Page 11 of Fractured Allegiance
No vetting. No questions.
I could be anyone.
Which means they haven’t been briefed. Either they don’t know what Drazen suspects—or Ward’s done a damn good job of keeping his hands clean.
I thank the desk clerk with a nod and walk the hall he pointed to. The floors here are linoleum. Clean but scuffed. The walls are lined with company newsletters no one reads. Somewhere, a printer grinds through a stack of paper.
My pulse doesn’t spike. It never does.
Until I reach the last door.
And see him.
The air shifts before I even process why. Same jawline. Same eyes. The recognition hits like a held breath finally released—equal parts relief and ruin.
It’s him.
The man from last night.
Only now I have his name.
Silas Ward.
He's seated behind a desk, one arm resting on the edge like he's claimed this space as his own. A computer screen angled just slightly away. A file open in his hand. He looks settled, permanent, like he's always belonged here and I'm the one trespassing.
He glances up.
And stops.
Just like I do.
That same moment again—the world narrowing to the space between us, to the way his gaze finds mine and holds it without flinching. Only this time, we're not across a crowded club. This time, there's no distance. No plausible deniability. Just six feet of empty air and the weight of everything we're not saying.
He doesn't speak. Neither do I.
For three whole seconds, we just watch each other, and I feel the dread I'd been holding at bay bloom into something stronger. Something that tastes like danger and feels uncomfortably close to want.
And everything in my training tells me: this is bad.
Because I can’t read him.
I can read everyone. I always have. That’s what made me valuable to Elias Voss — a man who once played this world better than anyone, before he got loved up. My former boss. My first real lesson in power.
That’s what kept me alive in Drazen’s web. I read faces. Micro-expressions. Eye flicks. Finger twitches.
But this man?
Nothing.
No tell.
No give.
“Mr. Ward,” I say, stepping into the office.
He nods once. “Yes.”
His voice catches me off guard—low and even, with a roughness at the edges that sounds like gravel wrapped in velvet. Not loud, but textured enough to feel. It's the kind of voice that doesn't need volume to fill a room.
