Page 18 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

I leave quietly, just the way I came.

The door eases shut behind me, and I step into the lot without a sound.

But before I go, I leave something behind.

A micro-listener, smaller than a coin, nested behind a photo frame on her shelf. Wide capture range. Encrypted. Trained to her voice.

I tell myself it’s for her safety.

I tell myself it’s precaution, not possession.

I’m already in the car when I hear Celeste enter the office.

“Who is he?” she asks.

Mara’s answer cuts through me.

“Someone I trust.”

It should satisfy me. But it doesn’t. Because her voice wavers at the edges, like she’s not sure if she means it.

But it doesn't.

Then Alec steps in.

I hear his voice—measured, smooth. He isn’t a threat. I know that. His history is clean. He’s been in and out of Celeste’s life for years. They orbit like magnets: sometimes close, sometimes apart, but never gone. Whatever heat there is between them, it’s settled.

Still, hearing him in that room stirs something feral in me.

I hear him invite her to dinner.

Harmless. That’s what it’s supposed to be. A group thing. A morale boost.

I know the pattern. Group settings where smiles stretch too long. Where trust gets tested under laughter. Where people like Alec play casual until something shifts.

It’s not about Alec. It’s about Mara. And where she lets herself be seen.

She doesn’t need team dinners.

She needs walls and a door and me on the other side of it.

Watching what she can’t.

She comes outside about forty-five minutes later, tension tight in her shoulders, her steps slow like she needs air that isn’t recycled.

I wait until she reaches the alley before I step out of the shadows.

She sees me and doesn’t flinch.

“I didn’t text you,” she says.

“I didn’t need you to.”

She crosses her arms. “So, you’re just everywhere now?”

“When I need to be.”

She sighs. “So there's supposed to be a team dinner tonight.”

“I heard. I'm not sure I want you there.”

She glares. “It’s nothing. Just a team thing. Celeste will be there.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, Elias?”

I step closer. Close enough that I feel the thrum of her pulse without touching. “The point is, someone slipped a note into your office this morning. The same office Alec walked into like he had something to prove.”

Her jaw tightens. “You think he had anything to do with it?”

“No. I think people are watching. And you being out in the open makes you a better target.”

She softens, just barely. “So, what—you want me to go back to the safe house?”

I nod once.

She hesitates. “I need clothes. I’ll have to stop by my place first. Maybe I can go quickly now, come back before anyone notices my absence.”

“You don’t,” I say. “We can buy you whatever you need.”

She looks at me long. Like she’s not sure whether to be grateful or afraid of how much I mean it.

“I’ll decide about the dinner,” she says.

And it sounds like a choice.

But it isn’t.

She decides to go.

She doesn’t say it aloud. She doesn’t need to.

The way she brushes past me, eyes forward, back straight, is answer enough. She’s going to that dinner whether I like it or not.

I follow her to the car. I don’t open her door. She doesn’t wait for me to.

The drive to her apartment is silent.

She looks out the window the whole time, arms crossed, the air between us carved sharp.

I hate this part of town. The slope of the street. The way the brick buildings lean into each other like they’re conspiring. The hallway light on her floor always flickers—bad ballast or worse wiring, I don’t care. I just know I hate it.

I park across from her building. Kill the engine.

“I’ll be fast,” she says.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No. You wait.”

“Mara.”

She turns, meets my eyes, and something in her face has cooled.

“I need five minutes. Alone.”

I don’t like it. But I nod.

She steps out, crosses the street, and disappears into the building.

I grip the steering wheel, hard. Count to thirty. Scan every shadow. Every car.

When she returns, her clothes are different—tight black pants, a soft grey blouse. Her hair is pulled back. She carries a small duffel slung over one shoulder.

She slides into the passenger seat without a word.

I put the car in drive.

Then she says, quietly, “I packed more than one night’s worth. Just in case.”

I glance at her.

And for the first time in hours, my breath finally moves again.

The sunlight filters through the windshield in long, slow angles, catching the edge of her cheekbone and the fabric of her sleeve. I glance at her hands folded in her lap—still, poised. Not clenched. Not uncertain. Just...firm. Like her decision’s already made and settled inside her.

“You’re still going,” I say. It’s not a question.

She nods. “Yes.”

The word is small but final.

I drum my fingers against the wheel. “You think I’m being irrational.”

She doesn’t answer that.

I let the silence stretch before cutting it. “They’re going to ask questions tonight. About where you’ve been. About the bruises they didn’t see before, the intimate marks.”

She shifts in her seat. “Then I won’t give them answers.”

“You think you can keep them all out?”

She turns to me then, eyes sharp. “I’ve kept worse things in.”

And that’s the truth of her. The thing I forget sometimes.

She’s not fragile. She’s flame with a good memory.

“I don’t want to control you,” I say. “But I need to know you’ll come back.”

“I’m not the one who disappears,” she says.

I flinch before I can catch it.

We ride the rest of the way in silence.

When I pull into the drive, I don’t kill the engine.

She looks over. “You’re not coming in?”

“I’ll circle the block. Make sure it’s clear.”

She opens the door but pauses before stepping out.

“Elias.”

I look at her.

“I’ll come back.”

She says it like a promise. And a warning. But she doesn’t take a step without me.

Just then, she steps out of the car and disappears into the clinic. No backward glance.

I pull away from the curb, circle once, and park again half a block down where I can see the alley mouth and the glint of her window through the tree branches.

My laptop hums to life. I run a passive check on flagged names again—Lyle, Caleb, half a dozen aliases tied to burner phones. Nothing new. Just stale smoke and cold trails.

I lean back, one arm draped across the seat. The glow of the screen lights my face. My eyes flick from one angle to the next. Street, alley, front entrance.

All quiet.

Too quiet.

I could call her. But I don’t.

Instead, I scroll to an old dossier. Her intake photo from the clinic. The one from the day she started. She’s younger in it—only slightly—but enough that the shape of her mouth is different. Unsure. Guarded.

Now she’s all fire.

And it’s not the control I want.

It’s gravity.

Something that pulls me in without asking.

The comms chirp—a soft triple ping.

I check the alert. Someone’s pulling data from clinic records.

Not staff.

External.

A breach attempt, traced back to a location ten blocks from the dinner venue.

I sit up. Fast.

Mara hasn’t even left yet.

And someone’s already trying to get ahead of her.

This only means they have a way of knowing what’s going on in the clinic. It’s not a breach. It’s a message.

But what does Caleb really want? Why is he still circling?

My mind reels back to last night, to the moment I had him.

I had Caleb pinned to the ground, just far enough from anything that would catch us on record. Easier to end it. Easier to leave him there.

He didn’t beg. He didn’t gloat either. He just looked at me like he already knew I wouldn’t do it.

And maybe he did.

Mara was somewhere close. Watching.

I could’ve ended it right there. One pull. One clean shot. But her presence—felt, not seen—burned through the edges of my rage.

I didn’t want her to see that version of me. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I let him go.

Not because I doubted what he’d done to her. Not because I thought he’d disappear.

But because I didn’t know how she'd look at me afterward.

And now I regret it.

Not just because he’s still out there. But because I hesitated.

And hesitation is a luxury men like me don’t get to keep.

Letting him go wasn’t a moral victory. It was a mistake.

And the longer Mara stays visible, the more I realize—Caleb’s not circling because he’s curious.

He’s hunting.

I don’t linger around after she leaves the car. The breach attempt has shifted the hourglass, and there’s too much I haven’t closed. The longer I hover, the more exposed she is—and exposure is something I can’t afford.

It’s already late afternoon by the time I reach my office. I take the stairs two at a time. Inside, the place smells like still air and paper deadlines. I haven’t been here in nearly forty-eight hours, and it shows.

There’s a stack of files on the desk—some flagged, others lined in red. I drop into the chair, sweep them toward me, and start flipping through. Movements. Accounts. Potential intel on Discentra clients and flagged contractors.

Noted.

My assistant appears at the door like she’s timed to breathe. “Lydia’s on her way up,” she says.

“Good.”

She doesn’t linger.

Two minutes later, Lydia walks in without knocking. Dark coat, tied back hair, the scent of road salt still on her. She shuts the door behind her and waits.

“We need to lock down the clinic perimeter,” I say. “Discreet eyes—civilian look, high-alert readiness. I want a full- time post across from the main entrance, visible line of sight. They rotate every eight.”

She nods.

“One more on a loose tail. Moving radius. Three blocks in every direction. Low profile.”

Her arms cross, one brow raised. “Expecting contact?”

“I’m expecting escalation.”

“And the apartment?”

“She’s not going back now,” I say. “But she might. Eventually. I don’t want to wish I’d done this.”

Lydia doesn’t say I’m paranoid. She doesn’t say it’s overkill. That’s why she works for me.

“I’ll handle it,” she says.

“Also….” I pause, lean back in the chair. “Start vetting everyone in the clinic. Especially temp hires. Anyone who’s come on in the last four months. Cross-check their references against outside connections.”

She frowns. “You think someone’s in?”

“I don’t know. But someone’s watching. Too close.”

Lydia gives a single nod and leaves.

I stand, stretch the tightness from my shoulders, and move to the small closet in the back of the office. There’s a charcoal suit pressed and ready. Nothing memorable. Dark. Quiet. Sharp enough to belong, soft enough to vanish.

I peel off my shirt and change without looking in the mirror. By the time I’ve buttoned the last cuff, I’m no longer the man from Mara’s morning. I’m whatever I need to be for the next hour.

Outside, the sun is down. The streetlights are the only color left in the city. I drive to the dinner location with no radio, no sound but my own breath.

It’s a corner building—one of those upscale restaurants that tries too hard. Glass panels, exposed beams, industrial lighting tangled with fairy string. The kind of place where people come to be noticed by pretending they don’t care.

I don’t park out front.

I take a side street, then double back on foot and find a spot two buildings over. A florist’s shop closed for the evening gives me cover. A recessed brick alcove shields my side angle while giving me a perfect line of sight through the wide windows.

Inside, I see movement. Laughter. Glasses raised. Mara hasn’t arrived yet, but the table is being set. Alec’s already there. He leans against the wall like he owns the space. Celeste is beside him, animated and effortless.

I watch.

I don’t move.

Mara will come. She’ll walk in like nothing has happened.

And I’ll be here.

Unseen. But always seeing.