Chapter 26 – Silas - Ashes in the Morning
The safehouse is too still.
Sunlight slices in through crooked blinds, painting straight stripes across the floor.
Dust floats in the beams, shifting whenever the air creaks, and the whole place feels like it’s holding its breath.
Out on the street, the world moves—traffic, voices, footsteps—but inside here, it’s a dead pocket. A cage pretending to be a sanctuary.
Lydia is asleep in the next room.
I catch glimpses of her when I check in: one leg tangled in the sheet, hair sprawled across the pillow, body shifting when the dream gets edged enough to pull her under.
My shirt hangs off her shoulders, oversized, barely covering the curve of her hip.
The bruises stand out against her skin. The faded circles around her wrists, where my fingers left their claim.
The marks on her thighs, faint red lines where my grip dug in too hard.
She wears them all so fucking gloriously.
And I don’t regret them. Not once.
I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her breathe. My chest aches with something I don’t have the language for. It’s not guilt, though Elias would probably call it that. It’s something darker. Possession. Proof. A need that’s burrowed so deep I couldn’t cut it out if I tried.
I think back to the first time I saw her back at Dom’s club.
The way she cut through the room like she owned every man’s pulse in it.
How she sat, talking to Dom, fierce and untouchable, and still, I knew I’d end up here.
Bruises on her wrists. My shirt on her back.
My obsession written into her skin like scripture.
Dom’s dead now. His body cooling in the dirt. The noise of his empire will keep for another night, maybe two, but Drazen will strike back soon, no doubt. He won’t let that kind of power vacuum sit.
And the Bureau? They’ll be circling already. Naomi will have a dozen questions lined up. My cover’s already fraying, and all it will take is one wrong answer to get me burned.
But none of that matters. Not Drazen, not Naomi, not the Bureau breathing down my neck.
The only thing I see when I close my eyes is Lydia.
Every choice I’ve made in the last twenty-four hours—and, if I’m being honest, a lot longer—has been about her. And every choice from here will be the same.
Even if it kills me.
I push off the doorframe, and head for the kitchen. Elias is waiting, and I know he won’t let me skate by without driving a blade or two against my ribs.
The smell of coffee hits me before I step into the kitchen.
Elias sits at the table, mug in hand, posture loose but eyes clear.
He looks like a man who hasn’t slept, though I suspect he doesn’t need much to function.
He was born for long nights and bloody mornings.
Most of the people who thrive in this underworld seem to be.
He doesn’t glance up when I enter. Just sets his mug down with a dull clink. “She’s still asleep?”
I pull out the chair across from him. The wood scrapes against tile, loud in the stillness. “Yeah.”
“Interesting, you mark her up like that, she’s practically covered in your fingerprints, and she still sleeps like nothing happened. Says a lot.”
I grit my teeth. “Careful.”
He smiles, but it’s thin. “What? Did I hit a nerve? Thought you liked being the one doing the hitting.”
I don’t bite. He wants a fight, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction. Instead, I pour myself coffee, black and bitter, and let the hush stretch until he finally leans forward.
He stares at me like he’s still trying to make sense of the whole situation—maybe he can’t, the big, untouchable Elias Voss harboring me, a known bureau agent in one of his properties is something that’s out of my own imagination.
After a while, he says “Truth be told, you’re reckless. And you dragged her into your recklessness.”
I sip the coffee, ignoring the burn down my throat. “I didn’t drag her anywhere. She was already in it. Drazen had her caged long before I showed up.”
“And you swooped in, knight in black armor?” He laughs once. “Don’t sell me that story, Ward. She’s bled for men who swore they’d protect her. Men who swore they weren’t like the rest. You think you’re different?”
I set the mug down hard enough that coffee sloshes over the rim. My hands flatten against the table. “I don’t think. I know. And if you’re asking if I’ll use her for leverage, the answer is no.”
Elias leans back, folding his arms. His expression doesn’t soften. “Then what are you going to do? Because Drazen isn’t going to shrug this off. Dom’s corpse is still warm. The Bureau’s going to start pulling threads, and guess who’s dangling at the end? You. And by extension—her.”
The pause that follows is sharp enough to cut.
“I’ll protect her,” I say finally, voice stripped of anything but steel. “From Drazen. From the Bureau. From you, if I have to.”
Something flickers across his face, but it’s gone too fast to pin down. Amusement, maybe. Disbelief, more likely. He doesn’t argue, though. Just picks up his mug again, sips, and mutters, “You better mean that, because she doesn’t give second chances anymore.”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. I’ve already made my choice.
The burner phone buzzes on the counter. Elias’s gaze cuts to it, then back to me. He doesn’t say a word, but the judgment in his eyes is loud enough.
I reach for the phone. The vibration rattles against the counter, steady and insistent. Elias doesn’t move, but his stare is more focused, watching every flick of my hand like he’s weighing whether to rip the thing out of my grasp.
Naomi’s voice hits the line before I can even say her name. Clipped. Efficient. Always three steps ahead.
“Ward. Why is Dom off-grid?”
I keep my face blank, my voice even. “What makes you think he is?”
“Because I checked,” she snaps. “His security feed went dead. Drazen’s penthouse had a corrupted loop. And before you insult me by pretending you didn’t know, I’ll ask again: where the hell is Dom?”
Elias’s gaze burns into me, waiting.
I lean back against the counter, let my tone turn cold. “I’m running parallel intel. Drazen had eyes on him. I used the opening.”
Naomi’s pause on the other end stretches long enough to register as doubt. Then: “You’re not invisible anymore. Drazen isn’t the only one asking questions. And Ward—don’t make me regret covering for you.”
The line clicks dead.
I drop the phone onto the counter. Elias chuckles once, no humor in it. “So you’re lying to your own people now.” He shakes his head, takes another sip of coffee. “That won’t end well.”
I don’t answer. Because he’s right. And because answering means admitting how much deeper I’ve already sunk.
The scrape of a door makes me glance up.
Lydia steps into the kitchen, hair a tangle, my shirt loose on her frame. It hangs halfway down her thighs, and the bruises I left on her wrists are stark against the fabric when she pushes it up to rub her eyes.
She freezes when she sees us: me, leaning against the counter and Elias lounging like a blade disguised as a man. Her gaze shifts between us, intense and calculating.
“Who’s lying to who?” she asks. No preamble. No warmth.
Elias smirks into his coffee. “That depends. How much do you already know?”
She ignores him, eyes locking on me. I straighten, but my silence betrays me.
“Dom’s dead,” she says flatly. “I don’t need to ask to know Drazen won’t sit on it. So tell me—what’s next? What’s the plan?”
Elias sets his mug down with a thud. “The plan is to keep you alive long enough to clean up the mess with your lover here.”
Her head snaps to him, then back to me. Her eyes narrow, suspicion cutting like glass. “Is that what I am to you? A mess to clean? Or leverage to keep your Bureau leash happy?”
The words land harder than bullets.
I cross the space before she can pull further away, my hand catching her jaw, tilting her face up until her glare is locked to mine. “No,” I say, voice low, stripped raw. “You’re the only thing I can’t lose.”
Her breath stutters, but she doesn’t soften. She never does. Her eyes search mine, looking for the lie, daring me to blink.
Elias’s laugh cuts through. “That’s obsession talking. Not love. Don’t confuse the two, Ward. They’ll eat you both alive the same way.”
I don’t look at him. My hand stays steady on Lydia’s jaw, my thumb brushing once over the bruise I left there last night. She doesn’t flinch. She just stares, unbroken, unyielding, and in that moment I know Elias is wrong.
Obsession or not, I’d burn the world before I let Drazen, the Bureau, or Elias himself take her from me.
Elias breaks the standoff first. He leans back in his chair, crosses one ankle over his knee, and lets out a sharp breath through his nose.
“Enough of the stares and bruised egos. Drazen doesn’t care if you two are fucking or fighting.
He cares that Dom’s gone and he just lost a lieutenant who held half his empire together. ”
Lydia stiffens, but I keep my hand on her jaw until she nudges it away. Not rejection—just control. She slides past me, crossing to the table. She sits, elbows propped, staring at Elias like she wants to rip the truth out of his throat.
“What’s he going to do?” she asks.
“Retaliate,” Elias says simply. “Publicly? Maybe not right away. But behind closed doors? He’ll bleed anyone who looks like they stood in on it. That includes you. And you.”
His eyes flick to me.
I don’t react. “Then we hit first.”
He laughs. “Of course that’s your answer. You think this is a fistfight, Ward? He has reach. Soldiers. Politicians. Judges. He doesn’t need to kick down this door himself. He’ll make a phone call, and the Bureau will do it for him.”
Lydia looks between us, her expression hardens. “So, what, you’re saying there’s no way out?”
“There’s always a way out,” Elias says. “But it won’t be clean. Won’t be simple. And it sure as hell won’t happen with the two of you trying to play Bonnie and Clyde in one of my safehouses.”