Page 286 of Fractured Allegiance
It catches me off guard enough to make me laugh, short and sharp. “That’s because we never do.”
He looks at me then, really looks, and there’s something raw in the lines around his mouth—something like disbelief that the world is still turning.
“Come on, lover boy,” I say, using the endearment like a taunt, even though it isn’t one. “The dead don’t need witnesses.”
We walk across the yard together, weaving through smoke and bodies. The fire paints everything orange and gold. Sparks drift like dying fireflies. The heat presses against my skin, but I don’t mind it. It feels like absolution.
Jax crosses our path, his face pale beneath streaks of soot. “Perimeter’s clear,” he reports. “The others are burning the vehicles now. Elias wants us packed within the hour.”
I nod. “Good.”
He hesitates, glancing toward Drazen’s body. “You really shot him yourself?”
“Yes.”
He exhales, half awe, half disbelief. “Guess that’s that then.”
“Guess it is.”
When he leaves, Silas mutters under his breath, “He’s too young for this.”
“Everyone’s too young for this,” I answer. “Even you.”
He gives me a sideways look, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You say that like you’re ancient.”
“Maybe I am. Women like me don’t age. We calcify.”
He studies me for a second longer, then says softly, “Then I’ll make sure you don’t turn to stone.”
It shouldn’t mean anything. It does.
By the time we reach the gate, Elias is calling final orders. “Leave nothing salvageable. I want this place to look like it died in its sleep.”
One of his men nods, hauling a canister toward the vault. The flames leap higher, like they heard their cue.
We keep walking.
The convoy waits just beyond the perimeter—four SUVs still intact, their black frames smeared with soot and shrapnel marks, two more vehicles sitting untouched at the far end of the entrance too, probably for Drazen’s men. Jax climbs into the first SUV, Mara and Elias following.
The second one waits for us, the other vehicles will take Elias’s men home before they move to ditch them.
Silas opens the door for me, a gesture too old-fashioned for the world we live in. I get in anyway. He circles the hood and slides behind the wheel.
As he starts the engine, I glance back at the compound. Firelight dances over the wreckage, turning smoke into ribbons of gold. For the first time in years, I can’t hear the hum of any machine trying to predict me.
The city’s ledger of sins is gone. The people who owned it are ghosts.
It feels wrong that the world hasn’t noticed.
Elias’s voice crackles over the comm in the dash. “We roll out. Jax leads, we follow. Stay off the main roads. If you see blue lights, disappear.”
Silas answers, “Copy.”
The convoy moves.
As we pull away, the flames shrink in the rearview mirror until they’re just a shimmer against the dawn. I don’t look back after that. I can’t. There’s nothing left there worth seeing.
Inside the car, the silence isn’t empty. It’s full of exhaustion, of every unsaid thing pressed between us. The adrenaline’s gone, leaving something heavier—something like peace but too raw to name.
