Page 198 of Fractured Allegiance
“I know.”
Elias nods once, then pulls a folded slip of paper from his jacket pocket and slides it across the table. Hand-drawn lines, notes scrawled in shorthand only a paranoid bastard would still use. “Floor plan. Not current, but close enough. I pulled it this morning. If they haven’t restructured, there’s a service lift behind the north stairwell. Locked, but bypass-able.”
I glance up. “You already had this ready.”
He shrugs. "I made some calls. Pulled in a few favors. When I heard she was in Harlow Tower, I knew I'd need the layout. I don't go into situations blind."
I don’t answer.
Because for the first time, I realize this isn’t just about Drazen or Dom or the Bureau’s leash around my throat. It’s about two men who’d bleed differently for the same woman. And now, whether we can bleed side by side without killing each other first.
We sit across from one another like two men at a ruined altar, elbows on the scarred table, the light in the room cut thin through slatted blinds.
Elias fingers the edge of the floor plan he pulled, not because he needs to read it—I’d bet he already has the building memorized—but because he moves better when his hands are busy.
That little ritual says more about him than he lets on. It steadies him. It makes the rest of this possible.
"Resources," Elias says. "What do you have?"
I list what I have: the micro-tracker Naomi gave me that's still active and pinging my location to Bureau surveillance; the guard rotation I mapped last night—three-man teams, shifts every six hours; Dom's pattern of checking on Lydia every hour on the hour; the penthouse layout I memorized during my time there; the key I held all night that told me which locks are electronic versus manual.
Elias nods at each piece, cataloguing. Then he pulls another folded paper from his pocket and spreads it on the table between us, it’s the actual floor plan.
"This is what we're working with," he says, tracing a line with his finger. "North stairwell. Service lift sits behind a locked maintenance panel. Panel's electronic, but the override is in the basement. We kill the power to that panel, the lift runs on manual backup for exactly two minutes before the system auto-corrects. That's our window."
"Two minutes?" I lean forward, studying the plan. "That's barely enough time."
"Which is why we don't start from ground level," Elias says. "We start from the subfloor service corridor. Basement access through the parking garage. Two turns, one vent shaft that leads up to the roof access hatch. You climb the shaft, pop the hatch, you're on the penthouse level. From there, it's a straight shot to where they're keeping her."
"And the guards?"
"That's where the distraction comes in." He taps another section of the plan. "We create noise outside Drazen's immediate scope. Nothing overt—he'll smell a setup. But enough to pull his men away from the north stairwell."
"What kind of noise?"
Elias leans back. "Solstice Club has a shipment tonight. Dom oversees those personally. We make him think the shipment's been compromised. False manifest, wrong coordinates, something that makes him send men to check the docks. The moment Dom leaves to handle it, your window opens."
I process this. "You have people who can pull that off?"
"Ramon," Elias says. "Former logistics coordinator turned freelance problem-solver. He can fabricate a manifest that'll pass scrutiny long enough to trigger Dom's paranoia. He'll make the call through a broker Dom knows. By the time Dom realizes it's fake, we'll be gone."
"What about cameras?" I ask. "The penthouse has surveillance everywhere. They'll see us coming."
Elias pulls out his phone, scrolls through contacts, and stops on a name. "Keisha. Best signal jammer I've ever worked with. She can cut the camera feeds for twenty minutes—long enough for us to get in and out. After that, the system auto-restores and flags the interruption, so we move fast."
"And if Drazen's watching in real-time?"
His expression tightens. "If Drazen is physically in that penthouse when we move, we abort. No exceptions. He's not the kind of man you challenge head-on and walk away from."
He says it like a prayer.
I close my eyes, running through scenarios. If Drazen's there, we're dead. If Dom stays, we're dancing on a razor's edge. The difference between extraction and execution is a matter of seconds and the skills of people whose faces I've never seen.
"Walk me through the full plan," I say.
Elias pulls a blank sheet and a pen from his jacket, then he begins to write.
A timeline written in tight block letters.
