Page 4 of Fractured Allegiance
No warmth to the exchange, no direction, and no mention of what comes next... I like it better that way.
For a moment in time, I stay where I am, the warehouse pressing in around me, leaving its mark.
My jacket still smells like oil and copper. I smooth it down anyway.
This is the job.
Slide in under a name that isn’t mine. Infiltrate a network held together by money, death, and men who think consequences are something that happens to other people.
Viktor Drazen’s just one link in the chain. There are others. Killers. Brokers. Ghosts in suits. All of them hiding in plain sight while the city keeps bleeding.
The Bureau wants them exposed, wants the structure cracked. The rot scraped out.
And they picked me to crawl inside and start carving.
Silas Ward is the skin I wear for them. The hand that pulls the trigger.
But that’s not my name.
Not the one that would get whispered if I ever slip.
That one’s buried so deep even I don’t hear it unless I’m dreaming.
The Bureau doesn’t care who I become, as long as I bring Drazen and his pals down.
I turn toward the door.
Drazen said to get a drink. So, that’s what I’ve got to do.
It’s not like that part will be a hardship. But it doesn’t mean I’m off the clock, either. No matter what, I’m watching everyone.
Because sooner or later, someone’s going to see through me.
And when they do… I suspect there will be no time to explain which version of me they’re killing.
Dom’s place doesn’t have a name on the door. Just a mark — silver, worn — like a crest torn from something older.
“Outside, the fog clings heavy with diesel, streetlight halos bleeding onto the pavement. Miramont never really sleeps, it just changes masks. Tonight, it’s wearing sequins and bruises.
I flash the right look at the bouncers. One nods, parts the rope, and I descend into a corridor that smells like velvet choking on liquor and ambition.
Inside, the world shifts.
Dom’s club is carved in black and burnished gold, hard edges softened with money and distraction. The walls pulse with sound. Red and indigo strobe lights blink against mirrored panels. Someone laughs too loud. Someone else moans into someone’s neck.
I blend in. I always do.
I order something dark I won’t taste and lean back against the bar. The crowd flows around me. Tension with stilettos. Lust in tailored suits. Everyone pretending not to notice the predators circling the same kill.
That’s when I see her.
She doesn’t stand out the way most women here do. No glitter. No skin for rent. She’s in black — matte, sleek — legs crossed at the corner booth near Dom. One heel tilted slightly off the floor, toe pointed. A line, not a pose.
She has that look.
Not just beauty. That’s common here. No, this is something else.
Power, dressed in calm.
