39. Jax
thirty-nine
Jax
T he main screen flickers to life, and everyone shifts into position like we're preparing for combat. My leg bounces against the floor while Mira's hand finds my thigh, her fingers pressing just hard enough to steady me.
Her touch is the only thing keeping me from jumping out of my skin.
Kade stands at the center of our semicircle, shoulders squared and ready for whatever hell we're about to witness.
Cole moves to the left side of the room, his eyes already analyzing angles and exits.
Asher leans against the far wall, arms crossed, that cold focus settling over his features like armor.
The servers hum louder in the silence. Everyone's breathing sounds too sharp in the enclosed space.
"First file's opening now." Vanessa's voice carries that edge she gets when she's discovered something that's going to change everything.
She clicks on surveillance footage timestamped three weeks ago. My stomach twists as the video begins loading.
Whatever's on this drive made Sasha's contact risk everything to get it to us.
Mira's fingers tighten slightly on my leg. Her touch grounds me, but I can feel the tension radiating from her body. She's reading the room the same way I am—everyone's too quiet, too focused, too ready for something catastrophic.
"Here we go," Vanessa whispers.
The first image materializes on the screen—grainy surveillance footage from a parking garage. I lean forward, squinting at the timestamp. Two weeks after Roman's "death."
A figure moves across the frame, and something inside my chest stops working.
"That's..." My voice cracks. "That's his walk. The way he checks corners."
No. No fucking way.
The man on screen pauses at a pillar, his head turning left first, then right. Always left first. Roman drilled that habit into all of us during training, but he never broke it himself.
Vanessa clicks to the next file. More footage loads—different date, different location. Same figure.
Cole takes three steps toward the screen, his usual composed analysis crumbling. "The timestamp on this one—"
"Six weeks after," Kade's voice comes out flat. His mask of control develops hairline cracks.
My leg stops bouncing. Everything stops. Mira's grip on my thigh becomes the only thing tethering me to reality as more videos queue up in sequence.
"That's Roman." The words scrape out of my throat. "He's alive. He's fucking alive."
The footage shows meetings with unknowns, always in shadows, Roman's face partially obscured by angles and lighting. No audio on any of them. Just visual proof that the man we buried our hearts over has been breathing this whole time.
Asher pushes off from the wall, moving to the other side of the room. "These are recent. Last one's dated five days ago."
Five days.
My breathing turns shallow and rapid. The room tilts sideways.
"But the body—" I stumble over the words. "We found a body. The blood on his watch wasn't even his—"
"We thought it was him based on location," Kade says, his voice hollow. "But the body disappeared before confirmation."
Mira's fingers dig into my leg muscle, anchoring me as the spiral begins.
Seven months. Seven fucking months he's been alive while I—
"I mourned him." The confession rips out of me. "I mourned him while being surrounded by every trigger—racing, casinos, betting. All the shit that makes my brain want to explode."
Cole spins around, pacing behind the chairs. "The psychological evaluation protocols we implemented after his 'death'—"
"Roman was the one who helped me manage it." My hands start trembling, and I can't make them stop. "Without him, I couldn't—the compulsions, the need to calculate odds on everything—"
He knew. He had to know what his fake death would do to me.
The room feels smaller, the air thinner. Mira shifts closer, her presence steady while everything else unravels.
"Seven fucking months he's been alive," I repeat, my voice cracking again.
Vanessa loads another file. Same shadowy figure, same unmistakable mannerisms.
Kade's jaw works silently as he watches Roman's ghost move across screen after screen.
All those nights I couldn't sleep. All those bets I placed trying to feel in control of something. All the times I wanted to call him and remembered he was dead.
"Why?" The question comes out broken. "Why would he let us think—"
But I already know there's only one reason Roman would fake his own death.
To protect us from something worse than grief.
The revelation crashes through me like a high-speed collision. Roman—alive, breathing, moving through the world while we destroyed ourselves grieving him.
My chair scrapes against the floor as I stand. The room's too small, the walls pressing in. I start pacing between the servers and workstations, my feet finding a restless rhythm.
"Seven months." The number tastes bitter. "Seven fucking months he's been alive while we—" I drag both hands through my hair, pulling until it hurts. "While I bet away my savings trying to feel something other than empty."
Mira rises from her chair, tracking my movement. She doesn't speak, doesn't offer empty comfort. Just stays within arm's reach as I wear a path in the floor.
Cole stops his own pacing, turning toward Vanessa's workstation. "What else is on that drive?"
"That's not even the beginning." Vanessa's fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up folder after folder. "There's communication logs, financial transfers, operational reports."
Operational reports.
I whip around to face the screen. "You're telling me he's been running ops? While we thought he was dead?"
The footage continues cycling. Roman in different cities, different clothes, always in the shadows. Always alone.
Kade moves closer to the monitors, his massive frame casting shadows across the data. "These dates... the timing coincides with several unsolved cases we flagged as suspicious."
"Suspicious how?" Asher shifts away from the wall, joining the cluster around Vanessa's setup.
My mind races, connecting dots through the haze of betrayal and relief. "The warehouse fire in Portland. The shipping container that went missing in Seattle."
"Roman was tracking something," Mira says, her voice cutting through my mental spiral. "Or someone was tracking him."
I stop pacing, spinning to face her. "Why didn't he contact us? Unless he couldn't..." The possibility hits like ice water. "Unless someone has him."
"Deep cover gone wrong," Cole mutters, pulling up another chair to study the files. "Or he's been turned."
"No." The word explodes out of me. I slam my palm against the nearest server rack, the metal ringing through the room. "Roman doesn't turn. He doesn't abandon his team."
Vanessa clicks open another file—financial records showing payments to unknown accounts. "These transfers started two days after his supposed death."
Mira steps into my path, her presence solid and grounding. "Then we find out what happened. We find him."
"He let me think I killed him." The admission scrapes my throat raw. "Every bet I placed, every spiral into compulsion—he had to know what losing him would do to me."
The team exchanges glances over my head. They all know about my triggers, my need for Roman's stabilizing influence.
Kade's voice drops to command register. "We work with what we have. No assumptions until we know more."
But I can't stop moving, can't stop the calculations running through my head. Odds of survival after seven months missing. Probability of rescue versus recovery. All the numbers Roman taught me to manage, now turned against the possibility of his return.
Vanessa clicks on a simple text file buried in the deepest folder. The screen goes black for a second, then white text appears:
You needed help. I provided it.
Below that, a list of dates and operation codes scrolls down the screen. My stomach drops as I recognize them.
"October 15th, Long Beach intercept," Vanessa reads aloud, her voice getting smaller with each line. "November 3rd, Portland warehouse. December 22nd, Seattle container yard..."
Cole moves around the table, leaning over Vanessa's shoulder. "Those are our operations."
"Not just ours." I can't stop staring at the screen. The dates blur together as my brain tries to process what I'm seeing. "Those are every major op we've run in the past six months."
Asher pushes away from the wall, joining our huddle around the monitors. "Cross-reference them."
Vanessa's fingers dance across the keyboard. Two screens light up side by side - our mission reports on the left, the mystery timestamps on the right.
"They match," she whispers. "Every single one."
Kade circles around to my other side, his massive frame casting shadows across the data. "Explain what we're looking at."
"Someone's been watching our operations." The words come out flat because admitting it makes my skin crawl. "Every move we made, every success we thought was ours..."
Mira shifts behind me, her presence a steady anchor. "The intel that came through back channels. The threats that got redirected at the last minute."
"The warehouse in Portland." Cole straightens up, his strategic mind clicking pieces together. "We thought the fire was an accident that worked in our favor."
"And the Seattle container disappearing from the manifest system." My voice gets stronger as the connections form. "Right before we needed access to that exact shipping route."
I start moving again, pacing between the server racks. The confined space makes my restlessness worse, but I can't sit still while my world reshapes itself.
Vanessa scrolls to the bottom of the file. "There's something else here."
A simple symbol appears - geometric lines forming what looks like a cipher. Clean, precise, anonymous.
"No name," Asher observes.
"Whoever this is doesn't want recognition." Kade's voice carries that tone he gets when analyzing enemy behavior. "They want results."