Page 70 of Fractured Loyalties
“I’ll come back.”
She says it like a promise. And a warning. But she doesn’t take a step without me.
Just then, she steps out of the car and disappears into the clinic. No backward glance.
I pull away from the curb, circle once, and park again half a block down where I can see the alley mouth and the glint of her window through the tree branches.
My laptop hums to life. I run a passive check on flagged names again—Lyle, Caleb, half a dozen aliases tied to burner phones. Nothing new. Just stale smoke and cold trails.
I lean back, one arm draped across the seat. The glow of the screen lights my face. My eyes flick from one angle to the next. Street, alley, front entrance.
All quiet.
Too quiet.
I could call her. But I don’t.
Instead, I scroll to an old dossier. Her intake photo from the clinic. The one from the day she started. She’s younger in it—only slightly—but enough that the shape of her mouth is different. Unsure. Guarded.
Now she’s all fire.
And it’s not the control I want.
It’s gravity.
Something that pulls me in without asking.
The comms chirp—a soft triple ping.
I check the alert. Someone’s pulling data from clinic records.
Not staff.
External.
A breach attempt, traced back to a location ten blocks from the dinner venue.
I sit up. Fast.
Mara hasn’t even left yet.
And someone’s already trying to get ahead of her.
This only means they have a way of knowing what’s going on in the clinic. It’s not a breach. It’s a message.
But what does Caleb really want? Why is he still circling?
My mind reels back to last night, to the moment I had him.
I had Caleb pinned to the ground, just far enough from anything that would catch us on record. Easier to end it. Easier to leave him there.
He didn’t beg. He didn’t gloat either. He just looked at me like he already knew I wouldn’t do it.
And maybe he did.
Mara was somewhere close. Watching.
I could’ve ended it right there. One pull. One clean shot. But her presence—felt, not seen—burned through the edges of my rage.
