Page 271 of Fractured Allegiance
His hands come up, bracing on either side of my head, caging me. “You’re the only thing in this city that feels real. Everything else is a job, a cover, a lie. But you…” He dips his head, eyes boring into mine. “You’re not a lie. You’re the fracture I can’t fix.”
My heart kicks hard against my ribs. I press my palms flat to his chest, feeling the heat of him, the scars, the muscle. “You’re insane,” I whisper.
He leans closer until his lips hover over mine, not kissing me, just breathing me in. “Maybe. But you’re in my insanity now. And I’m not letting you crawl back out.”
I close my eyes, trying to summon the armor I always wear. The words that should come—sharp, cruel, dismissive—stick in my throat. All I can hear is Naomi’s voice in my head: You’re an asset, not a man.
The words should terrify me. They should snap me out of whatever this is. Instead, my thighs press together under the towel, and my hands curl tighter against his chest.
I open my eyes again and find his still on me, steady, relentless.
I search his face, looking for a flicker of doubt, some proof this is just another mask he’s wearing. There isn’t one. Only fire. Only him.
I let the towel slip a little, baring my cleavage. His eyes drop, his pupils flaring.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I say, even as my body betrays me, leaning toward him.
He runs a thumb along the mark he left, his touch rough but careful. “You’ll keep telling yourself that until you start believing it,” he murmurs.
I should step aside. I should pick up my knife, put the distance back. But I don’t. I stay against the wall, dripping, trembling, letting him stand there in front of me like a wall I don’t want to scale.
“Go on then,” I say, my voice a rasp. “If you’ve burned it all, show me what’s left.”
His hands slide down my arms, catching my wrists, pulling them around his waist. He presses his forehead to mine, eyes closing for the first time since I’ve known him. “What’s left is this,” he says. “Us. In the dark. No masks.”
I don’t kiss him. He doesn’t kiss me. We just stand there, steam fading, water dripping from our bodies onto the floor, locked together in a moment that feels like a choice neither of us can take back.
Chapter 36 – Silas - Cut Loose
Lydia is watching me the way people watch wild animals, with equal parts fascination and calculation. One wrong twitch and she’ll bolt, or bite. I can’t decide which one I want more. I wonder if there’s anything she could do at this point that could make me want her less. I wouldn’t bet on it. Everything about her drives me fucking crazy.
Obsession is right.
I tighten my grip on her wrists around my waist, feel the bones shifting under my hands. “Say something,” I tell her. My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, like gravel dragged across asphalt.
She tilts her chin, eyes cutting into me. “What do you want me to say? Congratulations? You’ve gone from being owned by the Bureau to being owned by nothing. That’s not freedom, Silas. That’s suicide with a slower clock.”
The sting lands, but I don’t let go. “Then I’ll run the clock down my way.”
Her laugh is sharp, brittle, bouncing off plaster. “And you expect me to stand beside you while you bleed out?”
“I expect you to stop pretending you don’t at least want to.”
That silences her. For once. Her jaw works, tight, like she wants to spit something brutal, but the words stick. Her pulse hammers against my thumbs where I’m holding her.
“You think throwing away your badge proves something,” she says finally, voice lower, throat tight. “It doesn’t. You’re still a man who came here to hunt. That’s the only reason our paths ever crossed.”
I lean down until my forehead presses into hers, until she can’t look anywhere but at me. “That was the mission,” I admit. “But the mission’s dead. You’re what’s left. AlI I’ve got now. All I want.”
Her breath snags—small, sharp, the kind of sound she’ll deny making later.
I let go of her wrists, but she doesn’t pull them back. They stay against me, her palms flat on my skin, nails pressing into my sides. Testing. Waiting for me to slip.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” she whispers, repeating it like a prayer.
I grin, bare teeth, sharp as knives. “Then belong to nothing. With me.”
Her eyes flash, and for a second, I think she’ll hit me. Instead, she tears her hands away, clutching the towel around herself like armor. She turns her back on me, walking toward the bed, her shoulders stiff.
