Page 165 of Fractured Allegiance
“To fix my lipstick,” I shoot back. “Apparently, that’s still my job.”
He laughs as I walk past.
But I don’t stop.
Because this time, the walls are watching.
And I’ve learned how to walk through traps without stepping on the wire.
Chapter 18 – Silas – Collateral
My heart is a ticking bomb in my chest as I sit in the car, hoping she will change her mind and walk out after all.
Restless, after about forty minutes of her not showing up, I drive around and find myself turning the last corner to her apartment building. A thick pressure sitting under my skin like it knows something I don’t.
I stop across from her building.
The street’s too clean. No cigarette butts near the curb. No kid on a scooter buzzing by like he usually does at this hour. Just two parked cars and a slow breeze pushing a dead flyer across the sidewalk like it’s crawling home.
I wait a beat, staring up at her window.
Closed. No movement. No light. No Lydia.
I don't let myself jump ahead. Not yet.
I pull out my phone and open the monitoring app—the one connected to the network tap I installed in her apartment last week.
The screen loads.
The feed is live. Active.
But there's no movement. No sign of her.
I scroll through the last four hours of activity captured by Drazen's cameras—the same footage the tap has been passively recording.
Kitchen: empty.
Living room: empty.
Bedroom: dark, untouched.
The timestamps are clear. She hasn't been home.
Four hours. No entry. No movement. Nothing.
The network tap is working perfectly—sending data, monitoring traffic, recording everything Drazen's cameras see.
But she's not there.
I call her burner. Straight to voicemail.
My knuckles tighten against the leather strap of my watch.
Something isn’t right.
I’d left her there, standing stiffly in that dress like her bones were waiting for a different skin. I asked her to leave with me. She didn’t.
She should’ve been home by now.
