Page 38 of Fractured Allegiance
Three men. All dressed like they’ve played this game before. But I can already tell which one’s going to flinch. The one in the navy suit. He’s tapping his ring on the table, erratically, and it’s not out of boredom. It’s nerves. He won’t last.
Dom doesn’t sit.
He stands behind the leather chair he wants me in.
So, I take it.
It’s all posture now. Crossed legs. Perfect line of spine. The kind of elegance that was never about vanity — just war dressed in velvet.
None of them ask why I’m here.
Which means they know.
I don’t speak, and I don’t need to.
I feel Silas enter before I see him.
He moves like he owns secrets he hasn’t decided whether to share. Still in that suit. Still in that gaze. Like he’s already written the ending to this room and we just haven’t caught up.
I keep my eyes on the men across from me.
Let him watch.
Dom introduces him with a nod. “Silas Ward. You’ve met.”
It’s not a question.
The men acknowledge him with the kind of measured courtesy that lives somewhere between fear and forced respect.
He doesn’t take a seat, either. Instead, he opts to linger by the mirrored wall, hands clasped behind him like a man bored with the chessboard, waiting for someone to admit they’ve lost. It isn’t the same dominance Dom presents himself with; it’s a different effusion of power entirely.
I don’t flinch under it.
Even when I can feel his gaze like heat pressing at my temple.
The negotiation begins. Or pretends to.
The suits talk numbers.
Dom talks outcomes.
I say nothing.
The numbers they’re volleying around aren’t stock prices or property taxes. They’re laundering estimates pertaining to a pipeline moving through a tech shell company in Prague. Fronted as a start-up, backed by one of Drazen’s clients. Dom wants more control over the percentages. They want plausible deniability. Everyone’s lying.
The real kicker? It’s not about money. It never is.
It’s about who’s holding the leash you haven’t seen yet.
I don’t know how long the conversation goes on. I don’t check the time. Time doesn’t exist in places like this. Just signals. Pressure. The unsaid things that live between syllables.
Dom leans down once, close enough to speak only to me.
“Do you know who that is?” he asks.
I don’t answer. He knows I do.
But he wants to know how I’ll say it.
