Page 60 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The air in the apartment is heavy with the scent of sex.

Sweat. Her perfume. The faint musk of leather still clinging to the belt I dropped by the dresser.

The dresser itself is crooked against the wall, its drawers half open, one of Mara’s ripped bra straps caught in the corner like evidence of a crime scene.

She’s gone to the shower. I can hear the water running, steady, a muffled hum through the walls. I should leave her that space, give her a chance to breathe. Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, head bent, trying to slow the storm in me.

I’ve broken women on a dresser before, bent them over a bed, tested them until their safewords were torn from their throats. None of it left a mark on me. But the sound of Mara’s voice when she came undone has carved something straight through bone.

She thinks it’s control I want. She’s wrong. It’s devotion. The kind you can’t fake, can’t run from. The kind that ruins a man if he loses it.

The shower cuts off. My head lifts. The sound of her bare feet against the floorboards pulls me out of my thoughts. She appears in the doorway, damp hair clinging to her skin, a towel wrapped around her. Her expression is unreadable, but her eyes are darker than before, sharper.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says, her voice raw from everything we just did.

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve mapped out every move I’m about to make. Like you’ve already decided what happens next.”

I stand. The towel clings to her curves as she crosses the room, chin high like she’s daring me to contradict her. My hand rises, almost without thought, catching her jaw, thumb pressing against the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t decide,” I tell her. “Reality does. And reality is simple: You’re staying here because out there you’re a target.”

Her jaw tenses under my grip. “You think a locked door and your shadow are going to stop what’s coming?”

“No,” I admit. “But they’ll slow it down long enough for me to find who’s pulling the strings.”

Her eyes narrow, skeptical. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

I release her, step back, force myself into the one thing I know how to wield better than anyone else—focus. “By following the trail. Volker. Vale. The Civic that waited across the street from your clinic. Every thread leads somewhere, and I intend to pull them until someone hangs.”

She watches me like she wants to believe me, but trust is a currency she’s not ready to spend. I can live with that. Obedience, I can take. Trust, I’ll earn.

I reach for my jacket on the chair, pulling it over my shoulders. “Stay here. Lydia’s outside. She’ll keep watch. If you so much as hear a noise you don’t like, you call me.”

Her brows pull together. “Where are you going?”

I pause, looking at her towel, her bare legs, the water still dripping from her hair. I want to say back into you . Instead, I say, “Work.”

“Work?” The word drips with disbelief. “Is that what you call it? Hunting?”

I don’t answer. Because yes—it’s hunting. Always has been.

I cross the room, heading for the door. Her voice stops me. “And what if you don’t come back?”

I turn, eyes locking with hers, letting her see the truth I rarely show anyone. “Then I’ll make sure the last thing I did was protect you.”

Her throat works around a swallow. The towel trembles slightly where her hand grips the edge. But she doesn’t answer. And I don’t wait for her to.

The door shuts behind me with a final thud. The hall feels colder than it should.

Time to follow the trail.

The living room feels different without Mara standing in it. Lydia is there instead, seated on the edge of the couch, boots planted firm on the floor, rifle bag leaning against her leg. Her eyes flick up the second she hears me.

“Are you heading out?” she asks, tone even, but I catch the question under the question: You leaving her with me?

“Yes.”

She doesn’t push. Lydia never does. Her gaze tracks me as I pull my jacket tighter, but she doesn’t ask where I’m going. She knows better. “She’ll be covered,” she says instead, almost like a vow.

I nod once. That’s all. Then I’m out the door.

The evening air hits sharp against my face. Lydia’s vehicle is parked at the curb, tinted windows, engine cold, but her presence stamped all over it. I pass it without looking in, sliding into my own. The leather seat fits around me like memory.

I don’t start the engine right away. I pull out my phone, scanning the feed Lydia sent earlier. Hours of traffic cams, street-level surveillance, pulled and scrubbed down to the one thing that matters: the Civic across from the clinic.

Nothing much to it. Just the outline of a man behind the wheel, but Lydia stitched together a trail—cam hits picking up the car four blocks south, then disappearing again into the industrial zone.

It’s enough.

The SUV growls awake under my hand. Headlights cut through damp streets, slicing through patches of fog and slick asphalt. The city thins as I drive—buildings half-abandoned, chain-link fences sagging with rust, alleys painted with graffiti.

The industrial zone waits, a carcass of brick and steel. Warehouses stand like tombs, windows shattered, roofs caving in. Lydia’s feed said the Civic turned off here. If it’s anywhere, it’s here.

I park at the edge of a weed-choked lot, engine off, the silence heavy. Across the cracked pavement, I see it. The Civic. Parked near a warehouse wall, tucked into shadow like it belongs.

My jaw tightens.

I step out, pushing through the gate with enough force to make the hinges screech. The noise doesn’t bother me. Noise is bait.

Inside, the space yawns open—pillars, broken glass crunching underfoot, puddles catching stray light. The Civic sits quiet, doors closed, hood cooling.

I approach, circling it slow. No one in the driver’s seat. No music this time. Just a car waiting.

But when I pull the door, it opens. And beneath the driver’s seat, my hand catches paper.

A manila envelope.

I tear it open. Photos spill into my hand.

Not of me. Mara.

Walking out of her apartment. Sitting at the clinic desk. Standing in the courtyard with sunlight on her face. Dozens of angles, all recent.

My grip tightens on the stack until the edges bend.

Then I hear it—the scrape of a boot across concrete.

Not bait. A lure.

I don’t turn yet. My fingers close around the weapon at my side, steady, patient.

“Eidolon,” a voice calls from the shadows, mocking, sharp. “Or should I say Elias? Doesn’t matter. You came.”

I pivot, gun raised.

A man steps into the fractured light. Vale’s man. One of his lieutenants.

And he’s smiling.

The smile on his face is wrong. Too casual for a man standing in front of me with a gun aimed between his eyes. It’s the kind of smile that says he thinks he knows more than I do.

He doesn’t.

“Drop it,” I say. My voice carries across the warehouse, no need to raise it. The kind of command that makes weaker men piss themselves.

He doesn’t drop anything. Doesn’t even raise his hands. “Vale said you’d sniff your way here.” His tone is slick, oiled with arrogance. “He said you’d take the bait the second she was involved.”

The envelope crinkles in my grip. Photos of Mara stare up at me from the floor where I tossed them. Every one of them proof that Vale’s reach is already too close.

The little show over the phone back at the warehouse close to Volker’s facility is just a pretend truce. I see it now, clear as blood on concrete. It was never about peace or about me helping get Jori out. Does he even care about Jori anymore?

It’s just Vale being Vale; he was just buying time. Time to shift the board, change the angle. He doesn’t stop. He adapts. He’s trying to be me. And Mara? She’s never been collateral. She’s the fulcrum. The point he wants to bend until everything I’ve built snaps under the strain.

This isn’t about revenge. It’s control. He wants the edge, the disruption. Not a war on the outside, but erosion from within. He knows I’ll protect her. He’s counting on it.

“Where is he?” I ask.

The man chuckles. Not nervous. Confident. “You think I’m dumb enough to tell you? I walk out of here with my tongue, Vale cuts it off himself.”

“Then you’re not walking out.”

My gun lowers fractionally, not out of mercy but calculation.

One step. Another. The distance closes, until I’m in striking range.

He shifts, ready for me, but he’s not fast enough.

My fist crashes into his jaw, snapping his head sideways.

His body stumbles, slamming against one of the concrete pillars.

Before he can recover, I’ve got him pinned, my forearm crushing across his throat, the barrel of the gun pressed into his ribs. His breath hitches, a wet rasp in the shadows.

“You don’t get to say Vale’s name in my ear without paying for it,” I hiss. “So start talking.”

He grins through blood on his teeth. “He was right. She’s your weakness.”

I slam him harder against the pillar, enough to make the sound echo through the empty space. “Last chance.”

He spits red, lets it drip down his chin. “He knows where she lives. Where she works. Every step she takes. He wants you distracted, Elias. He wants you to start looking over your shoulder instead of at him.”

My stomach knots, rage cutting through me sharper than any blade. “How?”

“Eyes everywhere,” the man chokes out. “And ears. One of yours has already cracked.”

The words burn like acid. I push harder against his throat. “Who?”

His smile widens. Broken teeth, blood-streaked lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I press the gun harder into his ribs, enough for him to feel the chamber ready. His breath comes ragged now, less smug, but not broken. Not yet.

“You’re already dead,” I tell him, steady as a knife. “How much pain you feel before that is up to you.”

His eyes flick, betraying him. Not much. Just enough. Toward the far corner of the warehouse.

I catch it.

Shadows move.

Another man, another gun, stepping out. Backup.

Vale always doubles the bait.