Page 77 of Fractured Allegiance
I stop. Don't turn around.
"You're doing well," he says, and there's something in his voice that makes my skin crawl. "I'd hate for that to change."
It's not a compliment.
It's a warning.
I pull the door open and step through without responding, because there's nothing safe to say to a threat dressed up as praise.
It’s only when I step back into the hallway that I realize my hands are trembling from the encounter.
Drazen never does anything without purpose.
I leave the club without touching the whiskey, without touching the walls.
By the time I reach my building, the straps of the red dress are biting into my shoulders and the adrenaline has rotted into something slower, deeper. Like grief that hasn’t decided what it’s mourning yet.
I let myself in. Lock the door. Don’t turn on the light.
The city glows just enough through the blinds to guide me.
I set my phone down, face-up. No new messages. No missed calls. Not from Dom. Not from Drazen.
Not from Silas.
Not that I expected one.
We haven’t even exchanged numbers, but in this world, there are ways to solve that.
He doesn’t call.
He doesn’t text.
He watches.
That’s the part that matters, isn’t it?
I walk into the bedroom, peel the dress off like skin. Step out of it. Let it fall in a coil near the edge of the rug.
The mirror watches, but I don’t.
I go to the bathroom. Pull the bandage off the scratch on my chest. It’s healing already, red but clean. Still tender. Still unexplained.
I run water. Splash it on my face, my neck. The back of my arms. Not cold. Just enough to chase the ghost heat still clinging from Drazen’s gaze.
It doesn’t work.
Back in the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the mattress in just the thin slip I sleep in when I don’t care about comfort.
The window is still cracked from earlier.
I stand.
Walk toward it.
The rooftop across the street is empty.
But I look anyway.
