Page 93 of Fractured Allegiance
I keep my gaze outside. The buildings bleed past: pawn shops, half-boarded liquor stores, a corner bodega with bulletproof glass and a kid spray-painting the wall like he owns it.
We turn onto the bridge road, heading east toward the docks. I recognize the route. Still, I ask, “You gonna tell me what this is?”
He doesn’t look at me. “Name’s Vasko. Drazen warned him to keep his shipments clean. He didn’t.”
I blink. “And I’m supposed to do what?”
"You're going to deliver a message. Face-to-face. The kind that needs a woman's touch to make it stick. And make it clear this is the last warning he gets."
"Final warning," I repeat, keeping my voice flat.
He smirks. "Relax. You've done this before."
"Not for you."
"No," he says, eyes tracking me with that calculating look he gets when he's measuring something. "But Drazen's busy tonight, and this particular client would responds better to... your approach than his usual methods."
I let that hang in the air.
It's not about whether I can do this. Dom knows I can. I've delivered enough veiled threats wrapped in polite conversation to understand exactly what he's asking for.
The question is why Dom's handling it instead of Drazen directly.
Dom turns into a side street flanked by wire fences and sodium lights burning daylight away. The warehouse looks abandoned from the outside.
We pull around back.
Two men in leather jackets stand by the rear service ramp, both armed and not even trying to hide it. One of them glances at Dom and waves us through with two fingers. The other eyes me in a manner both creepy and not new to me.
Inside, it’s colder. More men wait in the shadows, presumably stationed sentries. Either Drazen’s operation is expanding at a more rapid rate than I previously surmised, or this is borrowed muscle.
Not that that’s the most pressing concern at the moment.
We reach a wide-open storage floor lined with pallets and crates. A man waits at the center like he’s expecting a lecture he doesn’t believe in. Broad, built, aging like a boxer who lost his last five fights but still thinks he can take one more. He must be the one we’re here for… Vasko.
He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t blink. Just shifts his stance slightly when he sees me walking in front.
Dom stops behind me and says, “Lydia speaks for Drazen today.”
I’m not sure why the hell he’s giving my name away, but it isn’t as if I can say anything here. I’m under no illusion of choice.
Vasko raises an eyebrow. “He sends a woman to do his talking now?”
I smile, stepping forward until we’re a breath apart. “He sends who he trusts to deliver the point without drawing a weapon.”
“Trust,” Vasko says, spitting the word like it tastes wrong. “And what, exactly, is the point?”
“That if you fuck up another shipment, he won’t send a mouth next time. He’ll send a message in pieces.”
Tension ripples through him, but he doesn’t move.
I take another step. My boots echo too loud on the concrete.
“You were warned. You agreed. Now you’re trying to squeeze out the side and pretend it was all a misunderstanding.”
He glances past me toward Dom.
I don’t let him look away.
