Page 125 of Fractured Loyalties
Mara exhales slowly. “I didn’t step out with the intention to run.”
“But you packed like you might.”
“I packed because I didn’t trust the quiet to last.”
That undoes something in me. I don’t say it. But I shift closer, not touching, not yet. Just there.
“I killed Toma,” I say quietly. “He was working with Vale. And he knew about you.”
She nods once, unsurprised. “Then he deserved it.”
“He said something I can’t unhear.”
Mara waits.
“That you’re not leverage. You’re evidence.”
Her fingers flinch. But just for a second.
Then: “I know.”
And she does.
Because she’s not just my weakness.
She’s the seam someone’s trying to rip open.
And I’ll tear the world to fucking shreds before I let that happen.
We sit in the quiet with those words between us, their weight thickening the air. She doesn’t fill the silence. Neither do I. But something shifts in it—smooth and heavy.
I shift forward on the mattress, sitting fully beside her now. The bed dips with my weight, and she stirs—just enough to roll onto her back, her head turning toward me. The scent of her hair finds me first, soft and inviting, curling up from the pillow like a thread pulling me in, just before sits up, her mouth moves close enough to matter.
It’s not a kiss. Not at first. Just the nearness of it. A warning. Or maybe a promise.
I don’t move.
Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know what I’ll do if I start. There’s too much folded between us. Her leaving.My silence. The way her fingers still rest on my thigh like she’s waiting to decide which version of me will answer when she finally speaks.
“You’re too quiet,” she says.
“So are you.”
“I had to be,” she responds.
“I know.”
Another pause.
Then her mouth finds the line of my throat, slow and steady, like she’s mapping something no one else has earned the right to name.
I let her.
Because this—this heat, this ache, this tension drawn tight as wire—isn’t about comfort. It’s about recognition. She’s not reaching for safety. She’s reaching for proof.
My hand threads into her hair. Not rough. Not yet. But firm.
Her breath hitches.
