Page 235 of Fractured Allegiance
“None of your business,” he says. It could be a lie. It could be a confession.
I push again, because that’s what I do. “There’s always someone watching. It’s how the city stays upright. The problem is, sometimes the watchers take their pay and sell the building.”
He doesn’t answer. He shifts his weight, a small, practiced movement. It says he’s ready for an exit strategy if things get contorted. The kind of person who keeps his shoes by the door.
The fight goes quick after that. We trade more sequences—he's slippery, all angles and elbows that bite. I give ground where it matters, take it where it counts. We end in a grapple, neither giving ground, chests heaving, until Elias calls time.
"Enough," Elias says.
We break apart. Jori extends a hand, that odd smile back.
I take it. His grip is firm.
Elias claps once, pleased. "Good. That's what I needed to see. They can handle themselves." He looks at me. "Question is—can you work with them?"
Lydia watches with an unreadable expression from the stairs. Ren rubs his jaw. Jax bounces on the balls of his feet, already telling himself a story about the rematch.
I look at each of them in turn. Bruised, capable, still standing. "Yeah. I can work with them."
Elias nods. "Good." He points at Jori. “You. Stay.”
Jori swallows. His hands go to his pockets, then drop. He looks like a man who has been told to keep his eyes open for a light that will not come.
We head up the stairs in a line that smells like sweat and caution. Lydia is waiting at the top, arms crossed, expression flinty. Her lips curve just once when she sees me climb the last step. Not a smile. A measurement.
“You could have killed one of them,” she says, voice carrying a cool little admonition.
“You mean Jax?” I answer. “He’d apologize for stealing oxygen.”
She shifts on her feet, the leggings hugging the line of her hips. A bruise blooms across her forearm where my hand must have pressed in our last encounter. She catches me watching and doesn’t look away.
“You set them up,” she says. Not a question, not a demand. A fact she’s handing to me.
I let silence be my answer long enough for Elias and Jori to pass us by. Then I say, “Elias wanted pressure. He got it.
She nods, not entirely convinced. “Tests make things break.” Then she glances back at the others before she continues, her voice low enough that it doesn't carry. "Something's off about Jori."
I glance back toward where he's standing with Ren and Jax, laughing at something. "What makes you say that?"
"The way he fought you." She crosses her arms, the borrowed black tee pulling tight across her shoulders. "He was testing you, not trying to prove himself to Elias. Every move was about reading you—your speed, your patterns, where you leave openings."
I turn to face her fully. "Could just be smart."
"Could be." Her eyes stay locked on Jori across the room. "Or he's cataloguing intel for someone else."
The weight of her words settles between us. I've been in this game long enough to know the difference between paranoia and instinct. And Lydia's instincts have kept her breathing through Drazen's hell.
"You think he's a snitch?"
She doesn't answer right away. When she does, her voice is careful. "I think he moves like someone who's always got an exit plan. And men with exit plans don't usually bet everything on one employer."
I watch Jori for a brief moment, his posture relaxed, easy. Too easy.
"Keep an eye on him," I say quietly. "If he twitches wrong, I want to know."
She nods once, then her hand brushes mine—just a moment, fingers grazing knuckles—before she moves away and I follow her.
The basement door closes behind us with a small, final sound. It is an ordinary noise that in this house feels like something else. A seal.
