Chapter 21 – Silas - The Alliance That Isn’t
Two hours after my call with Elias, I'm back at the Redhook apartment.
Pacing.
Waiting.
The phone sits on the table like a loaded gun. Every minute that passes feels like another door closing. Another chance slipping away.
I told him two hours. It's been two hours and seven minutes.
My mind keeps circling back to last night. Standing outside that door. Hearing her cry. Holding that key in my pocket and knowing I couldn't use it.
The weight of it still feels like it's there, even though I gave it back to Drazen.
I failed her.
I stood outside her door all night and did nothing.
The thought burns like acid.
My phone rings.
I snatch it up. Unknown number.
"Ward."
"You weren't lying." Elias's voice is immediate, electric. "She's in their cage."
Relief hits me so hard I have to sit down. "You confirmed it?"
"I found enough. Drazen moved men off two docks last night, redirected muscle to a tower he only uses when he wants to keep something hidden. Or someone." He pauses. "Harlow Tower. East-side penthouse. Top floor. You were right."
"Can you help me get her out?"
"That depends." His tone shifts, harder now. "On whether I can trust you."
I grip the phone tighter. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I've been making calls. Asking questions. And what I found is interesting. I’ll like if you don’t lie or dodge this." Another pause, deliberate. "You're Bureau, aren't you?"
My chest tightens.
For a second, I consider lying. Denying it. Playing it off.
But he already knows. And if I lie now, I lose any chance of his help.
"Yes."
Silence on the other end. Long enough that I think he might hang up.
Then: "Does she know?"
I hesitate. "She knows enough." I lie.
"Enough to trust you?"
The question cuts deeper than it should. "If she didn't, she wouldn't have given me your number."
More silence. I can hear him breathing, processing, calculating.
"Here's what's going to happen," Elias says finally. "I'm going to help you get her out. Not because I trust you. Not because I like you. But because I trust her, and she needs me. And I don't ignore her when she needs me."
"Understood."
"But if you fuck this up, if you put her in more danger than she's already in, if you use her to advance whatever case you're building—I will kill you. Bureau badge won't save you. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good." His tone shifts again, businesslike now. "Where are you?"
"Redhook. My unofficial cover apartment."
"Stay there, and text me the address. I'm coming to you. We need to plan this properly, and I don't do that over the phone."
"How long?"
"Thirty minutes."
The line goes dead.
I send the address to him and set the phone down.
Thirty minutes.
Then I'll know if I truly have an ally.
Or if I'm walking into another trap.
Thirty minutes passed, and I'm standing by the window, watching the street below, when I hear it.
A knock. Three sharp raps against the door.
Not loud. Not timid. Controlled.
I cross the room, hand instinctively moving to the pistol tucked at my back. Check the peephole.
A man stands in the hallway. Older than I expected.
Wearing a dark coat, gray threading through his hair, sharp eyes that look directly at the lens like he knows I'm watching.
Elias.
I open the door.
He doesn't wait for an invitation. Just steps inside, scanning the apartment in one sweep—corners, windows, exits—before his gaze lands back on me.
"Ward."
"Elias."
He moves past me, shrugging off his coat and draping it over the back of the chair by the window. Then he sits, pulls a pistol from his waistband, and sets it on the table beside him like punctuation.
Not a threat. Just a statement.
I close the door. Lock it.
"You move fast," I say.
"You move recklessly," he answers.
We hold each other's eyes. No pretence. This isn't an alliance. It's two predators deciding if they can stomach hunting the same prey.
The silence between us bristles. Neither of us will say it, but the truth is there: Lydia's fate ties us together, even if trust doesn't.
Elias leans forward, forearms braced on his knees. "You've got one chance. You fuck this up, and I don't care what badge you hide behind. You're finished."
I nod once. Because promises mean nothing here. Actions do.
He watches me for a long moment, then asks the question I knew was coming. "Last night. When you were standing outside that door. Which mattered more—her freedom, or your cover?"
The silence cracks like lightning between us.
I take a breath. Keep it steady. "I've done things to keep this cover that I can't come back from. But none of it matters if she doesn't make it out alive." I meet his eyes. "You want me to admit I failed her last night by not trying to help her? Fine. I did. But I'm not failing her again."
Elias studies me, his gaze dark and unblinking. Weighing every word I just said.
Then he nods. Slow. Deliberate.
"Good," he says. "Because if you do fail her again, it won't be Drazen who puts you in the ground. It'll be me."
The air between us shifts. Not lighter. Not friendlier. But aligned.
Reluctantly aligned.
He leans back in the chair. "Alright. Then we plan."
I drag a hand over my face, grounding myself.
“Alright. Let’s plan. Drazen’s got her held in a fancy penthouse, with a heavy guard rotation, on top of Dom checking in every other hour just to remind her whose leash she’s on.
We can’t storm it. Not with guns blazing.
We need distraction. Something that splits Dom’s loyalty from Drazen’s, even if just for ten minutes. ”
Elias leans forward, listening. “You think they’ll split?”
“Not willingly. But if I can make Drazen paranoid enough to believe Dom’s keeping something from him…” I let the thought hang.
Elias tilts his head, weighing it. “That’s a knife you’d better wield carefully. Dom’s a snake, but Drazen doesn’t tolerate whispers without blood to prove them. One wrong word, and he’ll put it on her instead of Dom.”
“I know.”
Elias nods once, then pulls a folded slip of paper from his jacket pocket and slides it across the table.
Hand-drawn lines, notes scrawled in shorthand only a paranoid bastard would still use.
“Floor plan. Not current, but close enough. I pulled it this morning. If they haven’t restructured, there’s a service lift behind the north stairwell. Locked, but bypass-able.”
I glance up. “You already had this ready.”
He shrugs. "I made some calls. Pulled in a few favors. When I heard she was in Harlow Tower, I knew I'd need the layout. I don't go into situations blind."
I don’t answer.
Because for the first time, I realize this isn’t just about Drazen or Dom or the Bureau’s leash around my throat. It’s about two men who’d bleed differently for the same woman. And now, whether we can bleed side by side without killing each other first.
We sit across from one another like two men at a ruined altar, elbows on the scarred table, the light in the room cut thin through slatted blinds.
Elias fingers the edge of the floor plan he pulled, not because he needs to read it—I’d bet he already has the building memorized—but because he moves better when his hands are busy.
That little ritual says more about him than he lets on. It steadies him. It makes the rest of this possible.
"Resources," Elias says. "What do you have?"
I list what I have: the micro-tracker Naomi gave me that's still active and pinging my location to Bureau surveillance; the guard rotation I mapped last night—three-man teams, shifts every six hours; Dom's pattern of checking on Lydia every hour on the hour; the penthouse layout I memorized during my time there; the key I held all night that told me which locks are electronic versus manual.
Elias nods at each piece, cataloguing. Then he pulls another folded paper from his pocket and spreads it on the table between us, it’s the actual floor plan.
"This is what we're working with," he says, tracing a line with his finger.
"North stairwell. Service lift sits behind a locked maintenance panel.
Panel's electronic, but the override is in the basement.
We kill the power to that panel, the lift runs on manual backup for exactly two minutes before the system auto-corrects. That's our window."
"Two minutes?" I lean forward, studying the plan. "That's barely enough time."
"Which is why we don't start from ground level," Elias says.
"We start from the subfloor service corridor.
Basement access through the parking garage.
Two turns, one vent shaft that leads up to the roof access hatch.
You climb the shaft, pop the hatch, you're on the penthouse level.
From there, it's a straight shot to where they're keeping her. "
"And the guards?"
"That's where the distraction comes in." He taps another section of the plan. "We create noise outside Drazen's immediate scope. Nothing overt—he'll smell a setup. But enough to pull his men away from the north stairwell."
"What kind of noise?"
Elias leans back. "Solstice Club has a shipment tonight. Dom oversees those personally. We make him think the shipment's been compromised. False manifest, wrong coordinates, something that makes him send men to check the docks. The moment Dom leaves to handle it, your window opens."
I process this. "You have people who can pull that off?"
"Ramon," Elias says. "Former logistics coordinator turned freelance problem-solver. He can fabricate a manifest that'll pass scrutiny long enough to trigger Dom's paranoia. He'll make the call through a broker Dom knows. By the time Dom realizes it's fake, we'll be gone."
"What about cameras?" I ask. "The penthouse has surveillance everywhere. They'll see us coming."
Elias pulls out his phone, scrolls through contacts, and stops on a name. "Keisha. Best signal jammer I've ever worked with. She can cut the camera feeds for twenty minutes—long enough for us to get in and out. After that, the system auto-restores and flags the interruption, so we move fast."