Page 5 of Fractured Allegiance
Her gaze flicks toward Dom while he talks. She nods once, unsmiling. Just enough to keep him talking.
There’s a glass in her hand, half-finished. Neat. Clear. She doesn’t drink often — you can tell. Not because she’s delicate. Because she doesn’t like losing ground.
I don’t know who she is.
But she looks like someone who knows where the bodies are buried because she’s the one who put them there.
A man slides into the booth beside her. Not Dom. A second-tier bruiser. She barely turns her head. Just shifts her fingers around the base of her glass like she’s deciding whether to crack it across his teeth.
He leans in.
She speaks.
I can’t hear what she says, but I see the man lean back. His expression goes slack, not angry or offended, just defused.
She does it like it’s nothing. Like she’s done it a thousand times before.
She doesn’t look at me.
But now I’m looking at nothing else.
And beneath my suit, underneath the skin, something starts to stir behind the sternum—not lust, not yet, only awareness.
I narrow my eyes.
I barely pay attention as my drink is served, I pick up the glass absentmindedly.
Her ring flashes in the booth’s light—silver, unadorned, and worn from use.
The glass at her lips again. Sip. Pause. A glance to the side, and her eyes catch mine.
Not locked. Not held.
Just caught, and lingers for a breath’s length, no smile or acknowledgment—but I feel it.
It cuts deep, too precise to be accidental, too human to ignore. Then it’s gone.
She looks away.
And it leaves a mark.
I set my glass down and don’t touch it again.
The atmosphere shifts before Drazen even walks in.
You can feel it. Something in the rhythm of the room stutters. A shift in posture. In breath. Like the collective spine of the club stiffens without knowing why.
Then he steps inside.
Viktor Drazen doesn't need to announce himself. The space clears around him like it’s afraid to cling. Black suit. Bare throat. Expression carved from something colder than stone. His gaze doesn’t scan — it cuts. Room by room. Face by face. Like he’s counting mouths to feed to something worse.
He moves through the crowd without touching anyone, but they all move.
A ripple of deference.
The woman stays perfectly still, unbothered.
She watches him enter from her booth, elbow still draped along the back, glass loose in her fingers. No fear. No recognition. Just attention—narrowed to a point.
