Page 210 of Fractured Loyalties

“He came at you. You stopped him. That’s not wrong.”

I shake my head. “You didn’t see his face.”

Alec doesn’t argue, but his silence says he did see enough—more than enough. The memory of Caleb’s voice still claws at my skin.

The door opens. Celeste steps inside, closing it behind her. Her gaze locks on me, and I feel smaller under it. Not judged—examined.

She crosses to the counter, pours herself a coffee with the kind of composure that makes me hate her a little. Not because she’s cruel, but because she makes control look effortless when mine is slipping away.

Her voice is calm, level. “Security is calling the police. They’ll file a report.”

The words hit like ice water. My head snaps up. “No.”

Celeste studies me over the rim of her mug. “No?”

“I don’t want him—” My chest tightens. The words scrape on the way out. “If they arrest him, he’ll come back worse. You don’t understand—”

“Don’t I?” she asks, cutting in. “You think I’ve never seen what men like him do? That I don’t know exactly how they circle, how they bite deeper when someone finally says no?”

I freeze. Her voice hasn’t risen, but the edge in it is harder than Alec’s.

She steps closer, setting the mug down with a soft click. “The question isn’t whether he’ll come back. It’s whether you’ll still be standing when he does.”

Something inside me twists hard. I want to say I will. That I’ll survive like I always do. But the image of Caleb clawing through pepper spray, laughing, promising I’d always come back—it sits heavy in my gut.

My voice cracks, thin. “I don’t know if I can.”

Alec exhales through his nose. He doesn’t reach for me, but I can feel the tension in him, the way he’s holding himself still, like moving too close might shatter me.

Celeste tilts her head, studying me. And then she says something that cuts sharper than Caleb’s laugh.

“You talk and know he’s the danger. But the way you keep swallowing your truth—that’s what’s going to bleed you out.”

The words hit like a strike to the ribs. I feel my pulse in my throat, hot and choking. My gaze drops to the floor, to the faint scuffs in the tile. Because if I look up, she’ll see it—the truth I’ve been burying since Elias dragged me out of Volker’s walls.

That I want his darkness. That I’m drawn to it, even when it terrifies me.

That a part of me is relieved Caleb came back, because it forced Elias closer.

Celeste doesn’t press, but the weight of her stare tells me she already knows too much.

And beneath it all, Lydia’s face flashes again in my mind. Out there, leaning against her car like the street belonged to her. Watching, but not for herself. For him.

Because of course she’s not here on her own. Elias sent her. He doesn’t trust me to walk a block without a leash hidden in someone else’s hand.

The thought digs deeper than Caleb’s words.

Caleb wants me cornered.

Elias wants me tethered.

And I can’t decide which kind of cage is harder to breathe in.

When I step out of the lounge, the air in the reception feels heavier, carrying the ghost of pepper spray and panic.

The guard who restrained Caleb is at the front doors now, speaking into his radio, eyes scanning every corner of the street outside. Another uniform has joined him, posture rigid, hand resting against the grip of his holster. The clinic never felt like a fortress before, but now every edge of it hums with vigilance.

I keep my arms folded across my stomach, pressing my palms into my ribs to keep from shaking. The receptionist glances up at me, her face pale, her expression careful. No words, just that look—the kind people give survivors when they want to ask but don’t dare.