Page 51 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The alley across from the clinic smells like motor oil and burnt sugar—some bakery down the block leaking cinnamon into the rot of city gutters. I hate this part of town. Too familiar. Too open. The kind of place where people think daylight makes them untouchable.

It’s morning. Barely. Gray light leans on the bricks like it's too tired to fully commit. I haven’t really slept. I’ve been watching her window for hours.

It’s been two days since her cab peeled away from my place, and her silence shut the door harder than any words could have. I didn’t follow then.

But I’m here now.

She’s inside.

Moving like she’s fine.

Like the world didn’t try to devour her two nights ago.

Like I didn’t watch her knees buckle in the dark after the last shot was fired. Like I didn’t drag her behind the wheel and order her to drive while my shoulder wept red.

Mara Thomas has never looked more like prey than when she thinks she’s safe.

I lean against the edge of a dumpster, dressed like anyone else with a job and a grudge—dark coat, clean jawline, eyes flat as pavement. My Glock is holstered beneath the jacket, pressure riding tight against my ribs. Lydia would call this sloppy. Sentimental. She wouldn't be wrong.

Still, I stay. Watch.

She steps outside.

Not through the main doors—too exposed. She uses the side courtyard, gravel crunching beneath her sneakers as she angles her face to the sky. That bench to her right is rusted through. I know because I checked it last night. One leg loose. Useless.

She doesn’t sit. Just leans against the wall like it might tell her something.

For a second, I think she knows I’m here.

Her head lifts, and her eyes track along the alley like she’s smelling something rotten. It’s not paranoia if they’re actually watching you. I almost step forward. Almost break my own goddamn rule. But her eyes skip past, never landing.

Not me.

Someone else?

I follow her gaze. A black Civic idling near the corner. Tinted windows. No plate. Not Lydia. Her taste in tail cars runs cleaner. More subtle. If she were here, she'd be two buildings over, half a cup of coffee deep, and out of reach.

This is something else.

I feel it in my back molars. That weight. That shift in the air before violence takes shape.

She moves again—back inside. Her shoulders tight, jaw set. The door hisses closed behind her.

I slip my phone from my pocket.

“Talk,” Lydia answers, no preamble.

“Civic. Black. No plates. Outside the clinic. Yours?”

She’s silent long enough to make me taste copper.

“No.”

My hand curls around the phone. “Someone else is watching her.”

“Then it’s either Caleb, or someone smart enough to know how to look like a ghost.”

“Not Caleb. Too restrained,” I respond almost immediately.

Lydia exhales like she’s lighting a cigarette she doesn’t actually want. “Agreed.” She pauses. “That woman actually has more fight in her than you think.”

“She’s not supposed to fight. She’s supposed to be protected.”

“You mean controlled .”

I don’t answer.

She lets the silence stretch.

“I’ll run plates on anything caught on traffic cams between your place and hers. But Elias—if Caleb’s working with someone, it’s not one of ours.”

I know.

I hang up.

I watch the Civic, waiting for a move. Nothing. The engine hums. The windows stay black. The driver wants patience to look like power.

They’ll learn the difference when I take it from them.

If someone’s circling her, they’ll show themselves soon enough.

And when they do, I won’t wait for Lydia.

I won’t wait for anyone.

I step back into the alley, and I pull my coat tighter.

The Civic doesn’t move. Twenty minutes, maybe more, and I let the rhythm of waiting stretch until it feels like a blade against my skin. Patience used to be my sharpest tool. Now it feels like a leash.

I leave my car where it is and cross the street with my collar turned up, keeping my eyes angled toward the glass storefronts instead of the road.

The reflection in the barber shop window gives me what I need: a silhouette sitting behind the Civic’s wheel.

Broad frame. Shoulders wedged tight against the seat.

Not Caleb. He wouldn’t sit still this long.

I slow down and occupy a corner where I can stay hidden but still have a good enough view of the street, phone pressed to my ear. Lydia answers on the first ring.

“Report,” she says, voice dry, like she’s already bored.

“It’s not your tail,” I tell her.

“I told you that already.”

“I wanted to hear it again.”

“Paranoid suits you,” she says, and I can hear the curl of a smirk in it. “But you sound…rattled.”

“I don’t rattle.”

“Sure you don’t. That's why you’re standing across from a clinic at nine in the morning, stalking the woman who told you to let her go?”

My jaw flexes. “Watch your tone.”

“Or what? You’ll cut me loose like the others? You won’t. You need me. And if you weren’t rattled, you wouldn’t be calling again right now.”

“I’m only making sure we’re on the same page.”

Her laugh is thin, sharp. “Then call it something else. Either way, you’re circling Mara like she’s the only job that matters.”

“She is.”

That silence again, the kind where I can hear her thinking about how far to push me.

“You want the truth?” she says finally.

“Always.”

“Then here it is—you’ve got a car outside a clinic with no plates and glass dark enough to swallow the driver. That’s not random. That’s a net waiting for something to twitch.”

“Freelance?”

“Could be. But people like that don’t sit quiet for this long. My guess? It’s someone testing boundaries. Watching how fast you notice.”

I narrow my eyes on the Civic. The figure in the driver’s seat hasn’t moved. Just a shadow pressed into leather.

“Names,” I say.

“I don’t have them. Not yet.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Then let me work instead of demanding miracles,” Lydia snaps. “I’ll run the feeds, check what rolled into that block overnight. If that car’s been circling, I’ll find it. But Elias—”

“What now?”

Her voice shifts, steadier. “If someone’s trailing her, it means somebody knows where to look. Which means your circle isn’t airtight. Not anymore.”

My teeth grit. “You think it’s one of mine?”

“I think Kinley’s been twitchy since I laid eyes on him. And Jori? He’s staring at Mara like she’s the answer to a question he doesn’t even know how to ask. If either of them cracked—intentionally or not—it’s enough to leave a trail.”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Don’t bet your life on it. You taught me that.”

Her words stick, because they’re mine thrown back at me.

“If you want clean lines,” she finishes, “you cut where it bleeds.”

“By the way, I’ll send a team to the clinic, so you can go about your day.”

The call ends before I can decide whether to curse her or thank her.

I stay on the corner, phone heavy in my hand, eyes on the Civic. The driver doesn’t move. The car doesn’t budge. It’s patience dressed as power.

And I know exactly what Lydia means.

Patience only works until someone like me takes it away.

I’ve built my life on edges so sharp no one else could walk them. Now Mara’s in the middle of it, cutting holes where I used to be solid.

And the worst part?

I let her.

The Civic stays parked as I walk away, my reflection flickering in shop windows until the street bends me out of sight. Let it sit. If the driver wants patience, I’ll show him how endless patience can look.

But Lydia’s words won’t leave. Kinley twitching, Jori staring at Mara like she’s the answer to a riddle he can’t solve —she wasn’t wrong. They’re cracks in the glass. Small hairline fractures. The kind that splinters wide under the wrong weight.

By the time I reach my office, the day is almost half-gone. The lobby receptionist doesn’t meet my eyes when she tells me the clients have been rescheduled. My schedule has been bleeding for days. I don’t correct it.

Inside, the walls look the same: dark wood, precise order, every file where it belongs.

But the neat stacks of contracts blur when I sit down.

Pages of numbers and clauses, black ink meant to bind men who think they’re untouchable.

Usually, I cut through them without effort, but today, the words won’t pin down.

Mara’s face keeps flickering in the margins—braided hair, eyes watching me like she wants to see something I won’t give. And that Civic, probably still parked, still waiting.

I press my fingers against my temple, force myself to read a clause again. It swims. The numbers slide. My pen scratches across the paper, a signature where none was needed. Sloppy. I rip the page and crush it in my fist.

Work has always been where I dissolve need. But nothing holds right now.

By evening, the city outside my window has turned to steel and glass glowing against the dark. My reflection stares back at me from the pane. For the first time in years, I don’t look composed. I look—fractured.

That’s when I know.

Dom’s place.

The drive is muscle memory. Black streets, neon slicing through puddles, the low growl of the engine pushing me forward.

The club sits in its usual skin: a steel door with no sign, no mark, nothing to suggest life inside.

Just another shadow in a row of forgotten buildings.

To most, it’s dead space. To me, it’s a threshold.

The keypad glows faint green beside the frame, waiting. My print unlocks it. The lock thuds open with a sound I’ve always liked—final, mechanical, absolute.

The descent is familiar: stone stairs, faint bass trembling up through the concrete, air warming with each step. The air warms, carrying the faint scent of polished leather and something metallic that never fades from stone.

The main chamber opens wide beneath chandeliers caged in black iron. Discreet attendants in dark suits move along the edges, silent, purposeful. Doors line the far corridor—each one a world sealed tight, soundproof, impenetrable. Privacy here isn’t optional; it’s law.