Page 94 of Fractured Loyalties

His mouth lifts, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You think that was me breaking you?”

“No,” I say. “I think that was you holding the pieces just tight enough to stop them from shattering.”

He brushes a strand of hair from my face, then kisses my forehead, slow and deliberate.

There’s something quiet in his touch now. Not possessive. Not demanding.

Just present.

And I realize this man, who sees too much and feels too little, is letting me in. Not just into his bed, or his hands, or his skin. But into the space no one else gets.

The space where his monsters sleep.

And that scares me.

Because I don’t know how long they’ll let me stay.

But right now, I’m here.

And so is he.

Chapter 18 – Elias - The Quiet Watch

There’s a certain silence that comes after ruin. Not peace. Not relief. Just silence. Like the walls are holding their breath.

Mara is asleep, her legs tangled with mine, her skin still warm from where I touched her last. There’s a mark on her wrist from where I held her down. Faint. Fitting. A little crooked like the rest of us.

She’s asleep. I should be too.

But I’m not.

Because nothing in me feels still.

The room is warm with the weight of what we just did, the windows fogged, the air thick with sweat and aftermath. I brush my fingers along her hip, slow and steady, like my touch can keep her tethered to now instead of whatever shadows she wakes up with.

She murmurs something in her sleep and shifts slightly, pressing her cheek closer to my shoulder. Her leg stays hooked over mine. Possessive. Unconscious. Beautiful.

And for a second, I let myself just feel it.

I lie still for a moment, letting her weight anchor me. But my mind’s already moving. Mapping threats. Rewinding everything we missed while we were buried inside each other. The job Lydia flagged. The surveillance drop I haven’t checked. The pulse in my gut that tells me something is shifting outside this room.

I ease out from under her, careful not to wake her. She stirs once, murmurs something, but doesn’t wake. I pull the blanket higher over her shoulder and press my mouth to her temple. Just a breath. Then I move.

The hallway is dim. My phone buzzes the moment I step out of range of the bedroom jammer. Lydia.

Client flagged. You’ll want to read this one before 5 a.m.

No details. Just enough urgency to make it clear it’s not optional.

I don’t go to my office.

Instead, I stop at the wall panel and activate the secured channel, pulling the new file directly onto the terminal mounted in the hallway. The screen lights up with data—encrypted strings, metadata logs, images stitched from various surveillance feeds. The client request is clean. Precise. The contract language is cold, surgical. Just how I like it.

But the subject....

My pulse slows.

It’s not Caleb. It’s not even Mara’s world. This is my world. The one I built before her.