Page 37 of Fractured Allegiance
And nod.
I leave the clinic just as the light starts to dip below the skyline. Miramont’s mask starts to slip. The glass towers dim. The alleys close in. The sidewalks fill with faces looking for exits.
I don’t go home.
There’s still one place I need to be. One role I still have to play before this day lets me go.
Dom’s club is buried at the edge of the warehouse district. No sign. No lights. Just a brushed steel door set into a strip of shuttered storefronts, like a forgotten entry to nothing.
To the uninvited, it looks dead. To people like me? It hums.
The bouncers see me and step aside without a word. I descend the narrow corridor, the scent of leather and champagne and unspoken power threading through the walls like a second atmosphere.
And just like that, I’m back inside.
Back where I’m supposed to smile without meaning it.
Back under Dom’s thumb.
Back in the room where Silas might be watching again — and this time, I’ll be ready.
The club breathes around me.
Not in the way most places do. This isn’t some bar with flashing lights and wet-lipped laughter. This is clinical. Power masked as pleasure. The scent of polished leather, pure stillness, and the kind of tension you only feel right before a string snaps.
Dom’s world doesn’t throb with music. It pulses with control.
I don’t look for him. I don’t need to.
He knows the second I arrive. Always does.
I pass the front lounge, the booths lining the wall with couples already folding into each other’s darkness. I slide into the black again, heels measured, posture exact, chin just a notch higher than it needs to be.
Someone watches me as I pass.
Not someone new. That someone.
Silas.
He doesn’t blink.
Doesn’t smile.
Doesn’t pretend he’s not tracking my every step like he’s already decided where I’ll stop.
Dom is waiting near the back corridor, hand tucked in his trouser pocket like he has nowhere better to be… which is bullshit, and we both know it.
“You’re late,” he says.
I arch a brow. “You said tonight. You didn’t say when.”
He stares at me long enough that I feel it in my stomach, then turns and walks.
I follow.
The negotiation room is down a hallway that isn’t on the floor plan. The hallway itself smells of waxed wood and sweat. The kind of fear that doesn’t rise until the second before the door shuts.
Inside, the air shifts.
