Page 163 of Fractured Allegiance
This whole place is a trap. Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just designed to make you forget that you’re the one being weighed.
I slide a hand into my purse. Fingers close around the burner phone Silas gave me. I don’t pull it out. I already know what I’d text if I did. Not a confession. Not an apology. Just one word: “Wait.”
I don’t send it. I don’t even bother bringing the phone out.
I just picture him walking back into the room, fists clenched, waiting for the moment I break.
And then—
A shadow moves behind me.
Dom.
He steps into view through the mirror, wearing his usual smirk, hands tucked into the front of his vest like he’s walking through a museum.
“Took you long enough,” I say, without turning.
He shrugs. “You looked busy. Figured I’d let you stew.”
“Tell Drazen I’ll be down in a second.”
He tilts his head. “What, no smile? No ‘what’s the job today, sir’?”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“That’s dangerous.”
I finally face him. “For who?”
Dom just grins, steps back, and gestures toward the hallway.
And I follow.
Because that’s easier than staying in a room with all the things I didn’t say out loud.
Dom doesn’t look back as he leads me down the stairwell. He doesn’t say a word either.
His swagger does the talking, every step telling me I’m late to something I wasn’t meant to understand, only obey.
We take the narrow service stairs instead of the main hall. The walls are concrete. Damp. One of the lights overhead flickers, buzzes, goes dead. The kind of place that doesn’t have a camera because the people who walk through here already know they’re being watched.
At the bottom, he swipes a keycard across a rusted panel. The door unlocks with a metallic click.
He holds it open like a gentleman.
I step through like I don’t want to turn back.
It’s a warehouse floor, the kind that's been half-gutted and restructured into a pseudo garage. Fluorescent light pools across oil-streaked concrete. One black SUV idles in the middle of the space, tinted windows up, engine running.
No one speaks.
Two men are standing near the loading bay, dressed like private security. Not Drazen’s usual muscle.
Dom glances at them, then gestures toward the SUV.
“Driver’s waiting. You’re to ride along, make sure the drop goes clean.”
“Drop of what?”
