Page 272 of Fractured Allegiance

It should feel like rejection. It doesn’t. It feels like victory, just because she didn’t leave this time.

I watch her crawl onto the mattress, dripping onto the sheets already ruined with sweat and come, and lie down on her side, facing the cracked wall. She doesn’t say another word.

But she doesn’t tell me to leave, either.

I grab the towel off my hips, scrub it through my hair once, then throw it aside. My body aches from the fight, from the sex, from the admission I just made. But the ache feels good. Clean.

I slip into the bed behind her, fitting my body to hers the way I had hours ago. My arm hooks over her waist again, possessive, heavy, mine.

This time she doesn’t flinch.

She breathes out, slow, controlled, but I feel the tremor that runs through her.

And I smile into her wet hair, because that’s all the answer I need.

The morning doesn’t creep in. It slams. Light carves through the blinds in crooked stripes, cutting across the room like prison bars. Lydia stirs in my arms, then pulls herself free, leaving the imprint of her body against mine like she branded me in heat.

She doesn’t look at me as she slips off the bed. She wraps herself in yesterday’s clothes, smooths her hair with her fingers, reclaims her armor one layer at a time. By the time she’s at the door, she’s Lydia again—the fixer, the razor, not the woman who moaned into my mouth under scalding water.

She leaves without a word.

I sit up, grab my jeans, and follow.

The safehouse is restless. Jax sits at the table nursing a cup of coffee like it might save his life, eyes still hollow from the night before. Elias is on the phone again, pacing like a caged predator, every step sharp, decisive. His voice cuts in and out—names, orders, threats.

And Mara is at the counter with her sleeves rolled up, stirring sugar into her tea like this is just another, run-of-the-mill morning and we’re just a happy little family. But I can’t miss the care with which her eyes track Lydia the second she walks in. There’s something quiet about her gaze, the kind of stillness that makes men underestimate her. I know better than to do that. Elias Voss wouldn’t fall in love with a woman with a paper-spine. There is more to Mara than meets the eye.

As if to prove it, when Elias turns his back to bark into the phone, Mara moves. She catches Lydia by the wrist, a soft catchcompared to the way I did it, but it roots Lydia just the same. She leans in, her voice pitched low.

“Men like him don’t give without taking,” Mara says. Her tone isn’t cruel. It’s caution, a warning folded into tenderness. “Make sure you can live with the bargain before you pay the cost.”

Lydia doesn’t jerk away, but I see the flare in her eyes. Anger, yes. But something else too—fear, the kind she doesn’t let anyone see.

She tilts her head, voice edged with venom to cover the sting. “Appreciate the sermon, Mara. Maybe save it for Elias. He’s the one who’d burn the city down if you bled.”

The words land harder than she means them to. Mara flinches, just a twitch, but she covers it with a sip of her tea. Her gaze doesn’t waver, though. “Maybe that’s the point. Burning is easy. Living with the ashes… that’s harder.”

I watch all of it from across the room, unseen but listening, and something sharp twists in me. Because Mara isn’t wrong. She’s telling Lydia what I already know: I’ve cut every leash, and now the only tether I’ve got is her.

And she hates herself for wanting to hold it.

Elias slams the phone down, dragging all eyes back to him. His expression is carved from ice. “Enough chatter. Drazen’s leverage sits at Petrov. Tonight, we will take it. Drazen wants me out of this, that’s why he went after Mara, he doesn’t know he has made it even more personal to me now.”

The table falls silent. Lydia slips free of Mara’s hand, crossing her arms tight across her chest, her immaculate mask firmly back in place.

But I saw the crack. And Mara saw it too.

No one speaks. Not Jax, not Mara, not Lydia. And definitely not me.

Elias’s gaze cuts to Jax. “You’ll handle the entry. Drive us in, keep the exit clear. You choke, you’re left behind.”

The kid nods fast, too fast, his throat bobbing. Elias doesn’t care if he’s scared; he cares if he can obey.

Then Elias’s eyes shift to me. Hard, measuring, like he knows I’ve got more ghosts chasing me than bullets. “You’re with Lydia,” he says flatly. “Inside. She knows the layout, the players. You don’t miss, you don’t hesitate, and if Drazen’s men touch her, you don’t breathe until they’re dead.”

The command is simple. Brutal. And it lands like a fucking gift. Because Elias might not trust me, but he just tethered me to her in the one way that matters: survival.

I glance at Lydia, waiting for her to flinch at the pairing. She doesn’t. She leans closer to the map instead, tracing a line along the drawn corridors with one painted nail. “His men patrol in rotations of six. If he’s expecting us, they’ll double it. The vault will be reinforced, and if we don’t cut power fast, the backup servers will ghost the files. We’ll need to torch it completely.”