Chapter 2
Ava
The train station is too crowded.
Too loud.
Too exposed.
Which means it’s exactly where I need to be.
People think safety looks like locked doors and hidden rooms.
It doesn’t.
Safety looks like movement. Noise. Chaos.
It looks like a thousand strangers heading in a thousand different directions—none of them paying enough attention to notice the woman in the gray coat with a bruise along her cheekbone… and a gun pressed tight against her spine.
I keep my head down as I move through the crowd, one hand wrapped around the strap of my bag.
The bag matters.
More than the passport in my pocket.
More than the blood drying beneath my collar.
More than the ache in my ribs every time I breathe too deep.
Inside this bag is enough information to bring down powerful men.
Which is exactly why they won’t stop hunting me until I’m dead.
I push through the terminal doors and step into the cold Prague air just as my burner phone vibrates.
One message.
Unknown number.
Don’t go to the church. It’s burned.
I stop.
Not because I want to—
because that message shouldn’t exist.
No one was supposed to know about the church.
No one except one dead handler… one compromised minister… and—
No.
I stare at the screen.
Another message comes through.
East bridge. Ten minutes. Come alone if you still want to live.
No signature.
There doesn’t need to be.
My pulse kicks—not from fear.
From recognition.
Because there’s only one man I know who would word it exactly like that.
Blunt. Efficient. No wasted words.
No room for emotion.
Like emotion never wrecked us both.
My grip tightens around the phone.
How did he get this number?
I force myself to move again, crossing the street with the flow of people. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn—disappear—get out of the city before sunrise.
That’s what I should do.
That’s what the old me would do.
But the old me didn’t spend eight years buried under someone else’s lies.
The old me didn’t wake up six months ago with fractured memories clawing their way back into place—piece by piece—until the truth finally hit.
And the old me definitely didn’t have Ethan Cross texting her like he wasn’t supposed to be part of her past.
I cut through an alley, check my corners, shift pace, double back once.
No tail.
That doesn’t make me feel better.
With men like the ones chasing me, no tail usually means they’re not interested in following.
They’re interested in ending it.
By the time I reach the bridge, the sky is still black, the river below it dark and slow-moving.
No movement.
No visible surveillance.
Too clean.
And I’ve learned the hard way—clean never means safe.
I step onto the bridge anyway.
Halfway across, a figure separates from the shadows.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Completely still.
For one disorienting second, my body forgets everything I’ve learned to survive—and remembers something else entirely.
His hands on me.
His voice in the dark.
The way he used to say my name like it meant something.
Ethan.
He looks older.
Harder.
Like the years stripped away anything soft and left nothing but control behind.
But it’s him.
God help me… it’s really him.
His gaze locks onto mine.
No smile.
No relief.
Just that sharp, devastating focus that used to see straight through me.
“Ava.”
My grip tightens on the bag strap.
“Didn’t realize dead men could text now.”
His jaw flexes.
“Cute. You’re late.”
A breath almost leaves me in something that could’ve been a laugh.
Almost.
“Eight years, Ethan.”
His expression doesn’t shift.
“I noticed.”
The wind cuts between us, sharp and cold.
Neither of us moves closer.
Neither of us is stupid enough for that.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I say.
“You sent my name.”
His gaze drops briefly to the bag, then back to me.
“What do you have?”
There it is.
No where have you been.
No why didn’t you come back.
No I thought you were dead.
Just—
What do you have?
I let out a slow breath.
Still him.
Still mission first.
“Enough to get us both killed.”
Something changes in his expression then.
Small.
But real.
“Then you’re coming with me.”
A soft, tired laugh slips out before I can stop it.
“You always did like giving orders.”
“And you always did ignore them.”
Footsteps hit the bridge behind me.
Fast.
Too many.
Damn it.
Ethan hears them at the same time I do. Of course he does.
His weapon is out instantly.
“Company?”
I don’t turn around.
“Several.”
His eyes flick to mine.
“Yours?”
“Do I look stupid?”
“No,” he says evenly. “Just impossible.”
The first shot cracks through the night.
Metal sparks against the railing inches from my arm.
The second hits closer.
Ethan moves at the exact same moment I do.
He grabs me—drives me down behind a concrete support as gunfire tears across the bridge.
His body covers mine.
Solid. controlled. warm.
For a split second—
everything else disappears.
Then reality slams back in.
He looks down at me, eyes sharp.
“Tell me the bag stays with you.”
I meet his gaze.
“It stays with me.”
Another round slams into the concrete above us.
Ethan reaches for my wrist.
“Fine. Then don’t fight me while I keep you alive.”
I should pull away.
Should remind myself that trust gets people killed.
Instead, the words that come out are the ones I swore I’d never say again—
“Too late for that, Cross.”
I raise my weapon.
Aim.
Fire.