Page 8 of Fractured Allegiance

This shouldn’t matter.

He shouldn’t matter.

It was one glance. A club full of bodies. A million men in this city who dress like control and talk like nothing touches them.

So why did I look back?

Why do I still want to?

I grab my keys and head for the door, locking it behind me with a satisfying click.

The corridor is sterile and quiet, with no neighbors in sight. Just the faint hum of the elevator system two floors down. I keep this apartment for that reason.

No interruptions. No questions.

I wait a beat before stepping into the lift, checking my reflection in the stainless steel doors.

Everything looks right.

Which is exactly how you know something isn’t.

Dom’s club never sleeps.

The world upstairs might still be coughing into morning traffic, pretending coffee can undo a life of bad choices… But here, underground, the lights never quite go out. They dim. They shift. They hum in red and indigo and heat.

I take the back entrance. The one only about five people in Miramont have keys to.

Inside, it smells of money and distraction. Music oozes from the speakers in low tones, not for dancing, but for conditioning, for control. The tempo is slow, teasing. The bass isn’t loud, but it’s deep, like a hand resting just above your navel, ready to push.

It’s early. The main rooms are mostly empty. A few workers prepping the bar, a submissive cleaning boots in the corner. She doesn’t look up when I pass, and I don’t stop walking.

Dom waits in his private room, where black floors meet chrome walls that gleam like mirrors, only twisted enough todistort the truth. Makes everyone look a little too long, a little too thin. Like the version of themselves they pretend not to be.

He’s seated, fingers steepled, a glass of something amber in front of him.

“Lydia,” he says. Smooth, unhurried.

“Dom.”

He gestures to the chair across from him, and I sit. My posture is perfect, ankles crossed, hands resting in my lap, every inch of me trained to look composed.

The door clicks shut behind me.

He watches me for a second too long. That’s how he asserts control; with time, with waiting. Until he finally severs the hush and says, “You made an impression last night.”

I don’t blink. “On who?”

“Drazen. He was watching.”

“He always watches,” I brush off.

His mouth curves slightly. “You were calm. Controlled. Beautiful, but not performing.”

“I never perform.”

“No. You command. That’s why he trusts you.”

I let that sit.