Page 176 of Fractured Allegiance
Dom catches it without flinching, like he expected it.
Then he leans in. His fingers brush my jaw, almost tender. “You always did like to do things the hard way,” he sighs, his tone pitying.
I look him dead in the eye. “Go fuck yourself.”
He grins on his way out, the lock clicking in his wake.
I don’t go back to the bed.
I think back to everything that’s happened since yesterday. To how fast this slid off the rails. One moment I was unintentionally pushing Silas away. The next, Dom’s hand was on my spine like a leash.
And now I’m here.
And Drazen is playing a deeper game than I realized.
Because this? This isn’t punishment.
It’s vetting.
They're not just testing whether I’m clean.
They’re seeing how far I’ll go to prove it.
They’re seeing how much of myself I’ll surrender to survive.
The lock clicks again.
But this time, I don’t look startled.
It’s Drazen this time. He closes the door behind him and looks at me like he’s measuring something I don’t yet understand.
“Lydia,” he says, and he almost sounds sweet when he says my name. Like he’s said it in a hundred meetings. Like it didn’t cost him a small fortune to take me off the map last night.
I don’t respond.
He smiles like he didn’t expect me to.
“You slept well?”
My lips purse, just so I don’t spit right in his face. “Your hospitality’s wasted.”
“I hope not,” he says, stepping into the room. “I’m going to make you an offer, and it helps if you look less… feral when I do.”
He sits on the armrest of the chair across from the bed.
I stay standing.
He laces his fingers together. “I’m going to ask you something once. And I want the truth.”
I arch a brow. “And if I’ve already given it?”
“Then repeat it.”
“Fine. Ask.”
He studies me with a kind of stillness that feels surgical.
“Are you helping someone move product behind our backs?”
