Page 1 of Fractured Allegiance
Prologue – Silas - A Knife in the Dark
I don’t waver when the next one starts begging. Same story, different man.
He’s on his knees, arms bound behind his back with plastic ties that bite into his skin. His lip’s been split open already—probably by Drazen’s men, sloppy bastards who like bruises more than clean kills. The floor beneath him is slick from someone else’s blood. There were two men when I got here. Now there’s one.
The man with the busted lip keeps mumbling shit about kids, family, and mistakes. I let him talk.
This place stinks of oil and rust, and the cold hangs like wet cloth around my ribs. We’re deep inside the bones of an old ship-docking warehouse that hasn’t seen a freighter in a decade. Drazen chose it for privacy. No surveillance. No echoes loud enough to carry.
He’s watching me from the mezzanine above, Drazen, leaning against a rusted railing with a glass of whatever he drinks when he wants to look expensive. His suit’s probably worth more than my entire cover wardrobe.
Viktor Drazen. Head of the syndicate’s East Miramont division. Everything in this city that moves without permission — drugs, girls, guns, intel — passes through his books or dies trying.
I’ve heard people call him charming. They’re the ones still alive.
I know his type. All cruelty in silk.
I flick my gaze back to the guy on the ground. Blood’s already seeping into the collar of his shirt. One of his eyes isswollen shut. There’s no way he’s walking out of here, and he knows it.
“You got a name?” I ask, voice level.
He chokes on his own spit. “Erickson. Please… I didn’t know the shipment was yours. I thought it was—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I crouch. He flinches. The stink of piss has started to rise—whether it’s his or the guy cooling beside him, doesn’t matter. What matters is that Drazen’s watching. And this? This is my audition.
“Have you ever heard of precision, Erickson?” I ask.
He nods too fast. “Yes, yes—I can make it right. I can—”
“Wrong answer.”
I stand again, reach for the gun tucked under my jacket. It’s standard issue, suppressed, matte black. Looks like any other weapon, until it’s in my hand and aimed between someone’s eyes.
But I don’t shoot him. At least, not yet.
Instead, I lower the muzzle, step back, and lift my boot to rest on the spine of the man beside him—the one I already shot. Still warm.
He was crying too, before I silenced him.
I pulled the trigger.
The sound was nothing but a crisp click into flesh. A finishing shot. Unnecessary, but clean.
When I glance up, Drazen’s eyes are on me. Cold. Calculating. But interested.
I return the look without blinking.
Now the one still kneeling—Erickson—starts to cry for real. Not words. Just sound. He looks like he might puke.
I step toward him.
He knows what’s coming. And now he’s doing the math. The begging stops. He straightens his spine. He looks at me with something like dignity, if there’s any of that left in a place like this.
“Do you want it clean or messy?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, and I can’t tell if that makes him brave or broken—it doesn’t matter.I lift the gun. Aim for his mouth. One pull, and the shot hits hard. Blood erupts in an arc, warm against my hand, like a mark I’m meant to wear.
