Page 33 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

Elias moves to the window. Checks the angle. “The person who took it knew what they were looking for.”

“Yeah.”

“Which means they’ve been watching you longer than you think.”

The cold settles deeper into my chest.

“What if this isn’t about you at all?” I whisper. “What if I was the target before you ever showed up?”

He turns.

And for the first time, his face isn’t just hard.

It’s afraid.

Not for himself.

For me.

“We need to get back,” he says. “Now.”

I don’t argue.

Because I can feel it too now—the crack in the pattern.

Something’s not circling anymore.

It’s closing in.

We don’t speak on the way back.

Elias drives like the street owes him answers. Like every pothole’s a provocation. I keep my hands in my lap, fingers twisting, not from nerves—habit. The kind I thought I killed years ago.

By the time we pull into the lower garage, I can already see the shift in his posture. That sharp tilt of his shoulders. The one that says: something’s changed.

The door to the interior slams before I’m even fully out of the car.

I follow him down the corridor, past the vault, into the core room. The main terminal is lit up like it’s breathing fire.

Lydia’s already there.

She looks up at me. Her expression isn’t soft. But there’s something different in it now. Something like an apology. Or a warning.

“We found something,” she says, eyes flicking to Elias.

He says nothing. Just gestures.

She hits play.

The clip is short. Audio only.

At first, it’s static. Then a voice. Male. Calm. Confident in that way only monsters are.

Lydia speaks low, almost under her breath. “It’s him. Vale.”

The male voice crackles through the speaker. “You think she’s just leverage? No. She’s the design. He just doesn’t know he’s building it around her yet,” it says.

Elias glances sharply at Lydia, then mutters, “That’s Vale. Confirmed.”

Then silence.

The file ends.

I feel sick.

Elias doesn’t move.

His jaw ticks. Once. Then again.

“That was yesterday,” Lydia says. “Intercepted off a burner near the northeast docks. Same voiceprint signature that tagged the EIDOLON alert.”

I speak before I mean to.

“What does he mean, I’m the design?”

Elias doesn’t answer.

Because he’s already moving.

Across the room. Toward the weapons vault.

“Wait,” I say.

He stops.

Turns.

And I don’t recognize his face.

It’s not rage. Not hate. Not even vengeance.

It’s silence. Weaponized.

“You can’t just leave,” I say, stepping forward.

“I’m not.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Building the next move.”

“You said we’d go together.”

“I changed my mind.”

I flinch.

But I don’t back down.

“You think keeping me in this house is going to save me?”

He doesn’t respond.

So I keep going.

“You think this Vale person, whoever he, is afraid of walls?”

Still nothing.

Then Lydia’s voice cuts through the tension. Calm. Icy.

“She’s right.”

Elias whirls.

Lydia holds her ground.

“You want to burn him down? Fine. But you don’t get to do it alone anymore.”

His jaw clenches. But he doesn’t argue.

Then, finally, he looks at me. Really looks. And something breaks. Not the rage. Not the fury. Just the edge of the thing keeping him tethered.

“Then come with me,” he says.

Not a plea.

A challenge.

I nod once.

And I feel it. That shift. The one I was afraid of.

Because now we’re not just fighting for survival.

We’re hunting.

And I don’t know who I am when I go feral for him.

But I’m about to find out.

None of us speak after that. It’s like a final and irreversible decision. Whatever line we were holding back from, we’ve crossed it now.

Elias doesn’t wait for permission. He just turns and walks, purpose burning in every step.

He loads the trunk with precision. Not just weapons. Not just gear. But backup identities. Ghost tools. Layers of misdirection. Every piece of his past coming out of retirement like it never aged.

I watch from the steps. Arms crossed. Not because I’m cold. Because I don’t know where to put the heat crawling under my skin.

Lydia hovers near the door, tablet in hand, skimming data with the speed of someone who’s memorized entire continents by accident. “Northeast node triangulated three pulses from the docks. Last one went cold at 0200.”

“Which means Vale pulled the relay,” Elias says. “He’s shifting base.”

“Or going dark to bait you.”

“He already has.”

He slams the trunk. Not violently. Just final.

I step forward now, toward the car.

The silence isn’t awkward. It’s loaded. Two people building a war out of glances and breaths.

When he speaks again, it’s to the windshield. “There’s a train yard. East perimeter of the industrial belt. Used to be clean. Now it pings dirty every forty-eight hours.”

“You think that’s his nest?”

“No. I think it’s where he lets people see him. Where he chooses to be watched.”

“And you’re going to walk into it?”

“I’m going to make him think I’m stupid enough to.”

The plan unfolds as we drive. Each detail stripped to its core. No theory. No flair. Just edges.

He’s not thinking like a man in love.

He’s thinking like a weapon that remembers what it felt like to be loved once—and what it cost.

We reach the ridge above the train yard before noon. The sun is sharp. Unforgiving.

Elias scans the grid. “Three exits. One elevated platform. Two inbound access tunnels.”

“And you want me where?”

“High. Blind side. If something moves where it shouldn’t, you drop it or call it.”

I don’t hesitate.

Because the version of me that waits is already gone.

He hands me the comms bead.

I slide it in.

His eyes catch mine. “You freeze, I call it off.”

I nod.

But I won’t freeze.

Because the version of me that ran is already dead.

He moves down the slope, body low, steps light. I stay on the ridge for a breath, rifle prone, tracing his outline through the scope until he disappears into the undercarriage of a freight platform.

A rustle behind me.

Lydia, silent as a shadow, joins me at the edge. She doesn’t look at me—just holds out a small palm-sized tablet, its screen already scanning for live feeds.

“No chatter yet,” she says, her voice low. “But I’m setting up a trace buffer just in case Vale ghosts the signal again.”

“Where do you need me?” I ask.

She tilts her head toward a narrow service stair cut into the ridge’s far slope. “Comms hub. Vaulted corridor, two levels down. You’ll have clean feeds. You’ll see him.”

I nod once and sling the rifle back over my shoulder.

She falls in step behind me.

We move quickly—quiet and sharp through brush and shale—into the access path that takes us into the substructure of the yard. The stairs wind downward, tighter and colder the deeper we go. By the time we reach the threshold, the hum of surveillance feeds is already in the air, electric and wrong.

We don’t speak again.

Because whatever’s about to happen next doesn’t need words.

Just witness.