Page 254 of Fractured Loyalties

Chapter 43 – Mara – Aftermath

I wake to an empty stretch of sheet and the ghost of heat on the pillow where his head should be.

For a second, I think he’s in the shower. Then the hush of the safehouse tells a different story. There’s no water running, no drawer sliding, no measured movement that belongs to Elias. Only the distant sound from the highway and the faint click of keys out in the hall where Lydia lives like a shadow.

My body aches in places that feel claimed. Marks sting when I shift. I sit up, and the sheet drags over my hips. A dull pull at my wrists reminds me of leather and a knot I asked for. I should feel ashamed. I don’t. I feel anchored and furious in equal measure.

He said tomorrow. He said we plan. I said I’d watch him and not look away.

I swing my legs out of the bed and stand. The floor is cool under my toes. The house opens ahead of me, all clean lines and glass, morning pressed flat against the windows. I take his shirt from the chair and shove my arms into it, buttons left undone because I don’t want barriers right now, I want the air on my skin to remind me I’m here.

When I step into the hall, Lydia glances up from the kitchen counter. Tablet open. Mug steaming. Face unreadable.

“He’s gone,” I say, even though I already know the answer.

She nods once. “Before dawn. Didn’t slam a door about it.”

I grip the edge of the counter to stop my hands from shaking. “You let him walk out.”

“I don’t let Elias do anything,” she says. “I track. I warn. I catch what I can when people fall.” Her gaze flicks down my body, not prying, cataloging. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.” The honesty drags out of me. “He promised he’d plan with me. He promised I wouldn’t be a passenger.”

“Promises live in rooms,” she says. “Men like him live in motion.”

It should infuriate me. It does. But the anger sits next to something else: fear, and under that, a wrong thing I refuse to bury—relief that he’s the one cutting instead of me.

The door lock thuds.

Lydia’s posture changes. Not a flinch. A subtle shift like a cat hearing the right set of footsteps. Elias steps in with the morning on his coat and the kind of stillness that means he’s emptied himself out somewhere else.

Our eyes catch and hold. That’s all it takes. I step toward him without deciding to.

He’s marked. Knuckles raw. Black shirt with stains a sink can’t catch. His pupils are steady. The calm in his face is dangerous because it never comes free.

“Volker?” I ask, voice roughened from the night.

“Gone,” he says. “Caleb, too.” His jaw doesn’t move.

Two bullets of truth. I expected one. The second hits me lower, base of the spine, like a wire cut. Air rushes in too sharp. I steady myself on the island because my legs don’t want to cooperate.

“I wanted to be there,” I say.

“I didn’t.” He closes the space and stops an arm’s length away, as if he’s checking me for damage. “You don’t need his face inside your head again.”

“I already live with it.” My voice breaks. “Every year. Every wall. Every time a car idled too long outside my building.” My hands curl on the stone. “I wanted to see it end.”

“It ended,” he says, quiet steel. “On my time. With my hands.”

Relief and guilt arrive together, two tides smashing into each other. The mixture tastes metallic in my mouth. I swallow it anyway, because it’s the only thing honest enough for this room.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For doing what I couldn’t.”

His eyes flicker. Not triumph. Something darker. Ownership edged with care. He takes the last step, cups my jaw, and tilts my face up until he can read every tremor.

“Say the part you’re afraid to say,” he orders, like it’s a command that will keep me alive.

“I’m glad he’s dead.”