Chapter 9 – Lydia - Red as an Answer #2
I take the seat, even though every part of me wants to walk out. But leaving now would look too much like running, and Drazen's favorite game is watching people run so he can decide whether to chase them or let them bleed out alone.
He pours whiskey—expensive, amber, the kind that costs more than most people make in a month—but doesn't push it toward me. Just sets it on the desk between us like a test I haven't been given the parameters for yet.
"You've kept my world intact longer than most," he says, voice smooth as the liquor he's not offering. "I thought you'd earned a moment of... respite."
The word feels wrong in his mouth. Dangerous. Like a promise wrapped around a blade.
Respite isn't something Drazen gives. It's something he uses—a brief loosening of the collar before he pulls it tighter, just to remind you it was never really off.
I've seen this before. Not just once. Multiple times over the two years since Elias's stepped back and I found myself standing in the wreckage, looking for something—anything—to hold onto.
Drazen was there, offering structure when everything else was chaos.
Safety, he called it. Opportunity. A place where my particular skills would be valued.
I was desperate enough to believe him.
At first, it felt like salvation. He gave me assignments that used my mind instead of just my body. Respected my boundaries—or seemed to. Let me keep my apartment, my autonomy, the illusion that I was choosing this.
Then, six months in, when I'd gotten comfortable, he reminded me exactly what the cost of that safety was.
A late-night call. His office, not a hotel. Just the two of us and a manila folder he slid across the desk like it was nothing.
"I thought you should see what I've been holding," he said.
Inside: bank records with my name. Transfers I never made to accounts I'd never opened. Emails with my signature discussing deals I'd never brokered. Photographs—me leaving buildings where people had died, timestamped perfectly to suggest involvement.
All of it fake or half truth.
All of it believable.
"Insurance," he called it. "In case you ever forget where your loyalties lie."
I stared at the pages, my hands steady even as my stomach dropped. "This wouldn't hold up. Anyone could see it's fabricated."
"Maybe." He leaned back, fingers steepled. "But how long would it take you to prove that? Six months? A year? Two?" His smile was cold. "And that's if you're lucky enough to get a jury that cares about the truth instead of the narrative."
He was right, and we both knew it.
By the time I cleared my name—if I cleared my name—my reputation would be destroyed. Every connection I'd built, every client who trusted me, every shred of credibility I'd earned would be gone. I'd be radioactive. Cancelled. A cautionary tale about the fixer who got too bold and paid for it.
Or I'd be locked up, fighting from behind bars while the world moved on without me.
"You won't use this," I said, voice flat.
"Of course not." He closed the folder gently, almost reverently. "As long as you remember that I could."
That's when I understood. Drazen's kindness is just another form of ownership—he gives you just enough freedom to forget you're in a cage, then reminds you the door was locked all along.
And now he's doing it again.
We don't talk about business. We don't talk about territory disputes or the runner who disappeared last week or the shipment that went sideways at the docks.
Instead, he asks about music—what I've been listening to lately, whether I still favour that jazz quartet that plays at the club on Thursdays.
About the club's new lighting setup—whether I think the amber filters are too warm or if they set the right mood for the kind of clientele Dom attracts.
About a restaurant that just opened downtown, whether I've been, whether I'd recommend the duck or the steak.
Trivia. Small talk. The kind of conversation normal people have over drinks.
Except we're not normal people, and nothing Drazen says is small.
Each question is a probe, a way of taking my temperature without asking directly. He's reading my answers, my hesitations. Cataloguing my mood, my stress levels, whether I'm fraying at the edges or still holding the seams together.
He wants to know if I'm stable. Reliable. Still useful.
Or if I'm becoming a liability he needs to manage differently.
It's intimate in the worst way—not because he cares, but because he's assessing his investment. Making sure the asset is still performing at optimal levels. Checking for cracks before they become breaks that might cost him something.
I answer carefully. Not too eager, not too distant. Just present enough to seem compliant, detached enough to maintain the illusion that I still belong to myself.
But the whole time, my pulse is a drumbeat in my throat, and I hate that he can probably see it.
I hate that he knows exactly what he's doing—that this casual conversation is another way of keeping me off-balance. That tomorrow, or next week, he'll reference something I said tonight as proof that he knows me. That he's paying attention. That I matter to him.
When really, I'm just inventory being checked for quality control.
Twenty minutes crawl by like hours.
The whiskey sits untouched between us, a prop in a play I never auditioned for but somehow got cast in anyway.
Finally, I stand. "Is that all?"
He smiles briefly, the expression not reaching his eyes. There's something almost amused in the way he looks at me, like I've confirmed something he already suspected.
"For tonight."
The unspoken part hangs in the air between us, heavy and unmistakable: But I'll call when I need you again, and you'll come, because we both know you don't have a choice.
I turn toward the door, feeling his gaze track me like a predator watching prey walk away—not because it's escaped, but because he's decided to let it run a little longer before he strikes.
My hand is on the door handle when he speaks again.
"Lydia."
I stop. Don't turn around.
"You're doing well," he says, and there's something in his voice that makes my skin crawl. "I'd hate for that to change."
It's not a compliment.
It's a warning.
I pull the door open and step through without responding, because there's nothing safe to say to a threat dressed up as praise.
It’s only when I step back into the hallway that I realize my hands are trembling from the encounter.
Drazen never does anything without purpose.
I leave the club without touching the whiskey, without touching the walls.
By the time I reach my building, the straps of the red dress are biting into my shoulders and the adrenaline has rotted into something slower, deeper. Like grief that hasn’t decided what it’s mourning yet.
I let myself in. Lock the door. Don’t turn on the light.
The city glows just enough through the blinds to guide me.
I set my phone down, face-up. No new messages. No missed calls. Not from Dom. Not from Drazen.
Not from Silas.
Not that I expected one.
We haven’t even exchanged numbers, but in this world, there are ways to solve that.
He doesn’t call.
He doesn’t text.
He watches.
That’s the part that matters, isn’t it?
I walk into the bedroom, peel the dress off like skin. Step out of it. Let it fall in a coil near the edge of the rug.
The mirror watches, but I don’t.
I go to the bathroom. Pull the bandage off the scratch on my chest. It’s healing already, red but clean. Still tender. Still unexplained.
I run water. Splash it on my face, my neck. The back of my arms. Not cold. Just enough to chase the ghost heat still clinging from Drazen’s gaze.
It doesn’t work.
Back in the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the mattress in just the thin slip I sleep in when I don’t care about comfort.
The window is still cracked from earlier.
I stand.
Walk toward it.
The rooftop across the street is empty.
But I look anyway.
Because sometimes… it isn’t.
Sometimes I think he’s up there, watching the back of my neck as I pretend I don’t know what he is.
I press my fingers to the edge of the window frame. Let the breeze kiss the cut across my collarbone.
Then I speak.
Just one word.
Soft.
So soft I barely hear it myself.
“Why?”
Not a cry.
Not a plea.
Just a question hanging between glass and night and the memory of smoke curling between us while a body dropped and his eyes locked with mine like nothing else in the world mattered.
Why did he do it?
Why me?
Why that look?
Why do I keep checking the window?
Why do I keep hoping he never answers?
The breeze stirs the curtain. The room stays quiet. But the word remains, pressed against my ribs, refusing to fade.