Page 136 of Fractured Allegiance
I leave them on the counter. I want them there. Like a wound that won’t clot.
Whoever left this could be anyone. Dom, Drazen…
I cross to the closet and push aside the clothes until I reach the back corner. There's a small lockbox I keep tucked behind my winter coats—black, nondescript, combination lock.
I spin the dial. Click. Open.
Inside is a flash drive, among other items.
I prepared and kept the flash drive months ago. After I learned about Drazen's fabricated file on me—the evidence he could use to destroy me if I ever stepped out of line.
That's when I realized: if he had insurance on me, I needed insurance on him.
So I started collecting.
It wasn't easy. Drazen's careful. But I had access—to his office, to his meetings, to places most people never see. And I know how to be invisible when I need to be.
Some of the files came from Elias.
Before Elias stepped back, he kept records on everyone—allies, enemies, people who thought they were untouchable. He was paranoid, meticulous. He taught me to think the same way.
About eight months ago, Elias called me in for a job. Someone had mishandled a client relationship, and he needed me to fix it—smooth things over with the right combination of charm and carefully applied pressure.
I handled it the way I always did. Efficiently, no drama.
Afterward, he stepped out to take a call, leaving his laptop open on the desk. He told me to pull up the client file while I waited—standard procedure. He trusted me enough not to think twice.
That's when I saw the folder.
Not the client file. Something else. Buried in his documents, labelled with initials I recognized: DM. Drazen.
I had maybe three minutes before he'd come back.
I didn't hesitate.
I plugged in a blank flash drive I always kept in my bag—always prepared, always cautious—and started copying. Files on joint operations. Surveillance footage. Audio recordings from meetings.
Elias never knew I took them. No one did.
I wasn't planning to use them. Not then. It was just... insurance. A way to make sure I wasn't completely powerless if things ever shifted.
I close the lockbox and take the flash drive to my laptop.
I move to the angle where I know Drazen’s camera will not capture well enough to see my laptop screen.
I plug in the flash, and wait for the folder to load.
Multiple files. All password protected.
I type in the access code—a string only I would know.
I start opening the files one after the other.
Years-old surveillance clips from one of Drazen’s warehouses. Ones he swore were wiped. Ones I helped erase, or thought I did, to keep certain transactions out of the wrong hands.
I click through them. Frame by frame.
One clip freezes me mid-scroll.
