Page 212 of Fractured Allegiance

I wrench free of Silas’s grip, shove forward on the platform. His curse rips through the air, but I don’t stop. I grab the next ladder rung myself, descend fast, forcing them both to follow my pace instead of dragging me like luggage.

Below, the scaffold narrows. The last platform barely clings to the wall, bolts rusted. The drop beneath it is twenty stories of black air and concrete.

Elias lands beside me, firing upward, covering Silas as he makes the descent. Dom’s shadow flickers against the rooftop edge above us.

And in that second, I realize something cutting: if we hesitate, Dom won’t need bullets. Gravity will finish the job.

Dom doesn’t wait for the scaffold to carry him. He vaults down like he’s bulletproof, boots slamming into the platform above us with a force that makes the whole frame shiver. Rust rains down in flecks. The sound ricochets inside my ribs.

“End of the line,” he calls, crouched low, pistol steady, his smile too wide for the distance between us. “You really thought you’d walk her out under Drazen’s nose?”

Silas steps forward, body angled, shielding me without thinking. His hand pushes me back against the cold wall of the building, his arm stretched wide like a barrier. I can feel the heat of him even through the cold night, his pulse a violent rhythm under the skin.

“Move,” Silas snarls at Dom. “Or I’ll put you down right here.”

Dom laughs, the sound crisp and cruel. “That’s Bureau talk.”

The words land like a blade in my gut. Bureau. My head jerks toward Silas, searching his face, but he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even glance my way. He just raises his gun a fraction higher, as if the insult didn’t matter.

But it matters to me.

“Bureau?” The word rips from me before I can stop it. My voice echoes through the night, harsher than I intend, as though I hadn’t heard that word ‘bureau' repeated over and over again all along tonight, evident that I’m just getting my voice back. “What the hell is he talking about, Silas?”

He doesn’t answer. His silence is an answer.

Dom grins wider, eyes glinting. “She didn’t know. Oh, that’s rich. All those nights hovering outside her door, all those times you told her you were different—” He shakes his head, almost in admiration. “You’re worse than Elias. At least he never lied about who owned his leash.”

Elias fires two rounds upward, forcing Dom to duck back behind the rail. The shots ring loud, metal screaming with impact. “Keep moving!” Elias barks, voice edged with command. “We don’t stand here debating—”

But I can’t move. My legs lock. My gaze is glued to Silas.

“Is it true?” My voice is raw. “You’re Bureau?”

His jaw works once. Then he says it, low and stripped. “Yes.”

The word detonates inside me. It explains everything and nothing. His precision. His secrets. The way he always looked at me like he was cataloguing angles, exits, risks. The way he kissed me like he knew it would cost us both.

Dom’s voice cuts through again, baiting. “She’ll never forgive you, Ward. You know that, right? Doesn’t matter how deep you bury it, she’ll remember you let her crawl through hell while you held the key the whole time.”

Silas fires back, but not at Dom this time. He aims at the metal support beneath Dom’s boots. The shot tears through rust and bolt. The platform jolts, throwing Dom sideways, armsflailing. He barely catches himself on the rail, curse swallowed by the wind.

“Move!” Silas orders again, turning back to me. His eyes are stripped bare now, no mask left. “I’ll explain later. But if you stay here, he’ll kill us before I can.”

I want to scream. I want to hit him. I want to demand every reason, every detail, every reason he thought I could survive without the truth. But bullets rip past, Elias shoving me forward, and survival beats questions.

I grip the railing and push ahead, down the last ladder, my hands slick with sweat on the steel.

Silas stays above me, Elias below, the two of them funneling me like I’m the prize in a hunt. Dom curses, his boots thundering against the swaying scaffold as he recovers.

When my feet hit the final platform, my heart is a live wire. I look up, and Silas is still there, caught between me and Dom, Bureau and betrayal stamped across his face.

And I understand something I can’t unsee:

Whatever happens next, I’m not just fighting Drazen anymore. I’m fighting him.

The last platform sways under our combined weight, steel shrieking hard. I crouch low, knuckles white on the rail, watching as Dom barrels down after us. His grin hasn’t faltered. If anything, it’s more dangerous now, like the chaos feeds him.

Elias positions himself at the base, gun raised, stance wide. Silas holds the higher rung, body coiled, eyes never leaving Dom. And I? I’m pinned between them — not just by space, but by the truth that detonated seconds ago.