Page 6 of Fractured Allegiance

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Dom moves closer to her. Smiles. Says something in her ear.

She doesn’t answer. Just keeps her eyes on Drazen’s back as he disappears behind the private doors, the ones guarded by two men who don’t bother hiding the steel under their jackets.

Then she turns back to her drink.

I stay frozen.

I don’t know her name. I don’t know her story.

But I know something I shouldn’t:

She saw me.

Not the suit. Not the drink.

Me.

And that’s how trouble starts.

Chapter 1 – Lydia - Queen of Ashes

I start the day the same way I end it: on my knees, rag in hand, polishing the floor until the cloth comes back clean.

The apartment isn’t dirty. It never is.

But cleaning it is the only thing that makes my thoughts shut up long enough to hear what I’ve been avoiding.

The floors are pure white—stone composite, seamless, unbroken. I chose them because they show everything. Dust. Hair. Blood, if there ever was any.

There hasn’t been any, at least, not yet.

But I like the threat of it.

I clean because it’s how I rebuild the walls between me and the things I can’t control.

Last night being one of them.

The club.

The men.

The noise.

And then there was him—no name, no introduction, just one long, intense look from across the room that cut deeper than a man’s gaze should. He didn’t leer; he studied, and that’s what unsettles me.

The club is full of people who want something—attention, sex, power. He wasn’t one of them. He looked like he was already full of secrets and didn’t want to trade any of them.

I didn’t expect to remember his face this clearly. I never do.

But I do now.

The set of his jaw.

The drink in his hand.

The way his eyes didn’t flinch when I stared back.

He looked like he’d done terrible things.

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