Page 260 of Fractured Allegiance

I step closer, slow enough for her to see it’s intentional, not cautious. “The only person in this room who’s not pretending.”

Her eyes narrow. “And what am I, then?”

I let the silence stretch, then tilt my head just enough that she has to lean in to hear me. “Mine.”

Her laugh is short, cutting, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She wants to argue, wants to remind me she doesn’t belong to anyone. But she doesn’t say the words. She drains the rest of her glass instead, as if liquor can scrub me out of her blood.

The hours bleed together.

By the time the light outside starts to fade, the air inside the safehouse feels thick with waiting. We spend the day sharpening edges—checking weapons, recalculating routes, running through the Petrov Station plan again and again. Elias moves like a machine, calling in favors, tightening his grip on men who owe him too much to say no.

Jax hovers over the maps, trying to act like his head is in it, though I can see his mind chewing on Ren’s corpse in the morgue. Lydia, on the other hand, doesn’t flinch. She sifts through information like she’s sorting cards, pulling the right ones, discarding the weak. She’s the calmest one in the room, and it eats at me that she wears control like it costs her nothing.

By the time the sun slips behind the horizon, the table is littered with notes, empty cups, and loaded magazines. The city hums faint outside, the kind of noise that feels like it’s waiting for a scream to split it open.

Then Elias’s phone rings.

He grabs it off the table, presses it to his ear. His voice is clipped, carrying the same cadence he’s used all day. “Talk.”

I watch the change happen in real time. The steel in his face hardens, then cracks at the edges.

“What?” he barks. His gaze cuts toward me, then Lydia. His throat works. “Repeat that.”

Even from across the table, I can hear the panic bleeding through the line. Mara’s name tangled with phrases about movement, Drazen’s men, coordinates.

The ice Elias wears fractures in one violent motion. His free hand slams against the table, shaking the maps, rattling the glassware. His voice dips into something rawer. “If anything touches her—” He cuts himself off, his control locking back in like a blade sheathed. “Keep her alive. Move with your men. Head to the house. Do not wait for me.”

He kills the call, shoving the phone back onto the table like it offends him. His other hand closes around his gun, pulling it free as he turns toward us.

His eyes burn now—no polish, no armor. Just fire.

“They’re going after Mara.”

The words drag the air out of the room.

I stand before I even realize it, every muscle primed. Lydia does the same, her eyes dark with something I can’t name.

Elias’s voice cuts through. “We move. Now.”

And just like that, the waiting ends.

The room doesn’t pause long enough for doubt to form. Elias is already moving, his hands precise as he gathers the weapons laid out on the table—pistol, knife, spare clips, everything checked twice. The calmness he’s carried all day is gone, stripped down to raw command.

“Jax,” he snaps, “with me.”

The kid jerks upright, nearly knocking his chair over, but he nods. His fear doesn’t matter. Elias’s tone leaves no space for argument.

Lydia sets her glass down and walks toward the door without a word. She doesn’t ask if she’s coming. She doesn’t need to. Elias glances at her once, his mouth pressed into a hard line, then looks at me.

“You’re driving,” he says.

I nod, grabbing the keys from the counter. The pistol at my hip feels heavier than usual, not from the weight of steel, but from what we’re walking into. Drazen knows what Mara means to Elias. Going after her isn't a strategy, it's a provocation.

We file out, the night air slamming into us like it knows what’s coming. Elias strides ahead, eyes like gun barrels fixed forward, and Jax stumbles to keep pace.

Lydia slides into the passenger seat as I swing behind the wheel, her arm brushing mine—not by accident. She unlocks the console, taps in the coordinates to the safehouse with quick, precise strokes, then angles the screen toward me. “Follow this,” she says, as if I’d dare go anywhere else.

I fire the engine. Tires spit gravel as we tear out of the alley, headlights carving through the dark. The city is alive now, neon signs buzzing, alleys crawling with shadows, the hum of people who have no idea a war is about to ignite.