Page 8 of Fractured Loyalties

Then I shut the feed off and close my eyes.

Caleb Rusk is a threat.

And threats don’t deserve warnings.

I stay in the room, lost in calculating and watching the surveillance videos till it's dark, the room is now lit only by the faint perimeter glow around the muted monitors. I don’t need the light. I know where everything is.

I slide open the drawer beneath the center desk and remove the folder I shouldn’t have. The one marked with a red tab that was never entered into any system. Lydia doesn't know I made a copy.

Inside: the sealed file on Caleb Rusk. Photos. Court notes. Medical summaries from the woman before Mara. Different name, same patterns. Aggressive control, surveillance, threats. Charges dropped, records sealed. Always the same dance: dominate, isolate, vanish. He leaves bruises that don't show.

I flip a photo over. It’s a blurry image from a grainy security feed, a timestamp from two weeks ago. Not local. Too warm in the background to be here. He’s watching someone. Not Mara. Not yet.

But I can feel the shift coming.

I tuck the folder back into its drawer. Push it in slowly. Deliberately.

Out in the main room, I pour a second drink. Break my rule. Let it burn down my throat. The walls here don’t echo—too insulated—but the silence is still thick. I let it sit.

I press a button on the panel beneath the bookshelf. A compartment opens. Inside: a phone that’s never been used for calls. I unlock it, scroll past encrypted texts and dead contact numbers until I find the one I need.

I type:

Need a location. Caleb Rusk. Last 48 hours. Send proof.

Then I set the phone face down. No reply yet, but I know it will come.

I walk to the wall of windows that overlooks the city. My reflection hovers in the glass—sharp, clean, unreadable.

She doesn’t need to know what I’m doing.

She just needs to be safe.

Even if that means never giving her a choice.

The reply comes just before midnight.

Encrypted. No sender ID. Just coordinates. A time-stamped image follows. Grainy. Shot from across a gas station lot. Caleb Rusk, leaning against a rusted pickup, talking to a man I don’t recognize.

In the picture, the other man’s mouth is caught mid-sentence—blurred by motion. Caleb isn’t looking at him. His eyes are glassy, his face drawn. He hasn’t shaved in days. There’s a slackness to his posture that says he’s spiraling, not sleeping. But I know better than to mistake stillness for weakness.

I enlarge the photo. There’s a flyer stapled to a board behind him. Miramont. A local event. Two days ago.

So he’s here.

Closer than she thinks. Closer than she can afford to know.

My hand rests on the edge of the screen, steady. It doesn’t shake. Not like before. Not like years ago.

I move to the storage unit built into the far wall, unlock it with my palm. Inside, behind medical-grade packaging and biometric locks, rests the tool I told myself I’d never use again. Black, matte, precise. Cold.

I hold it for a while, not thinking. Just remembering.

Then I put it back.

Not yet.

I don’t need brute force. Not for this.