Chapter 15 – Lydia - No One Is Coming #2
That's slightly different. Usually, I'm there to deliver a message or soften someone up for negotiation. This is more about reading him—figuring out what he knows and who he's working for.
"You want me to feel him out."
"Exactly." Drazen steps closer, adjusts the collar of my dress with the same clinical precision he uses for everything. "Charm him. Make him comfortable. Then see what he gives up when he thinks he's winning."
I've done this before. Dozens of times. It's not glamorous—it's work. Psychological warfare dressed up as conversation.
"And if he already knows who I am?"
"Then we'll know how deep he's been digging." Drazen's eyes narrow slightly. "Which tells me everything I need to know about his intentions."
Fair enough.
"Anything else I should know?"
"He thinks he's smarter than he is. Use that." He steps back, satisfied. "You know how this works."
I do.
"Let's get this over with."
He smiles—not warmly, just the practiced expression of a man who's already three steps ahead.
Then he turns toward the door, and I follow.
The club’s lower floor is quieter than usual. That’s how you know something real is happening.
No girls on poles. No curated chaos. No soundtrack to soften the sound of deals being made.
Drazen walks ahead, flanked by two men I haven’t seen before. They don’t speak, which means they’re not here for diplomacy. They’re here to carry whatever needs to vanish.
My heels click behind them. Steady. Unapologetic. A sound meant to disarm, not seduce.
We stop at the back of the lounge. A room separated from the main floor by glass and money. I’ve been in here twice before. Once to deliver a message. Once to receive one.
Neither ended cleanly.
There’s a man already seated.
Dark skin. Thinning hair cropped close to the scalp. Gold ring too wide for his finger. One scar under his jawline, curved and mean, like a smile that got punished for being too honest.
I know him.
And he knows me.
But not as Lydia.
Not as this.
His mouth twitches, and for a second, I think he might laugh.
Drazen gestures toward me like I’m part of the menu.
"This is Lydia. She handles negotiations when words matter more than force."
Professional. Direct.
The man — Ravik, I remember — looks at me with the kind of assessment that's measuring threat level, not attraction.
Then he says: “She used to have a different name.”
My throat tightens.
Drazen doesn’t react.
That’s worse than if he had.
“I’ve had a lot of names,” I answer before Drazen can.
Ravik grins, leaning back, satisfied. “Yeah. But you always did wear black.”
I don’t sit.
Not yet.
Drazen takes the seat beside Ravik, pours them both something from the decanter on the table, then gestures to the chair across from them.
“Sit.”
It’s not a suggestion.
I do.
Ravik’s eyes linger too long. “I didn’t think I’d see her again. Not after the file got buried.”
“What file?” Drazen asks, smooth, casual.
“The one that got her blacklisted.”
My blood goes cold.
Drazen’s gaze flicks to me, unreadable.
Ravik chuckles. “Didn’t tell him that part, huh?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” I say flatly.
Ravik shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. She’s useful. She always was. Until she stopped taking orders.”
He’s baiting me.
And it’s working.
But not in the way he thinks.
I lean forward just enough to lower the temperature in the room. “If you’re here to discuss a deal, discuss it. If you’re here to test my memory, I’d be careful. You were less important than you think.”
That wipes the smirk off his face.
Drazen doesn’t blink.
He lets the silence hang, then turns to Ravik like this was foreplay and now it’s time to get to the point.
“We’ll move the shipment in two nights,” Drazen says. “You’ll get your percentage. But she stays in the loop.”
Ravik narrows his eyes. “You trust her with that?”
Drazen smiles faintly. “I trust her more than I trust anyone.”
And I feel it then.
The double edge.
It’s a threat.
It’s a reminder.
It’s: Don’t make me regret putting you at the center of the room.
Ravik leans back, sips his drink, and nods once.
“Fine. But if she goes rogue again—”
“She won’t.”
I don’t respond.
I don’t need to.
Because I already know Ravik won’t live long enough to see me fall apart.
And Drazen just tightened the leash without ever raising his voice.
When the meeting ends, Drazen doesn’t walk me out. He just says: “Change before you leave.”
Like this was a performance and the show’s over.
But the sick thing is…
It’s not over.
It’s just begun.
The moment I close the loft door behind me, I lock it.
The failsafe screen is still glowing where I left it. I ignore it.
I'm halfway to the kitchen, reaching for the light switch, when I see it.
Something on the floor, near the threshold, tucked away just enough that it makes me look twice. Still, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there when I walked in. The cream color of the envelope, an external replica of the first, is in stark contrast against my dark floor.
For what feels like an eternity, I can’t move a single limb.
Like someone has hit pause on a remote control. Just as swiftly, when that higher power I don’t believe in presses Play: I cross the room with haste to pick it up.
Inside it, there is a single photo.
And this time, it punches the air out of my lungs.
In grainy motion capture, there we are: Silas and I. Someone used a long lens it looks like. The angle is tight, but I recognize the window framing in the corner. It's from outside. From above, I suspect. What, from the rooftop opposite?
All this time, I’d thought it was Silas watching. But he is in the photo. Has it been someone else the entire time? Have I been building him up in my head?
I can’t seem to exhale.
The image plagues me.
Silas has one hand on my waist. My shirt is off one shoulder. His mouth is half an inch from mine. His body is pressing me back into the wall.
And the line scrawled beneath the image—just six words:
He won’t save you.
He’ll burn with you.
I drop the photo onto the counter like it bit me.
My fingers are numb. My knees feel weak.
I grab the burner and dial his number.
It doesn’t ring.
Just—nothing.
Straight to dead air.
I try again.
And again.
Same result.
I throw the phone onto the couch. It bounces off and hits the floor with a dull thud.
I press my palms against the counter and fight the scream climbing up my throat.
I stare at the photograph for another full minute before I pick it up and tear it clean down the middle. Then again. And again. Until it’s a shredded mess of paper that looks like proof of how stupid I was to let anyone get that close.
I don’t even throw the pieces away.
I leave them on the counter. I want them there. Like a wound that won’t clot.
Whoever left this could be anyone. Dom, Drazen…
I cross to the closet and push aside the clothes until I reach the back corner. There's a small lockbox I keep tucked behind my winter coats—black, nondescript, combination lock.
I spin the dial. Click. Open.
Inside is a flash drive, among other items.
I prepared and kept the flash drive months ago. After I learned about Drazen's fabricated file on me—the evidence he could use to destroy me if I ever stepped out of line.
That's when I realized: if he had insurance on me, I needed insurance on him.
So I started collecting.
It wasn't easy. Drazen's careful. But I had access—to his office, to his meetings, to places most people never see. And I know how to be invisible when I need to be.
Some of the files came from Elias.
Before Elias stepped back, he kept records on everyone—allies, enemies, people who thought they were untouchable. He was paranoid, meticulous. He taught me to think the same way.
About eight months ago, Elias called me in for a job. Someone had mishandled a client relationship, and he needed me to fix it—smooth things over with the right combination of charm and carefully applied pressure.
I handled it the way I always did. Efficiently, no drama.
Afterward, he stepped out to take a call, leaving his laptop open on the desk. He told me to pull up the client file while I waited—standard procedure. He trusted me enough not to think twice.
That's when I saw the folder.
Not the client file. Something else. Buried in his documents, labelled with initials I recognized: DM. Drazen.
I had maybe three minutes before he'd come back.
I didn't hesitate.
I plugged in a blank flash drive I always kept in my bag—always prepared, always cautious—and started copying. Files on joint operations. Surveillance footage. Audio recordings from meetings.
Elias never knew I took them. No one did.
I wasn't planning to use them. Not then. It was just... insurance. A way to make sure I wasn't completely powerless if things ever shifted.
I close the lockbox and take the flash drive to my laptop.
I move to the angle where I know Drazen’s camera will not capture well enough to see my laptop screen.
I plug in the flash, and wait for the folder to load.
Multiple files. All password protected.
I type in the access code—a string only I would know.
I start opening the files one after the other.
Years-old surveillance clips from one of Drazen’s warehouses. Ones he swore were wiped. Ones I helped erase, or thought I did, to keep certain transactions out of the wrong hands.
I click through them. Frame by frame.
One clip freezes me mid-scroll.
Drazen.
Not alone.
He’s seated across from a man I don’t recognize. Tall, lean, wearing a chilling smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. The audio’s too warped to make out what they’re saying, but Drazen’s posture isn’t casual. He’s listening. Careful. Like he’s negotiating with someone he doesn’t fully trust.
The timestamp is two years old. Location: one of the side warehouses that was supposed to be cleared after a fire.
So why is this meeting still on record?
I zoom in frame by frame. On the table between them is a briefcase. Unremarkable. Generic.
But Drazen slides it across like it’s nuclear.
There’s weight in that exchange. And then—one frame before the clip skips—the unknown man looks straight at the hidden camera.
Right into it.
Like he knew it was there.
I sit back, suddenly cold.
This was never meant to be surveillance. Not really. Not for security.
It was leverage.
And Elias kept it off-books.
I shut the clip.
My pulse is steady but wrong. Too calm. The kind of calm that means something in me is starting to snap tight, not unravel.
They think I’m still boxed in.
They think I’ll stay loyal because the leash hasn’t snapped loud enough yet.
But they forgot what happens when the thing you corner decides it would rather break the room than beg.
I push up from the table and look around the loft. Everything feels wrong now. Staged. Wired. Like the couch has ears and the vents are listening.
The photo’s still on the counter in pieces.
I don’t touch it. I don’t need to.
Its message already landed.
The game isn’t about survival anymore.
It’s about ownership.
And I’m not anyone’s.
Not Drazen’s. Not Silas’s. Not whoever left that picture.