Page 250 of Fractured Allegiance

Silas is still too close. His shadow falls over mine, his hand flexing once at his side like he’s resisting the urge to grab me. I hold my ground, nails biting into my palms.

“You’re insane,” I say. It comes out thin, but it’s the only thing between me and the way my pulse hammers when his eyes pin me like that.

“Maybe.” His voice is rough, low, scraping through the air like gravel. “But I mean every word, all the same.”

I should walk away. I know I should. Every rational part of me screams it. But my body betrays me. It’s there, how he affectsme: in the way my chest rises, the way my knees feel unsteady, the way I can’t stop looking at his mouth.

I shove him. Hard enough that my palm slams against his chest. “You think this is protection? You’re smothering me.”

His hand snaps to my wrist before I can pull back, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to anchor me. His stare drills into mine, blue-gray and burning. “I’m keeping you alive.”

“And if I don’t want to be kept?” My voice breaks against the question.

He doesn’t answer with words.

He drags me in and crushes his mouth against mine.

It’s not gentle. It’s not tender. It’s a war. His hand clamps my wrist above my head against the wall, his body pinning mine, the kiss brutal and desperate. My teeth clash against his, my gasp swallowed whole as his tongue pushes in, claiming, consuming.

I should fight him. I should claw at his chest, spit in his face. Instead, my free hand fists in his shirt, dragging him closer, pulling instead of pushing. Rage and hunger bleed into each other until I can’t tell which is which.

When I finally tear free, my lips are swollen, my chest heaving. I shove him again, harder this time. He lets me, his hand falling away, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack.

“I should hate you,” I whisper, “but I don’t even know if I want to.”

His answer is a growl, stripped bare. “You’ll figure it out. But either way, you’re mine.”

The air between us sparks, hot and burning, neither of us moving, neither of us willing to give the other ground.

Before I can give a response. Elias steps back in, Mara at his shoulder, her hand brushing the frame like she’s anchoring him there. She gives me a small look—the kind that says she’d rather not hear what’s about to happen—then moves to the counter, tugging down the bag she left earlier.

Elias stays planted. Watching.

“You two look like you’re chewing glass,” he says, his voice flat. “Something I should know?”

My eyes flick to him, but I say nothing.

Silas gives him the look that screams this is none of your business.

Elias finally moves when he sees we’re not ready to spill, crossing to the table, leaning his weight against the back of a chair. His eyes are knives.

For a second, the room holds its breath. Mara keeps her back to us, methodical in the way she folds the paper bag at the counter, but her shoulders are tight.

Silas leans forward, eyes pinned on me, not Elias. “I’ve said it exactly as it is. Believe me, or don’t.”

And that’s the problem: I don’t know if I believe him. I don’t know if I want to.

Silas doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. The words hang between us, thick as smoke.

I want to spit that I see through him. That the Bureau still has him by the throat, no matter what he says. But before I can, Elias drags a folded map onto the table and slaps it flat.

The sound breaks the moment, scattering the charge that was building.

“Enough,” he says. “We’re not wasting time gnawing on each other. Drazen’s already circling. And this,” he jabs a finger down at the grainy aerial photo, “is where we hit.”

I lean forward, palms braced against the edge of the table, my pulse catching on the name. Petrov Station isn’t just a building. It’s a cage. I know that better than anyone. Drazen made me clean its floors once, walk those halls with files in my hands I wasn’t allowed to open.

“I’m going,” I say.