Page 145 of Fractured Allegiance
Breathe in — taut, controlled.
“Then they’re about to see me put a knife in someone’s heart.”
She doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t look away.
But she steps back.
Just enough to let the air back in.
“I’m not leaving,” she says. “So, if that’s what you have in mind to say next—”
“It's not,” I cut in. “But you should. You’re not safe here.”
She nods once, almost to herself.
“Running doesn’t make me safer,” she says. “It just makes me quieter. And I’m done being quiet.”
I let that sit for a second.
Then I nod. “Okay.”
She doesn’t expect that.
I step toward the door.
“What does that mean?” she calls after me.
“It means I’ll get to the bottom of this. Then I’ll come back for you.”
She says nothing.
I pull the door closed behind me.
Not hard.
Just final.
And as I walk down the stairs, the weight in my coat pocket reminds me:
If she won’t leave the fire… Then I need to build her a safehouse that burns harder.
I hit the street and walk fast, not that I’m rushing. But standing still now would feel like surrender.
I check the time on my phone. 4:47 PM.
Naomi will be at the café.
She goes there every Thursday around this time—has for months. It's her ritual. Twenty minutes between briefings, a window where she's off the grid but reachable. We met there a few times when I first went under, back when the operation was new and the lines hadn't blurred yet.
The café with the overpriced pastries and underpaid servers. The one she thinks is discreet because it's tucked away and no one from the Bureau frequents it.
I take a left at the corner, three blocks east, duck into the alley behind the wine bar that shares a wall with the café.
She always sits near the back. Corner booth. One foot tucked under her like she’s still pretending to be normal.
By the time I step inside, the sky’s bleeding orange through the front windows. That transitional dusk glow, the kind that makes liars look holy and the guilty look gold.
She’s already seated.
