Chapter 8 – Silas - Fire Test
I see her before she sees me.
Red velvet hugging every line like it was poured on. Thigh peeking through the slit as she steps out of Dom’s car like it’s nothing, like she doesn’t know what she’s walking into. But I know she does. She always does.
Drazen said she’d be at the meet.
He didn’t say why. Just looked at me while zipping a Kevlar vest and muttered, “She intimidates better than a dozen of you.”
He thinks she’s a weapon.
But he doesn't see the whole picture—the way the room tilts when she walks in, the way men forget to lie. Power doesn't always wear a suit. Sometimes it wears heels and slips into a room like a dream you can't shake.
The warehouse is a repurposed slaughterhouse near the docks. It still smells like iron, all cold walls and concrete floors that hold the chill.
Light bleeding in through broken windows like it’s trying not to witness.
Drazen moves ahead with two of his men, Renzo and Bishop. The human embodiment of all brawn and no brains. I trail behind, listening to their exchange. Giving free information away, as if information isn’t power.
The buyers are already inside. Serbian, maybe. Or Polish. Hard accents and twitchy hands. The kind who laugh too loud and sweat through their collars.
A crate sits between us. Guns wrapped in black plastic. An offer on display.
Dom enters first. Then her.
She’s calm. Still. Like a woman who walked through fire and came out daring it to burn her again.
Her eyes flick across the room once. Don’t land on me. Good.
Because when they do, I’ll forget everything I’m supposed to remember.
Drazen doesn't bother with real introductions. Just gestures toward her with casual ownership.
"This is Lydia," he says. "If we don't like your numbers, she'll make you like ours."
It's a power move—showing her off while making it clear she's more than just window dressing. A threat wrapped in elegance.
The men laugh. One stares too long. I clock him. He's armed.
I look at Lydia.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t shift. Just says, “Numbers don’t care what you like. They only care who writes the final one.”
It silences the room.
That’s her power. She doesn’t raise her voice. She raises the floor you’re standing on.
Drazen looks satisfied. For now.
The deal begins. Talking. Paperwork. Currency codes. Weapon specs. The kind of language that says: someone here is lying, and someone’s about to die for it.
I scan the exits. One in back. Two up high. Sniper angles blocked by dust-caked glass. Bad terrain. Worse odds.
I edge closer to the crate, playing muscle. One of the men shifts wrong. Hands too fidgety. I see the moment before it happens—
He twitches.
And all hell fractures.
The twitch is small.
Not even a full gesture. Just a pinky sliding down the side of a jacket, brushing the edge of fabric that shouldn’t be hanging loose.
But I know that kind of reach. It's not nervousness. It’s calculation. And I’m already moving when the first shot cracks.
It hits Renzo. Not a kill shot. Shoulder, high. He staggers back and knocks into the crate, tipping it halfway open. The metal clangs are deafening. The whole room seems to convulse.
Bishop fires wild. Dom ducks.
Lydia doesn't scream.
She seems to move by instinct, her movements smooth and agile.
Her heels skid once on the concrete as she drops behind the nearest rusted support beam, the hem of the red dress trailing just enough for me to clock her position before smoke blinds my periphery.
My gun’s already out.
I drop the twitchy one first with a clean shot through the throat. No drama, no noise. Just a sick, wet collapse. One of the others turns, yells in a language I don’t need to understand. His weapon’s raised, but he makes the mistake of holding it up too high. Center mass exposed.
I shoot once, then twice, in quick succession.
He drops.
Smoke’s rising now, thick and intentional. Someone came prepared for this to go bad. A flare ignites behind the crate. Either they rigged it, or someone from Drazen’s crew is playing both sides.
I slide into the cover of a rusted-out metal shelf and scan through the smoke.
Three enemies down.
One unaccounted for.
And Lydia?
Still crouched. Back to the beam. Eyes wide but focused. The red velvet has streaks of black dust on it now. One strap has fallen.
She looks like chaos dressed in blood.
But she’s not panicking.
She’s calculating.
I move around the back of the crate, staying in Drazen’s line of sight just enough to not disappear, but far enough to give myself room.
Bishop is on the ground, gun jammed. Renzo’s bleeding, swearing in three languages. Drazen’s barking orders and ducking behind another crate like he’s some trench general, but he’s not pulling the trigger.
Dom, to his credit, is covering Lydia.
But barely.
One of the Serbs — the last one — emerges from the smoke behind a half-wall of scrap metal.
He’s got eyes on Lydia.
He’s moving fast.
And no one else sees it.
Not Drazen.
Not Dom.
Just me.
I move in.
Quiet. Fast. Surgical.
My boots don’t echo. My arm doesn’t shake. I get close enough to see the man’s pulse in his throat.
His gun’s raised.
Finger on the trigger.
He doesn’t get the chance.
I grab the back of his collar, wrench him off balance, slam him into the support pillar with a dull crack. The gun clatters. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Just a low rasp.
I press the muzzle to his ribs.
Pull the trigger once.
He folds.
Lydia saw it.
She doesn’t move, but our eyes lock.
Through smoke. Through noise. Through blood on the walls.
And for a second, it’s just us.
Me with a gun still smoking.
Her in red, breathing like a woman who’s just seen behind the curtain and recognized what stared back.
She doesn’t speak.
Neither do I.
Dom grabs her wrist and pulls her toward the side exit Drazen’s yelling about.
She goes.
But she looks over her shoulder once.
Straight at me.
The kind of look that isn’t thanks. Isn’t fear. Isn’t even confusion.
It’s recognition.
Like she’s replaying something in her head.
And finally, it clicks.
Not what I am.
Who I am.
I wait until they’re clear. Until Drazen’s halfway through the loading bay screaming into his burner phone about ruined merchandise and dead buyers. He’s angry, but not surprised.
Which tells me everything I need to know.
This wasn’t a botched deal.
This was a test.
Of loyalty.
Of reactions.
Of me.
And maybe of her.
I holster the weapon.
Wipe blood off my gloves.
And walk toward the back exit like I didn’t just rewrite the outcome of tonight.
By the time I circle around the back of the warehouse and cut through the alley, Drazen’s already lighting a cigarette with fingers that don’t shake nearly enough.
He stands outside the black SUV we arrived in, blood spattered on one sleeve of his coat. Renzo is slumped in the back seat, pale, cradling his shoulder, swearing under his breath. Bishop’s nowhere in sight, so I assume he’s either being patched up or has been dumped somewhere to bleed in peace.
Dom is already back there, he leans against the hood, phone pressed to one ear, but his eyes track me the second I approach.
Drazen doesn’t look up.
I wait until the lighter clicks shut before speaking.
“Two buyers down. One ran. One neutralized before he could get a shot off.”
Drazen exhales. “You sure it was a buyer?”
“Wasn’t ours.”
He nods, still staring at the glowing end of the cigarette like it’s talking to him. Then he turns and finally faces me.
There’s a question in his eyes he doesn’t ask out loud.
The kind that doesn’t have a right answer.
“Lydia?” he says instead.
“She’s fine.”
“Of course she is.” He smiles. Tight. Performed. “Would’ve been a shame to lose her.”
That’s not a compliment. That’s inventory assessment.
He ashes the cigarette on the curb and lets it drop.
“I didn’t think they’d panic so easily,” he says.
Bullshit. He expected panic. He counted on it. He wanted to see who moved first. Who broke formation. Who revealed their tells.
And I didn’t.
Not in front of him.
Dom ends his call. Slides his phone into his coat pocket.
“Cleanup crew’s inbound,” he says. “No cops. No headlines. Just a burned deal and a few dead idiots.”
Drazen doesn’t respond. He just walks to the SUV and leans in, murmurs something to Renzo, then shuts the door and turns back.
“You hungry?” he asks me.
I shake my head.
He watches me a second longer than necessary, then shrugs and starts walking down the block like he’s decided I passed whatever exam he built into tonight.
But I know better.
There’s no passing.
Only delays.
I don’t follow him.
Instead, I catch Dom’s eye. “You driving her home?”
He shrugs. “She didn’t ask.”
That tells me enough.
Lydia wants space.
After what she saw — after the way we locked eyes through chaos, no words, no instructions, just blood and air and raw instinct — she’s probably trying to make sense of it all in her own way.
I nod once. Turn away.