Page 201 of Fractured Loyalties

Lydia exhales like she’s lighting a cigarette she doesn’t actually want. “Agreed.” She pauses. “That woman actually has more fight in her than you think.”

“She’s not supposed to fight. She’s supposed to be protected.”

“You meancontrolled.”

I don’t answer.

She lets the silence stretch.

“I’ll run plates on anything caught on traffic cams between your place and hers. But Elias—if Caleb’s working with someone, it’s not one of ours.”

I know.

I hang up.

I watch the Civic, waiting for a move. Nothing. The engine hums. The windows stay black. The driver wants patience to look like power.

They’ll learn the difference when I take it from them.

If someone’s circling her, they’ll show themselves soon enough.

And when they do, I won’t wait for Lydia.

I won’t wait for anyone.

I step back into the alley, and I pull my coat tighter.

The Civic doesn’t move. Twenty minutes, maybe more, and I let the rhythm of waiting stretch until it feels like a blade against my skin. Patience used to be my sharpest tool. Now it feels like a leash.

I leave my car where it is and cross the street with my collar turned up, keeping my eyes angled toward the glass storefronts instead of the road. The reflection in the barber shop window gives me what I need: a silhouette sitting behind the Civic’s wheel. Broad frame. Shoulders wedged tight against the seat. Not Caleb. He wouldn’t sit still this long.

I slow down and occupy a corner where I can stay hidden but still have a good enough view of the street, phone pressed to my ear. Lydia answers on the first ring.

“Report,” she says, voice dry, like she’s already bored.

“It’s not your tail,” I tell her.

“I told you that already.”

“I wanted to hear it again.”

“Paranoid suits you,” she says, and I can hear the curl of a smirk in it. “But you sound…rattled.”

“I don’t rattle.”

“Sure you don’t. That's why you’re standing across from a clinic at nine in the morning, stalking the woman who told you to let her go?”

My jaw flexes. “Watch your tone.”

“Or what? You’ll cut me loose like the others? You won’t. You need me. And if you weren’t rattled, you wouldn’t be calling again right now.”

“I’m only making sure we’re on the same page.”

Her laugh is thin, sharp. “Then call it something else. Either way, you’re circling Mara like she’s the only job that matters.”

“She is.”

That silence again, the kind where I can hear her thinking about how far to push me.