens—the rhythm of her breath steadies, deepens. But I don’t let go.
I lie there in the dark, eyes open, mapping the ceiling like it’s terrain I need to memorize. Not because I’m afraid. Because I know this quiet won’t last.
Anton Vale.
Even the name tastes bitter.
He vanished after that last op. And the message I got afterward was never meant for public record. “You trained them too well,” it said. “They died fast.”
That’s not something you forget.
The file didn’t say much—only that someone has eyes on him again. Tracked. Verified. But there’s a line buried in the metadata that wasn’t meant for me. A timing signature that matches a safehouse I helped design years ago. A failsafe protocol I thought I buried.
If Vale’s using my work to disappear, that’s personal.
And I want it undone.
My fingers curl tighter around Mara’s waist. She shifts in her sleep, pressing her back to my chest. Even unconscious, she moves toward heat.
I wonder what she’d say if she knew what I’m planning.
Not because I’d keep it from her. But because there’s a part of her that still believes I can come out clean on the other side of this. That there’s some version of justice that doesn’t leave a body in its wake.
She’s wrong.
But I like that she wants to be wrong for me.
When the first thread of light breaks along the horizon, I slide out of bed and dress in silence. She doesn’t stir.
In the hall, I tap a sequence into the wall panel and retrieve the rest of the file from the hidden queue. I’ll need Lydia in on this. And maybe one other.
But I won’t risk Mara.
Not this time.
I reach for my comms unit and link into the secure channel. Lydia’s already up, of course. Her voice cuts through the static with precision.
“You read the whole file?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want it.”
“You were.”
