Page 10 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The sound of her door closing doesn’t echo, but it lands in me like a loaded promise.

I don’t move from the hall right away. I listen—to the soft give of the mattress as she lowers herself onto it.

To the barely audible hitch in her breath.

She didn’t cry. Not when I pulled her into the car.

Not when I drove her up the cliffside. Not when she walked into this house with eyes wide and jaw tense.

She didn’t cry.

That matters.

I take three steps backward and vanish into the kitchen. No lights. I don’t need them. The house is wired into me. I know the exact shape of every object, every shadow.

Water runs. My hands beneath it. Cold.

Control is the only true safety. It’s what I offered her. It’s what she took.

But I saw her eyes when I touched her. The way her lips parted. The pause before she pulled away.

She wants to believe she can still run.

I dry my hands on a linen towel and place it exactly where it belongs. Then I cross to the panel behind the wine rack, key in a short sequence. The latch releases with a muted click.

Inside: screens.

Only exterior feeds. A perimeter net. Nothing inside. I promised myself that. And her. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.

One camera shows the road—still empty.

Another: the edge of the woods. Undisturbed.

She’s safe here. But safe isn’t what unsettles her.

I lean against the far wall and watch the monitors.

At exactly 8:12 p.m., I hear the faint sound of her door creaking open.

Bare feet. Slow steps.

I step away from the panel and meet her in the hallway.

She freezes. Her eyes catch mine in the dark.

"You okay?" I ask.

Her hair is a little mussed. Her breathing quick. But her chin lifts.

"I couldn’t sleep."

"I know."

She steps closer. "I wanted to see the ocean."

I nod once and lead her down the narrow passage toward the rear of the house. The glass doors there open with a silent glide. Salt air floods in. The deck is bare but wide, overlooking the cliff’s edge.

She steps outside without hesitation.

I follow.

The wind lifts the hem of her shirt slightly. She folds her arms. Then lowers them again.

"You said Caleb wouldn’t find me here."

"He won’t."

She studies me. "You’re sure."

"Yes."

Her eyes narrow. Not in distrust. In calculation.

"You make a lot of promises, Elias."

I tilt my head. "Only ones I can keep." I watch her reaction before I add, "Not that Caleb would ever get near you in my penthouse either, but something tells me you'd feel caged there. This place...it gives you room to breathe."

She exhales. A short, almost humorless sound.

I let the silence stretch. The wind moves around us like it knows something we don’t.

She turns and braces her hands on the deck railing.

"You watched me," she says quietly. "Before we spoke."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I step closer. Not touching her. But close enough that she feels the heat of my presence.

"Because I felt something was coming for you. And I needed to know if you’d break before it arrived."

She looks over her shoulder, eyes unreadable. "And?"

"You didn’t."

Her mouth curves. Not quite a smile. "Not yet."

I take another step.

"You won’t. Not with me."

That flicker in her throat again. Her breath caught between retreat and surrender.

"You think I need saving."

"I think you need choice."

She turns fully now. The railing against her back.

"And what are you, Elias? My protector? My jailer?"

My jaw tightens. "Both. If I have to be."

She stares at me, as if weighing the gravity of that answer.

Then she whispers, "I don’t know whether to run from you or toward you."

I move closer still. "You already know the answer."

She doesn’t step away, doesn’t speak. She just watches me like I’m the puzzle she’s afraid to finish.

Then her hand lifts. Barely. Fingertips brushing my chest.

"What happens if I stay?" she asks.

I reach up slowly, closing my fingers over hers, anchoring them against my heart.

"Then you’ll find out who I really am."

She doesn’t answer, at least, not with words.

Her hand lingers there, resting against me like she’s weighing the gravity of what I’ve just said.

When she finally steps back, it’s reluctant.

She disappears down the hall and into her room without another glance, the echo of her touch still burning in my chest.

She doesn't sleep. I know the sound of stillness when it's shaped by fear, and that's not what this is. The hush in her room is alert, not panicked. It's the sound of a woman wide awake and trying not to be.

I sit at the edge of the deck, letting the ocean wind drag cold fingers across my face. She left the sliding door slightly ajar when she went back inside. A gesture that wasn't trust, not quite, but something close. An invitation, maybe. Or a test.

I don’t move.

Not until I hear her steps again. Slower this time. Steady. Measured.

She stands just inside the doorway. “Are you waiting for something?”

I turn my head slightly, enough to see her silhouette framed in golden lamplight.

“I was listening,” I answer.

She frowns, steps out barefoot onto the deck. “To what?”

“Your breathing.”

She pauses. “You’re either trying to scare me, or you’re terrible at flirting.”

“I’m not trying to do either.”

She comes to stand beside me. Her sweater sleeves hang past her wrists. She smells like salt, citrus, and that faint floral scent that clung to her when I first saw her on the bench months ago.

“I feel like I should be more afraid of you than I am,” she says.

I let that settle. “Why aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

I stand. She doesn’t step back. Her eyes search mine, like she's trying to identify something dangerous and isn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when she can't.

“You said earlier,” she starts, voice hushed, “that you won’t pretend you don’t want me.”

I wait.

Her voice wavers. “I want to know what that means to you. Want.”

I take a breath, long and even.

“It means you haunt me,” I say. “Not because you’re weak or broken. But because I see what you won’t show anyone else. The part that’s still fighting not to shatter. And it makes me want to devour you.”

Her lips part. Just slightly.

“I won’t lie to you,” I say. “I won’t hide the way I look at you. But I also won’t touch you unless you ask me to.”

She stares at me like she’s trying to figure out if the danger she feels is from me—or from herself.

Her fingers twitch at her sides.

And then she whispers, her voice a thread pulled tight between curiosity and caution, “What if I want both? To run, and to stay.”

For a beat, she just stands there with her words suspended between us—an echo waiting for an answer.

I don’t speak.

Instead, I lift my hand to her cheek. My thumb drags a slow, deliberate line from just beneath her eye to the edge of her jaw. She leans into the contact like she’s been waiting all night for permission to do it.

“You can run,” I murmur. “If that’s what you decide. But you won’t be able to unknow this”—my fingers drift down her throat, pausing at the pulse hammering there—“how I look at you. What it feels like when I’m this close.”

She trembles. Doesn’t pull away.

A gust of wind shifts her hair across her face, and I catch a strand, smoothing it behind her ear. Her breath catches. Her eyes hold mine.

Then she whispers, “Don’t make me choose yet.”

I nod once. “Then don’t.”

I back away slowly, watching her expression as I do. She doesn’t mask anything. Not the confusion. Not the longing. Not the fear of what she might do if I moved an inch closer.

After what seems like forever, we move inside, and the house is dim. The warmth from the fireplace spills across the open living room like a promise. I don’t offer her a seat. I don’t ask what she wants. I let her follow me at her own pace. She does.

She walks into the room behind me and stops, her eyes taking in the space again, as if it looks different now.

Maybe it does.

I drop onto the low leather sofa and rest my elbows on my knees. She hesitates a moment, then sits across from me, folding one leg under herself.

“I keep thinking about what you said,” she starts. “That I need choice.”

I meet her gaze. “You do.”

“What if I’m not used to having it?”

“Then you start with something small.”

She nods slowly, almost absently. “Like deciding to stay.”

“Exactly.”

Silence again. Not awkward. Not tense. Just a held breath between two people orbiting something neither of us has named.

Then she says, “Tell me something true about you. Something no one else knows.”

I blink once. That’s the first time she’s asked anything real of me.

I lean back slightly, thinking. Weighing.

Then: “I built this house ten years ago. Before I met anyone who knew my name here. Before I had anything to hide. It was the last time I created something just because I wanted to. Not for control. Not for strategy. Just...because.”

She watches me with a strange softness.

“And now?” she asks.

“Now, everything I do is to keep the things I care about from being destroyed.”

A long pause. Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“Am I one of those things now?”

I don’t flinch.

“Yes.”

The silence between us stretches but doesn’t strain. She looks away first, back to the fire, its flames casting a warm ripple across her face. The flicker makes her expression unreadable—part hesitation, part hunger.

I let her sit in it. Let her decide what to do with the knowledge I gave her. For someone like Mara, whose entire life has been about control stolen and control reclaimed, that choice matters more than anything else.

Finally, she whispers, “Why me?” and looks at me now, maybe trying to catch the look on my face when I answer.

It’s not a question of vanity. She means it like a warning.

“Because the first time I laid my eyes on you, I saw someone trying not to vanish.”

She swallows. Her fingers tighten around the hem of her sleeve.

“I’m not used to being seen.”

“I’m not used to seeing anyone I want to look at twice.”

She flinches—just slightly. But she doesn’t look away.

I move from the sofa, stand, and walk to the side table near the fireplace. I open a drawer, pull out a narrow leather folder, and return to her. I don’t hand it to her yet. I sit. Let the weight of it rest between us.

“There’s something you need to know before we go any further,” I say.

Mara straightens. Her posture stiffens like a thread pulled too tight. “What is that?”

“I know more about Caleb than I told you.”

Her eyes narrow. “How much more?”

I open the folder.

Inside: photographs. Surveillance notes. Public record files I’ve annotated by hand. A partial timeline of Caleb’s movements over the last two months.

She stares at the contents but doesn’t reach for them.

“You’ve been watching him,” she says.

“Yes.”

A beat of silence.

“Why?”

“Because I was already watching you.”

Now she does look away. Not down, but out the window, where the reflection of firelight casts shadows on the glass.

I don’t speak again until she turns back.

“And I need you to understand this wasn’t about control. It was about protection. He came too close too many times. And you never saw it. You never would’ve.”

Her throat works, but she doesn’t speak. Her hands tighten again around her knees.

“You’re angry,” I say.

“I’m…trying to decide if I should be.”

“I’ll accept either answer.”

More silence. Then, without warning, she lifts the folder and begins flipping through the pages. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t flinch at the images. Her face stays unreadable until the final page.

Then she says, “You knew I was in danger, and you didn’t alert me early enough.”

“I waited too long, yes.”

Her voice lowers. “That’s not the part that scares me.”

“What does?”

“You, knowing how to find all this. And doing it so quietly.”

I look at her without flinching. “That’s who I am. And it’s why you’re still safe.”

She holds the folder for a long time after the last page.

I wait.

Not because I’m patient. Because I’ve trained myself to be.

Eventually, Mara sets it down on the coffee table. Her fingers are light, careful, like she’s afraid to disturb the weight of the truth it contains.

Then she says, “You said you did this for protection.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s all?”

Her tone isn’t angry. It’s something worse. It’s curious.

“No,” I admit. “That’s not all.”

She nods once. Slow. Like she’s confirming something she already knew.

Her voice lowers, not soft but dangerous in its steadiness. “Then what else?”

I study her. The light from the fireplace dances over her skin, bronzing the hollow of her throat. Her hair is disheveled from the ocean breeze. There’s a shine in her eyes that might be adrenaline or might be betrayal. I speak the next words with precision.

“You didn’t see what I saw. The way you flinched when you thought you were alone. The way you stopped breathing any time the wind hit the blinds wrong. And you didn’t know how you curled into yourself when you thought no one was watching.”

Mara’s lips part. But I go on.

“I told myself I was gathering data. Creating a safety net. But I wasn’t. Not entirely.”

“What were you doing?”

“Falling.”

That stops her.

The air thickens. She closes her mouth, opens it again. No words come.

“I watched,” I say, “because I didn’t know how else to be near you without undoing you.”

A beat passes.

Then another.

And then she says, “And now?”

“I still don’t know.”

She stands. Abrupt. Her body suddenly restless, pacing the length of the hearth like she can outrun the fire in her chest.

“You were like a stranger this morning,” she says. “Just a stranger.”

“I was never just a stranger.”

She stops.

“I know.” A pause, then, “I don’t know whether to hate you or trust you.”

I rise, slowly, and take a step toward her.

“Then do neither. Just let me be the one person in your life who doesn’t ask you to choose immediately.”

She blinks. Her throat flexes.

I close the distance between us. Just a breath away. I don’t touch her. I won’t—not unless she moves first.

But I lower my voice and speak into the space between us.

“Whatever else I am, Mara…I will never be the man who breaks you.”

And then—she exhales.

Not shaky. Not resigned. But relieved.

She leans into me.

Only slightly.

But enough.