Page 226 of Fractured Allegiance

I can’t even believe I blurt this all out to her, but at this point, let’s say I’m desperate, and I can’t have any of this pinned on me.

Yes, I’m fully involved with Lydia and Elias now, and I’ve been acting on impulse lately, which I’d do again and again, but the truth is I’ve been giving the bureau my own end of the bargain, that should count for something.

If I’ll have to say goodbye to the bureau, I have to do it in a way that will not have me being on the run, I don’t want to drag Lydia into that kind of mess.

“You want me to cover this,” she says. “You want me to bury Dom’s death, bury your presence there, because I’m one hundred percent sure you went back, you got yourself involved in this, against my warning, now you want me to bury the fact that you’re completely off protocol. Do you have any idea what that costs me?”

“Everything,” I say. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

The line stays dead quiet for ten full seconds.

Then she answers: “You’re playing a private war, Silas. And wars burn people like me first. If I keep you covered, you don’t report to anyone else. Not Ops, not Command, not your little ghosts in the field. Only me. You disappear for anyone who asks. You belong to my shadow queue now.”

“I never belonged to anyone.”

Her laugh is bitter. “Keep telling yourself that. But if Drazen has a file on Lydia Carr—and I know he does—you’re already bleeding for someone who won’t survive you.”

Heat flares in my chest. “That’s my problem.”

“Wrong,” she says. “That’s mine. And if you drag me down with you, I’ll cut you loose so fast you’ll wish Drazen had gotten to you first.”

The line clicks dead.

I stare at the burner in my hand, the echo of her words still hot in my ear. Elias is watching from the doorway now, arms folded, expression carved out of disgust.

“You just told your leash-holder you killed her boss’s best drinking buddy,” he says. “Congratulations. You’ve now got Drazen and the Bureau pissed off in the same breath.”

I slip the burner back into my pocket. “Then we move faster.”

“Or,” Elias says, his mouth twisting, “you think about the fact that maybe she’s right. Maybe Lydia doesn’t survive you.”

I look past him, toward the kitchen where Lydia is standing, looking like she’s lost in thought, wearing my shirt, skin marked with every place I touched her.

“She’s the only thing I’m surviving for,” I say.

Elias walks back to the kitchen without another word, his footsteps soft on the tile. Lydia’s voice drifts faintly from the other room; a question about tea, Elias answering about sugar. Domestic sounds in a place that isn’t built for them.

I stay in the living room, alone with the blinds and the dust. The burner feels heavier than it should, Naomi’s voice still ringing in my head. You belong to my shadow queue now.

She thinks she has me boxed. Drazen thinks he still has the board. They’re both wrong.

I sink into the chair, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor until the stripes of light blur. I’ve been memorizing Drazen’s rhythms for months—his meetings, his movements, his habits when he thinks no one’s watching. Lydia knows some of them too; she was his canary, the one he showed off to mask which windows were open.

If we move before he resets, we have a window. Not a big one. Not clean. But it’s there.

I pull a notepad from the side table. A real one, paper and pen, leaving no option of a digital trail.

My handwriting is quick, blocky.

– Supply depots.

– Secondary lieutenants.

– Shipping lanes he still controls.

– Judges still on his payroll.

– Where the file on Lydia is likely stored.