Page 275 of Fractured Allegiance
Lydia snorts softly beside me, shaking her head. “You’re dragging her into hell just to keep her in your line of sight.”
Elias doesn’t bother looking back. “Hell’s safer with me than heaven without.”
I can’t argue. He’s right, and it burns me that he is.
The road narrows, turning from cracked asphalt into rough gravel. The station rises ahead—dark, skeletal structures outlined against the night sky, cranes rusting in place, shipping crates stacked like tombstones. No lights, no sound. Too quiet.
My gut twists. I’ve seen this setup before. Empty silence, like the world cleared its throat before it screams.
“Cut the engine,” I say sharply.
Jax blinks. “What?”
“Kill it.”
Elias’s eyes flick toward me, then forward again. “Do it.”
The engine dies. The sudden hush is worse than the noise—like stepping into a room where someone’s holding a gun under the table. The convoy behind us halts in sync, engines cutting one after another.
We sit in the dark, every sense stretched thin. The air smells of rust and oil, damp earth and dust. The station is a carcass, hollow, too clean.
Lydia leans slightly toward me, her voice a whisper meant for my ear only. “Too neat.”
“Yeah,” I murmur back. “He wants us to walk in.”
The floodlights slam on.
Blinding white sears across the yard, cutting through the dark, burning into my eyes. The silence shatters under the metallic whine of generators kicking alive.
And then—movement.
Dozens of men step out from behind crates, from trucks, from rooftops. Rifles raised, faces masked, formation too tight to be mercenaries. Drazen’s soldiers, clean and disciplined.
Jax jerks in the driver’s seat. “Shit.”
Elias doesn’t curse. He just reaches for his gun, his voice flat and lethal. “Move.”
But it’s already too late.
The floodlights cut everything open, burning away the shadows we thought were nothing. White glare slams into my eyes, flattening the yard into a stage where we’re the ones on display. My pupils clamp down hard, but I don’t need to see the rifles to know they’re aimed. The air hums with that sharp, metallic stillness that only comes before a trigger pull.
Elias doesn’t blink. He pushes his door open, steps out slow and deliberate, gun drawn but angled low. His shoulders square like he’s walking into a boardroom, not a firing squad. Mara scrambles after him, pistol trembling in her hands, but she holds it, and that’s enough.
Jax’s knuckles go pale on the wheel. “We can’t—we can’t drive out of this.”
“No shit,” I snap, already unholstering my weapon. “Stay in the car unless you want a bullet in your teeth.”
Lydia slides out her side, her knife already in her palm, gleaming under the floodlights. She doesn’t crouch, doesn’t flinch. She walks forward, her posture sharp enough to draw blood, and stands beside Elias like she’s daring Drazen to take his shot.
The convoy behind us stirs, doors cracking open, Elias’s men fanning out, rifles rising. They form a perimeter automatically, disciplined, trained. I catch one of them signaling to Elias, a tight gesture: flank? Elias shakes his head once. Not yet.
Because we’re not in control of this field. Drazen is.
More figures emerge from the center of the station yard. One, two, then more. A slow march, measured, deliberate. Andthen him: Drazen, cutting through his soldiers like he was born at the center of a blade. Suit tailored, tie perfect, hair slicked back without a strand out of place. He’s not armed, but that’s the point. Men like him never need to hold the gun.
“Mr. Voss,” Drazen calls out, his voice smooth, cultured, carrying effortlessly under the glare. “And company. You’ve saved me the trouble of knocking on your door.”
Elias lifts his chin. “You should’ve kept knocking.”
