Page 44 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The room still smells like sex. And pain. My pain.

The air is heavy, humid with the residue of what we did and what it cost. My bandages are damp again—no surprise—but I haven’t moved, not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to.

She’s still on top of me, her weight delicate but real, her head resting on my chest like she’s daring it to rise and fall.

Her fingers trace the edge of the scar that cuts across my ribs. Not the fresh one. The old one. The one from a time before she knew my name.

“You’re still bleeding,” Mara murmurs, not moving.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

Her voice is calm. Steady. But her breath is shallow. I know that sound. The aftermath of adrenaline. Of surrender.

“I’ll redress it,” she says. “If you let me.”

“Only if you stay close when you do it.”

She lifts her head and looks at me with those fucking storm-gray eyes. There’s no judgment in them, just exhaustion, want. Something else she hasn’t named yet.

“You’ve had worse,” she says softly.

“Yes.” I reach up and brush a damp strand of hair off her cheek. “But not while caring if someone watched me die.”

That makes her go still.

There’s a shuffle in the hallway.

A knock.

It’s not impatient, not timid.

Kinley’s voice follows. “You’ve got a problem. Lydia says we’re not alone anymore.”

Mara tenses above me. I nod for her to get up, and she slides off me carefully, helping me sit up. My whole torso lights up with fire. My shoulder pulls like a stitched-up wound in wet fabric.

“I’m fine,” I snap before she can speak.

She doesn’t argue. She just reaches for my shirt and hands it to me. She knows better than to coddle.

I force myself up, stagger once, then catch my balance. The room spins, but I ignore it.

Lydia waits just outside the door, arms folded, pistol still holstered but ready. Her expression is unreadable.

“How bad?” I ask.

“Two vehicles spotted circling the perimeter three minutes ago. Thermal scans picked up five bodies in total. Two are on foot. Checking for movement. They haven’t breached yet.”

“Volker’s men?” Mara asks, slipping quietly beside me.

Lydia shrugs. “Could be. Could also be a private bounty. You’re a profitable man to disappear right now.”

My jaw tightens. “They’ll regret coming.”

She studies me. “Are you sure you’re up for that right now? You look like you just lost a knife fight with a blender.”

I grunt. “Pain is just leverage.”

Kinley leans against the far wall, checking his own sidearm, gaze flicking between us.

“We move now,” he says. “While they’re still figuring out the layout.”

“No,” I reply. “We don’t run. We need one of them alive.”

Mara looks at me. “To question?”

“No. To send a message.”

Silence.

Then Lydia nods. “What do you need?”

“A trap.”

I step fully into the center of the room, letting the weight of everything settle. The sex. The blood. The betrayal. The name Volker won’t stop using.

Eidolon.

He’s making it public. Dragging my past back into the light.

He wants the world to see what I buried.

And I want to know why.

Because the next man who breathes that name in my direction won’t get the privilege of spitting out his last breath.

The safehouse has three exits. One leads to a dead-end trail meant to fake a getaway path. Another spills into a ravine that no one walks out of. The third? That one we save for when we want to be seen.

Kinley and I step into the kitchen—him calm and sharp, me leaning slightly, favoring my right side. The blood is soaking through, but I’ll deal with that later.

Lydia pulls out the decoy satchel from under the false floorboard. It looks like a field kit. Inside are heat pads, signal scramblers, and something far more important—a GPS tracker that broadcasts just long enough to look like a mistake.

“You want them to follow it?” she asks.

“No. I want them to think we panicked. That we’re bleeding, exposed, trying to run.”

Mara comes in behind us. She’s changed—black jeans, a loose hoodie. She watches silently, but her presence changes the air. Tightens it.

I toss the satchel to Kinley. “Place it near the trailhead. Make it look like someone dropped it. Then circle back. Silent. No lights.”

He nods, already gone before I finish the last word.

Lydia tosses a fresh clip onto the table. “Still only five out there?”

“Unless they’re hiding thermals.”

She smirks. “If they are, we’ll know soon.”

I don’t like gambling on ‘soon.’

Mara edges closer to the counter, picks up a knife—not clumsily. Her fingers settle on the hilt like it’s something she’s held before. She’s not panicked. She’s preparing.

“You think they’re after you or me?” she asks.

“Both.”

Her throat works with a dry swallow. “You still think Volker’s controlling Jori?”

“He’s not just controlling him.” I glance at Lydia. “He’s using him to control Vale. Playing both ends.”

Mara lowers the knife. Her voice is tight. “So Vale doesn’t know his brother’s alive.”

“No. And if he finds out, he’ll become another weapon. Not against me. Against himself.”

Lydia raises an eyebrow. “You think he’ll break?”

“No. He’ll become desperate.”

And desperation makes people sloppy.

Mara speaks again. “What about the name?”

“Eidolon.”

She says it quietly, like it’s cursed. It tastes wrong in her mouth. I hear it.

I say nothing.

“You haven’t told me what it means.”

“It means nothing.”

Her eyes flash. “Don’t lie to me now.”

I turn to her. Let her see the exhaustion in my bones. “It means ghost. Phantom. The thing that haunts.”

“You?” she asks.

I nod once. “It was the name they gave me before I knew who I was.”

Lydia exhales hard. “Then it’s not just about power plays. He’s building mythology.”

“And I’m going to dismantle it,” I say.

Even if I bleed to do it.

The safehouse goes still.

Kinley’s already out in the trees. Lydia disappears into the back hallway to reposition with the rifle she never brags about, but I’ve seen her gut a man at six hundred meters with it.

Mara stays by the window, watching the fog thicken at the edge of the trees. Her fingers are tight around the knife. Not because she’s afraid. Because she’s waiting to be.

I peel off the blood-soaked gauze from my shoulder with a wince. The bullet missed the bone, but not by much. Mara moves before I can say a word.

“I’ll do it.”

She kneels beside the armchair, unscrewing the lid on the antiseptic bottle. Her hands don’t tremble.

“This will hurt,” she warns.

“Good.”

The sting burns through me like acid. I grit my teeth and let it take something with it. She works fast—pressure, clean gauze, tighter bandage—and the whole time, neither of us says a word. There’s nothing left to explain.

When she finishes, she straightens and meets my eyes.

“Don’t get shot again.”

“I’ll try.”

There’s a beat of something between us. It doesn’t have a name. It just exists.

Then static crackles.

“Visual,” Lydia whispers over the comms. “One near the decoy. Another circling north. Two more just exited the vehicle. The last one’s staying in the van. Driver or overwatch.”

“Shoot to injure,” I say. “Make it loud. Make it messy.”

“Understood.”

I count to five.

The first shot punches through the silence like a gavel. Then the second. A scream follows—high, male, unpracticed in pain. Lydia’s a surgeon when she wants to be. This time, she wants to be a butcher.

Kinley’s voice cuts in, low and taut. “One down. Got eyes on a runner.”

“Let him run,” I say. “We need the rest to scatter.”

I move to the window beside Mara. In the gloom, movement flickers—shadows peeling off trees, one form hobbling away. Another crawling. A third slamming against the trailhead sign and dropping to his knees.

They weren’t ready for this.

That means Volker didn’t send them.

He would’ve sent wolves.

These are dogs.

Mara whispers, “Then who?”

I don’t answer.

Because I already know who might be desperate enough to send men with no training and no backup.

Vale.

And that means he knows.

It means Volker let him know.

And now I have to decide which of them I take down first.

I step away from the window. The weight of it all settles in my bones like old rot—this name that won’t die, this game I’m pulled back into. Eidolon. I left him behind years ago. Thought I buried that ghost in enough blood to keep it still. Volker wants it resurrected.

No. He wants it weaponized.

Mara turns toward me. Her voice is barely audible. “You need to talk to Vale.”

I shake my head. “Not yet. Not until I know what he knows. What Volker gave him. What he left out.”

Kinley’s voice crackles over the comms. “Two left. Both retreating. No eyes on the van anymore. It’s gone.”

“Let it go,” I say. “We have what we need.”

Lydia rejoins us in the living room, rifle slung casually across her back. She looks almost bored. But her eyes never stop moving.

“That was sloppier than usual,” she says, brushing mud off her sleeve. “Whoever they were, they weren’t professionals.”

“They were desperate,” I reply. “And desperate men don’t last long.”

Mara leans against the wall, arms crossed. She’s trying to look unaffected. But her foot is bouncing—barely a twitch, but I see it. She’s vibrating with the need to do something.

“You’re not used to waiting,” I tell her.

She lifts her gaze. “No. I’m used to hiding.”

I walk to her, close enough that her breath stutters. “You’re not hiding anymore.”

She stares at me for a long second, then says, “Then stop treating me like I’m something to be guarded. I can be useful.”

“You are,” I say, softer now. “But the things coming for us don’t play fair.”

She doesn’t flinch. “Neither do I.”

I exhale slowly. She means it.

Kinley enters through the back, snow dusting his shoulders. He tosses a bloodied patch down on the table—a shoulder insignia, torn from one of the dead men.

“Recognize it?” he asks.

I nod. “Ex-military. Private blacksite in Bratislava used years ago. Mercs-for-hire. Someone paid them.”

“Not Volker,” Lydia says. “He doesn’t outsource.”

“No. But someone else might’ve, to cover tracks.”