Page 256 of Fractured Allegiance

I feel it—the déjà vu of betrayal rotting in my chest. Kinley. His lies, the way his deceit spread like ink. And now Ren, another body proving that trust is always a loaded gun pointed back at your own skull.

Elias straightens, pulls the pistol from his waistband. Smooth. Without hesitation.

Mara gasps once, then goes still, bracing herself. Jax steps forward as if he might say something, then thinks better of it.

Ren’s knees hit the floor, his hands shaking so violently I almost pity him. Almost. “Elias, please. I can fix this. I can—”

“You already broke it.”

The shot is deafening in the narrow room.

Ren crumples, folding into himself, eyes wide with shock even as life drains out of them. The metallic tang of gunpowdercoats the air, mingling with the iron scent of blood spreading across the floorboards.

No one moves for a long beat.

Jax finally curses again, low and guttural, dragging both hands through his hair. His eyes are wide, rattled, like he’s staring into a future where anyone could be next.

Mara turns away, pressing her palm to the wall, swallowing down her fear.

Elias holsters his gun with surgical detachment, his expression unbroken, as if he’d only removed a stain from the carpet. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t look at Silas. He just says, “Clean it,” and walks out.

The door clicks shut behind him.

The silence that follows is heavier than the gunshot.

I stare at the blood pooling around Ren’s still form. My hands are steady, but inside, something sharp grinds against old scars.

And then I feel it. Silas at my side.

He doesn’t touch me, not yet. But when my fingers twitch, he reaches out, catches my wrist in his hand, his grip firm, grounding. Not comfort. A claim.

His thumb presses against my pulse, steady and insistent, as if daring me to admit it belongs to him now.

My eyes flick up to his. Blue-gray, hard, unrelenting.

“Steady,” he murmurs.

It isn’t kindness. It’s possession that is dressed in calm.

And God help me—I don’t pull away.

Ren’s blood spreads like a stain no one will ever scrub out, a reminder of what betrayal costs in this world. I stare at it, notflinching, not blinking, though something inside me twists like a knife dragged slow through muscle.

Jax paces the far wall, muttering curses under his breath. He looks young for the first time since I met him, like the reality of loyalty and bullets has finally landed in his bones. He kicks the leg of the table, hard enough to rattle the maps, then points at Ren’s body without looking at me. “That’s what trust buys here. Nothing. Fucking nothing.”

Mara’s voice is low, steady but frayed. “Stop it.” She won’t look at the body, won’t look at any of us. Her arms wrap across her chest like she’s holding herself together. “He made his choice. Don’t make it yours too.”

Her words throb against me, pulling Kinley’s ghost tighter around my ribs. Betrayal has a pattern—it changes names but never the ending. I should feel fury. I should feel cold triumph. Instead, what I feel is the weight of inevitability, pressing against my lungs.

And Silas, still holding my wrist, watching me like a man measuring pulse not for life, but for ownership.

I shift my gaze to him. “You think this makes me weaker?”

His lips twitch, not into a smile, but into something darker. “No. I think it makes you mine.”

I want to laugh, to snarl, to cut him with words harsh enough to bleed arrogance from his mouth. Instead, what comes out is a rasp. “You’re out of your mind.”

He leans closer, his voice low enough that only I hear it. “Maybe. But so are you. That’s why you haven’t pulled away yet.”