Chapter 19 – Lydia - Used Things Stay
The first thing I notice is how goddamn cold I am.
My body still feels like it belongs to the last room I was in, back at the Solstice Club. The bite of Silas’s stare. The chill of his absence as he walked away from me after I refused to go with him. The sting of him not trying to convince me further.
I blink.
The second thing is that this room is too perfect. Too precise. Cream-white walls, glass sconces spilling amber light, and a bed that smells like no one’s ever slept in it. No dust. No clutter. Like it’s been waiting for me. Or for someone they expected to bleed quietly.
My wrists aren’t tied. My ankles are bare. I’m wearing the same dress from last night. The black one. The one that made Dom smirk and Drazen narrow his eyes when I walked in.
Dom.
I sit up too fast. My head reels.
I remember him, the way he came up behind me after Silas left the club. That fake, serpent-smooth voice saying, “Driver’s waiting. You’re to ride along, make sure the drop goes clean.”
I didn’t buy it.
Then came the part I can’t remember clearly. The moment after the SUV door’s been opened, I was questioning him about the drop off. A pressure against my spine. A voice, his, getting closer and farther at the same time.
They must’ve used something.
I touch my neck. No bruises. No needle mark. But my memories are scattered. Like they didn’t want to hurt me. Just relocate me. Like furniture.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand.
The room gives itself away in pieces. Too clean to be a hotel. Too expansive to be anything short of a penthouse. The furniture is custom. Glossy black wood, smoked glass, chrome legs. There’s a side table with a crystal decanter and two glasses. Whiskey. Poured for two. Untouched.
I cross to the door. Try the knob.
Locked.
Of course.
I smile without meaning to. Not because this is genuinely funny, but because it’s so fucking predictable.
They could’ve just asked me to stay. Hell, they could’ve threatened me outright. Instead, they do this: lace it all in velvet and call it protection. I’ve seen it a thousand times. This isn’t confinement. This is control wearing perfume.
A click echoes behind me.
I turn.
Dom walks in like he’s entering his own living room.
No knock. No warning. Just that smug air of assumed ownership trailing him like a shadow.
“I hope the accommodations are to your taste,” he says, spreading his arms like I’m supposed to thank him.
I don’t.
He shuts the door and leans against it, all charm and menace in equal measure. Black shirt open at the collar. Gold cufflinks that glint when he crosses his arms. He’s never liked me. Not really. I remind him of Elias. Of someone he couldn’t fuck into silence.
“Where am I?”
“A safe place,” he says. “Just until the smoke clears.”
“What smoke?”
He walks toward me, slow and theatrical. “There’s a situation, Lydia. Some of our partners think you’ve been talking to outsiders. That maybe you’ve gotten… sentimental.”
My jaw locks.
“You mean Silas.”
Dom smiles. “I mean anyone who isn’t us.”
I say nothing.
He stops a few feet from me, eyes glinting. “I told Drazen you were too smart to betray us. But he’s feeling exposed. Someone’s been feeding information into the city wire… too much of it tracing back to the club. To our shipments. Our timing.”
I tilt my head. “And you think it’s me.” It isn’t a question. It doesn’t have to be one.
“I didn’t say that,” Dom says.
“No. You just drugged me and locked me in a penthouse.”
He steps closer. “I protected you. From what Drazen would’ve done if he thought you were lying.”
“And what would that be?” I snap.
“Something messier,” he answers calmly.
I snort at that, eyes rolling to the ceiling. “So, I’m supposed to thank you for not breaking my fingers?”
“No,” he says, voice dipping. “You’re supposed to help me make this look like loyalty.”
He hands me a phone. I don’t take it, staring at it instead.
“I want you to call Drazen,” he says, “and tell him you’re ready to cooperate fully. That you understand his paranoia. That you want to help find the leak.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugs. “Then I walk out. Leave you here. Let him come up himself.”
I stare at the phone.
This isn’t about belief. They don’t believe I did anything. They just want to see how much they can make me bend.
I take the phone.
I don’t dial.
Instead, I toss it back to him.
Dom catches it without flinching, like he expected it.
Then he leans in. His fingers brush my jaw, almost tender. “You always did like to do things the hard way,” he sighs, his tone pitying.
I look him dead in the eye. “Go fuck yourself.”
He grins on his way out, the lock clicking in his wake.
I don’t go back to the bed.
I think back to everything that’s happened since yesterday. To how fast this slid off the rails. One moment I was unintentionally pushing Silas away. The next, Dom’s hand was on my spine like a leash.
And now I’m here.
And Drazen is playing a deeper game than I realized.
Because this? This isn’t punishment.
It’s vetting.
They're not just testing whether I’m clean.
They’re seeing how far I’ll go to prove it.
They’re seeing how much of myself I’ll surrender to survive.
The lock clicks again.
But this time, I don’t look startled.
It’s Drazen this time. He closes the door behind him and looks at me like he’s measuring something I don’t yet understand.
“Lydia,” he says, and he almost sounds sweet when he says my name. Like he’s said it in a hundred meetings. Like it didn’t cost him a small fortune to take me off the map last night.
I don’t respond.
He smiles like he didn’t expect me to.
“You slept well?”
My lips purse, just so I don’t spit right in his face. “Your hospitality’s wasted.”
“I hope not,” he says, stepping into the room. “I’m going to make you an offer, and it helps if you look less… feral when I do.”
He sits on the armrest of the chair across from the bed.
I stay standing.
He laces his fingers together. “I’m going to ask you something once. And I want the truth.”
I arch a brow. “And if I’ve already given it?”
“Then repeat it.”
“Fine. Ask.”
He studies me with a kind of stillness that feels surgical.
“Are you helping someone move product behind our backs?”
“No.”
“Are you feeding intel to Elias?”
“Elias is retired.”
“Which doesn’t mean you stopped taking his calls.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
He exhales. “Are you aware someone’s been running surveillance on our docks for six weeks?”
“I’m aware someone’s trying to frame me for it.”
His expression doesn’t shift. But something taut creeps into his voice. “You think this is a setup?”
“I think if you really believed it was me, I wouldn’t be here sipping whiskey with silk sheets.”
His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. Not quite denial.
Then, he stands. Walks past me. Opens the wardrobe beside the bed.
Inside? Options. Dresses. Shoes. Lingerie that costs more than rent.
“You’ve been upgraded,” he says.
“Funny. I didn’t know this was a promotion.”
He closes the wardrobe without looking at me.
“You’re going to stay here until we clear the leak. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable. But in return, I want your full attention.”
“Attention for what?”
“The security gaps. The internal links. I want your mind on the people who want us gutted. Not on whoever had their hand on your thigh last week.”
I go still.
Then I step toward him.
One pace. Two.
“Say it plainly,” I tell him. “You’re talking about Silas.”
Drazen’s eyes meet mine.
“He’s compromised you.”
I laugh. Actually laugh. “Compromised me? You had me dragged into a goddamn penthouse like a mistress you’re not ready to show off.”
“You would have left with him.”
“No, I left with Dom as you instructed. Sure, he offered. And he wouldn’t be the first. But I didn’t take the offered hand, obviously.”
“And why not?”
I tilt my head. “Because I don’t trust him.”
I don’t trust anyone, I don’t say.
“Neither do I,” Drazen divulges, as if he trusts anyone either.
He walks back to the bed. Sits. “Dom says you’ve been different lately. Distracted. You watch the club like you’re looking for a way out.”
I don’t answer.
“I understand,” he says softly. “You were Elias’s once. You were untouchable. Then Mara walked in, and your leash got moved.”
I take a step closer. “If you think you can taunt me into loyalty,” I say, “you’re dumber than you look.”
“I don’t want loyalty, Lydia,” he says. “I want clarity.”
He stands again. Smooths the lapels of his jacket.
And then he drops it: “You’re getting a visitor tonight.”
I blink.
“What kind of visitor?”
He smiles.
“Silas.”
My pulse spikes.
"He'll be joining us. Standing guard outside your door." He pauses. "Consider it a test. If he's clean, we'll see it. If you are… he'll survive it."
He walks to the door.
“Get some rest. Or don’t. But be ready.”
The lock clicks shut behind him.
And for the first time since I got here… I stop thinking about escape.
And start thinking about what Silas will do when he sees me like this.
I don’t sit.
I can’t.
The minute Drazen’s gone, I pace the room like a goddamn caged animal because that’s what it is. What I am.
But not because of him.
Because of the name he said before he left. The way he said it. Like Silas is bait.
I move back to the wardrobe. Run my hand across the fabrics. The dresses are sleek. Expensive. Tailored to flatter, to disarm. I know what this is. Dom’s version of hospitality has always come wrapped in silk and knives.
But I don’t choose the softest thing. I choose the darkest.
A black slip dress, with one slit too high, one strap too thin. No back. It’s calculated, like everything they’ve laid out for me. I put it on anyway.
Let them look.
Let him look.
I turn away before I can catch sight of myself in the mirror.
It's near dusk now.
The penthouse windows are tinted, but I can still tell by the fading light slicing through the blinds that the day’s crawling toward 5PM or 6PM.
Which means Silas is coming, he’s probably going to spend the night here.
And I have no idea if he even knows what he’s walking into.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I press my palms to the marble countertop and focus on my reflection again.
I force myself to repeat what I know: This isn’t your first cage. It won’t be your last. You always get out.
But this isn’t about getting out anymore.
It’s about what they’re trying to break while I’m in here.
I hear voices in the hallway. Muffled. Male.
Then footsteps.
Then silence.
I turn toward the door.
Waiting.
And then I hear it—the sound of someone taking position outside.
A shift of weight. The quiet rustle of fabric. The barely-there exhale of someone settling in for a long night.
He's here.
Silas is standing guard outside my door.
And I can't see him. Can't touch him. Can't even speak to him.
But I know he's there.
Just on the other side.
So close.
And completely unreachable.
I move to the door. Stand with my back against it.
On the other side, I imagine him doing the same.
Two inches of wood between us.
And a thousand reasons we can't break.
I close my eyes.
And I wait.