Page 252 of Fractured Loyalties
The sedan idles twenty feet away. The driver door opens. A man steps out. He doesn’t hurry, doesn’t shout. He just stands there with the kind of posture I already know.
Caleb.
His shoulders are broader than memory, his stance still military neat, but his face—his face is the same smug cage Mara once lived inside. He tilts his head like we’re old friends.
The air carries that raw bite of early morning air. Caleb climbs out of the sedan like he owns the lot, jacket crooked, face carrying a faint shadow of bruises.
His smirk is all teeth, but his eyes flicker when they find mine. He hasn’t forgotten about our last encounter—his eyes flash with it, even as he tries to stand taller.
“You,” he says, voice scraping with the false bravado of someone who’s already lost once. “I wondered when you’d show up again.”
I don’t bother circling. I keep my weight forward, steady. “I already ended you once. Let you crawl away with bones still working. That was the only grace you’ll ever get.”
He smirks, but there’s a crack in it. “Grace? You beat me half-dead and then walked. That wasn’t grace—that was hesitation. You didn’t have it in you to finish the job.”
“I had it,” I answer, plain. “What I didn’t have was reason. I thought you might take the chance, disappear, stay out of her life. You proved me wrong.”
His laugh rings sharp in the cold. “So that’s what it was. You telling yourself stories. I don’t disappear, Voss. I don’t walkaway. She’s mine. Always has been. You should’ve crushed me when you had the chance, because now—”
The words hang, and I see it: his eyes burning with that same obsessive hunger that made Mara flinch at his shadow. It’s not about me. It never was. It’s about her. Always her.
I step closer, the gravel crunching under my heel. “You’ve mistaken a reprieve for weakness. That was your mistake. I let you live, Caleb. I don’t repeat myself.”
His jaw flexes, fists twitching. “Then try again. But this time, don’t lie to yourself. You wanted me dead back then. You want me dead now. Nothing’s changed—except I’m not running this time.”
The passenger door of the sedan cracks open. Another man leans out, nervous, armed, trying to look steady. I mark the angle, the weight of his hand on the grip. Not a threat yet. Not compared to Caleb.
Caleb doesn’t look back at him—he keeps his eyes on me, waiting for the second chance he thinks I’ll give him again.
He doesn’t understand. There is no second chance.
Caleb takes a few steps closer. His boots crunch. “Where is she?”
“You’ll never know,” I answer.
His jaw ticks. He reaches behind his back and draws a pistol. Compact. Worn from use. His arm steady, like a man who’s pointed it a thousand times.
“Then I’ll make you tell me.”
I almost smile. Almost.
Because this is the part he doesn’t understand: I don’t break under threat. I bend men untiltheybreak.
And right now, it’s time he joins the rest.
His pistol levels at my chest, but the weight of it means nothing. It’s a tool in the hand of a man who’s already lost. His eyes give him away—too hungry, too personal. Men who burn like that don’t last long.
“You think you scare me?” I say, stepping into the line of the barrel until I could touch it if I wanted. “You don’t even scratch the edge of fear. You’re just another broken animal who thinks noise makes him dangerous.”
He steadies his stance, draws in air through his nose. “You think you own her now. You don’t. You don’t know what she was like before me. She’ll never be yours.”
“She was never yours,” I correct. “You only caged her. That’s not ownership. That’s cowardice.”
Something flickers in his face—rage, the kind that turns men sloppy. He jerks the pistol higher, finger tight against the trigger. That’s when I move.
My hand slams his wrist aside, the muzzle snapping wide. The shot tears through air, deafening, but not where it should be. I jam my shoulder into his chest and drive him back into the hood of the sedan. The steel booms under the impact. His weapon clatters across the gravel.
The passenger lunges out now, panic spilling into motion. He shouts Caleb’s name, brings his own gun up. My hand finds the marker crack in the ground—a chunk of loose stone—and I send it into his temple. The man staggers, weapon slipping, his knees folding before he can fire. He stays down, groaning into grit. Not my priority.
