Page 53 of Fractured Allegiance
The moment they’re gone, the room shifts.
Dom leans forward. His gaze lands on me like a knife placed flat across a table, inviting you to pick it up or bleed on it.
"Lydia," he says casually, like he's commenting on the weather.
I don't move.
"What about her?" I ask, keeping my voice flat.
His grin widens. "Just making sure we're clear about whose asset she is."
The implication hangs in the air—he's noticed something, even if he's not spelling it out.
"Drazen's," I say.
"Exactly." He stands, walking to the liquor cart to pour something amber into the same glass he's been using. There's blood in the grooves of the decanter's crystal base. Old, but not forgotten. "Just wanted to make sure you remembered."
He raises the glass.
“To loyalty,” he says.
I don’t respond as I walk out.
And the moment the air hits my face outside the club, I know I need to see her again.
Not for the mission.
For me.
The walk to her building doesn’t take long, but I stretch it. I cut through alleys too narrow for cameras, pass vendors setting up for the morning market, listen to the hiss of oil warming in a pan behind a broken café window. The world is waking up in pieces. My mind isn’t.
She’s still there. I can feel it.
By the time I reach her block, the sky has just started to brighten—the kind of silver haze that never gets blue in a city like this. Too much metal in the skyline, too many sins holding the light hostage.
The street in front of her building is dead quiet, except for the squeal of an early tram a block east and the occasional snap of wet leaves under passing tires. It’s not a part of town that wakes up fast. The buildings here are old-money renovations—historic charm masking well-kept surveillance and very expensive locks.
I stand across from her place, hands in my pockets, not moving.
I know I shouldn't be here. There's no justification. No mission directive that ends at her door. But logic left the room days ago, and what’s been building between us doesn’t want clearance. It wants proximity.
I look up.
Second floor. One window cracked open just enough to catch the breeze. Curtains drawn now, but I have an idea of what the space behind them would look like. I’ve seen her silhouettemove through it. I’ve watched the way she leans into her own stillness like it’s the only place that doesn’t lie to her.
My feet move before I make a decision.
Not through the alley. Not the back entrance—I don’t need to sneak in. I’m not here to spy.
I enter through the front, glass-paned door of her building—no buzzer, no doorman, just a tarnished handle and the groan of old hinges. The stairwell is narrow, lined in outdated wallpaper peeling at the corners, and it smells faintly like dust and expensive perfume, like memory left behind by someone who never fully moved out.
At the top of the second flight, there’s only one apartment door. Which should be hers.
Dark wood. Matte brass numbers affixed crookedly, like someone gave up halfway through repairing them.
I stop in front of it and wait.
I don’t lift my hand yet. I just stand there, facing it.
