Page 221 of Fractured Loyalties

The door shuts behind me with a final thud. The hall feels colder than it should.

Time to follow the trail.

The living room feels different without Mara standing in it. Lydia is there instead, seated on the edge of the couch, boots planted firm on the floor, rifle bag leaning against her leg. Her eyes flick up the second she hears me.

“Are you heading out?” she asks, tone even, but I catch the question under the question:You leaving her with me?

“Yes.”

She doesn’t push. Lydia never does. Her gaze tracks me as I pull my jacket tighter, but she doesn’t ask where I’m going. She knows better. “She’ll be covered,” she says instead, almost like a vow.

I nod once. That’s all. Then I’m out the door.

The evening air hits sharp against my face. Lydia’s vehicle is parked at the curb, tinted windows, engine cold, but her presence stamped all over it. I pass it without looking in, sliding into my own. The leather seat fits around me like memory.

I don’t start the engine right away. I pull out my phone, scanning the feed Lydia sent earlier. Hours of traffic cams, street-level surveillance, pulled and scrubbed down to the one thing that matters: the Civic across from the clinic.

Nothing much to it. Just the outline of a man behind the wheel, but Lydia stitched together a trail—cam hits picking up the car four blocks south, then disappearing again into the industrial zone.

It’s enough.

The SUV growls awake under my hand. Headlights cut through damp streets, slicing through patches of fog and slick asphalt. The city thins as I drive—buildings half-abandoned, chain-link fences sagging with rust, alleys painted with graffiti.

The industrial zone waits, a carcass of brick and steel. Warehouses stand like tombs, windows shattered, roofs caving in. Lydia’s feed said the Civic turned off here. If it’s anywhere, it’s here.

I park at the edge of a weed-choked lot, engine off, the silence heavy. Across the cracked pavement, I see it. The Civic. Parked near a warehouse wall, tucked into shadow like it belongs.

My jaw tightens.

I step out, pushing through the gate with enough force to make the hinges screech. The noise doesn’t bother me. Noise is bait.

Inside, the space yawns open—pillars, broken glass crunching underfoot, puddles catching stray light. The Civic sits quiet, doors closed, hood cooling.

I approach, circling it slow. No one in the driver’s seat. No music this time. Just a car waiting.

But when I pull the door, it opens. And beneath the driver’s seat, my hand catches paper.

A manila envelope.

I tear it open. Photos spill into my hand.

Not of me. Mara.

Walking out of her apartment. Sitting at the clinic desk. Standing in the courtyard with sunlight on her face. Dozens of angles, all recent.

My grip tightens on the stack until the edges bend.

Then I hear it—the scrape of a boot across concrete.

Not bait. A lure.

I don’t turn yet. My fingers close around the weapon at my side, steady, patient.

“Eidolon,” a voice calls from the shadows, mocking, sharp. “Or should I say Elias? Doesn’t matter. You came.”

I pivot, gun raised.

A man steps into the fractured light. Vale’s man. One of his lieutenants.