Page 59 of Fractured Allegiance
The moment already branded itself into both of us.
Chapter 7 – Lydia - Smoke and Mirrors
I don’t move after he leaves.
I stay exactly where I was when the door clicked shut, robe back on, skin still humming like it hasn’t realized the moment is over. My spine against the kitchen counter. My palms flat against the edge. My heartbeat thunders madly in my ears.
I can still feel his hands.
Not on my body, not anymore—but inside me, somehow. That’s worse.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. That kiss? That tension pulled tight between the line of want and too far? I let it happen. I asked for it. I dragged him into it, and then I let it crack like a snapped wire. I turned it off like a switch, and still, I’m the one who feels unfinished.
I touch my bottom lip. It’s still swollen. His mouth tasted like restraint and ruin.
I shut my eyes.
This is why I don’t let people in. It’s not the pain I’m afraid of—it’s the part of myself that wants to need. That clawing, choking feeling of wanting something that doesn’t come with a price tag or a codeword or a leash.
He didn’t ask for anything.
He just looked at me like I was the only real thing in the city.
That’s what scared me.
And now he’s gone.
I slide down the cabinets until I’m seated on the floor, knees pulled up, the robe bunched around my hips. The bourbon glass is still on the counter. I don’t reach for it.
I try to think about Drazen. About Dom. About the surveillance layer in this apartment.
But all I can think about is his hand, resting on the curve of my thigh—fingers digging in like he was holding on for me, not to me.
I should be angry.
I should be calculating how much damage this has done to the mask I’ve spent years perfecting.
Instead, all I feel is need.
The light in the room starts to change.
Not dramatically. Just a shift—the white-blue edge of morning peeling up through the windows, soft and accusatory. It makes everything in here look more exposed.
The counter.
The glass.
The crumpled knot of my robe at the waist.
I stand. Slowly. Each movement feels louder than it should. My joints protest like they’ve frozen in place, like I was carved into the floor hours ago and only now remembered how to be flesh again.
My mouth tastes like copper and whiskey.
I go to the sink and rinse it out.
The small mirror in the kitchen catches me as I move in half profile, one strap still falling off my shoulder, hair tangled, lips raw. I don’t look anything like the esteemed Lydia Carr.
I look like someone who cracked open the part of herself she never lets speak, then slammed the door before it could scream.
