Chapter 72 Ava
Ava
The war room goes dead silent when I say it.
Every face turns toward me.
Ronan, at the head of the long table.
Aaron with his arms folded.
Cal standing near the monitors.
Jonah halfway through pulling up satellite overlays.
And Ethan, beside me like a wall built from anger and instinct, his attention cutting between me and the map.
“You’re sure?” Ronan asks.
I nod slowly.
“Yes.”
Jonah enlarges the image on the main screen. “It’s an old private strip on the coast. Technically decommissioned, but the relay hit suggests active power from a concealed backup grid.”
My skin prickles.
I step closer to the screen.
There.
The broken hangar to the left.
The access road vanishing behind the pines.
The low cement structure tucked farther back where most people would never look unless they already knew it was there.
My throat tightens. “I was there once.”
Ethan’s head turns sharply. “When?”
“Before my memory came back fully. After the first transfer.” I force myself to keep breathing.
“They moved me through a lot of places. Some were labs. Some were holding sites. Some were just transition points while they moved people, weapons, data—whatever Hayes wanted off-grid. I didn’t understand where I was at the time. I just remember…” I stop.
Ronan’s voice is steady. “What do you remember?”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Metal doors.
Salt in the air.
A man screaming somewhere far below ground.
And Hayes.
Calm.
Smiling.
Like pain was just another tool.
“There’s more under it,” I say.
Jonah looks up fast. “Underground?”
“Yes.”
Ethan’s whole body goes still beside me.
“How much more?” Ronan asks.
“I don’t know. I was drugged. Disoriented.” I swallow hard. “But I remember stairs. A freight lift. Concrete corridors. It wasn’t just an airstrip. It was a waystation.”
Aaron mutters a curse.
Ronan turns back to the screens. “Can you identify likely access points?”
I step closer again. Jonah hands me a stylus, and I circle the hangar, the rear utility block, then a patch of tree line near the northern edge.
“Here. Maybe here. And here.” My finger pauses. “But if Hayes is there, the real entrance won’t be obvious.”
“He’ll have layered security,” Ethan says.
“Yes.”
“He’ll expect pursuit.”
“Yes.”
Ronan glances between us both. “Which means speed matters.”
The room tightens.
This is it.
The next move.
The next hunt.
And maybe the one that ends it.
Ethan looks at me. “You’ve done enough.”
I don’t even glance away from the map. “No, I haven’t.”
“Ava.”
I turn then.
Meet his eyes fully.
“This man stole years from me.”
The words come out low.
Flat.
The kind of flat that only happens when rage has gone cold enough to sharpen.
“He rewired my life. Turned my body into a weapon. Made me doubt my own mind.” My fingers curl around the stylus. “You can ask me to rest. You can ask me to stay back. But do not ask me to pretend this ends without me.”
The entire room hears it.
No one says a word.
Ethan’s jaw works once.
Twice.
He’s angry, yes.
Terrified too.
But underneath all of that is something fiercer.
Respect.
Because he knows I mean every word.
Ronan breaks the silence. “No one’s pretending anything. But we do this smart.” He looks directly at me. “You’re not first through a door in your condition.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Good.”
Jonah speaks up from the terminal. “We’ve got a possible window. Small. A jet filed under a shell charter is prepping off the coast two hours from now. If Hayes is using that strip as an escape point, he may be consolidating now.”
Aaron straightens. “Then we hit before he lifts.”
Cal nods. “Fast and hard.”
Ronan turns to Ethan. “You’re lead on breach.”
Of course he is.
Then to me.
“And you’re with Jonah on structure and route confirmation. You stay behind the first wave unless conditions change.”
Ethan starts to object.
I beat him to it. “Done.”
His head snaps toward me.
I give him a look that says don’t ruin this.
He looks like he wants to argue anyway.
Ronan keeps going before he can. “Aaron, Cal, lock vehicle package and gear. Jonah, pull every scrap of archived topography you can get. I want thermal, drainage, service maps, historical permits. If this place has a basement, I want to know what decade it was poured in and who signed off on the concrete.”
Jonah is already typing. “On it.”
The room erupts into motion.
Chairs scrape.
Weapons cases open.
Comms light up.
And somehow, in the middle of all that controlled chaos, Ethan catches my wrist and pulls me a few feet back into the shadowed corner near the far wall.
“What was that?” he demands quietly.
I blink at him. “Me agreeing to reasonable terms. You should be proud.”
He steps closer. “You are not fine.”
“No kidding.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m also standing.”
“Ava.”
There’s too much in his voice.
Too much fear he’s trying to choke down into anger because anger is easier to carry.
I soften a little. “Ethan.”
His hand comes up to my face, thumb brushing my cheek once. Barely there. Hidden from the others by the angle of his body.
“I just got you back.”
The confession is so raw it steals my breath.
I look at him.
Really look at him.
At the strain around his eyes.
The exhaustion.
The way he’s holding himself, like the only thing keeping him upright, is the fact that there’s still someone left to kill.
My heart twists.
“I know.”
“Then don’t ask me to be okay with this.”
I lift a hand and press it to the center of his chest, right over the hard, pounding beat of his heart.
“I’m not asking you to be okay with it.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“To trust me.”
His eyes flash.
“That’s rich.”
A sad smile touches my mouth. “I know.”
He exhales hard through his nose.
I keep my voice low. “I’m not trying to run from you. I’m trying to stand with you.”
That hits.
I see it hit.
His hand drops from my face to cover mine over his chest.
“You stand behind me if it goes bad.”
I hold his gaze. “I stand where I need to.”
“Ava.”
“Ethan.”
For one second it looks like he might haul me out of the room and lock me in the bedroom.
Then he leans in until his forehead touches mine.
“Do not die on me again.”
Emotion slams into me so hard I nearly sway.
My voice comes out unsteady. “That’s the plan.”
He kisses me.
Fast.
Hard.
No room for anyone else in it.
Then he steps back before either of us can forget where we are.
Aaron’s voice cuts across the room. “I am pretending I did not see that, but for the record, your timing is amazing.”
I don’t even turn. “Mind your own business.”
“It became my business when you turned the war room into a romance novel.”
Cal mutters, “He’s not wrong.”
Jonah, eyes still on his laptop, raises a hand. “I support it, but also I found something.”
Just like that, the room snaps back into focus.
We gather around his station.
He throws up an old engineering file—fragmented, partial, but enough.
“There,” he says, pointing beneath the hangar footprint. “Sublevel one. Fuel and maintenance access, original construction. But look here.” Another tap. “This section was modified later and not filed through the official county system.”
Ronan leans in. “Meaning?”
“Meaning somebody buried expansion work off-book.”
My pulse spikes.
“How deep?”
Jonah zooms, frustration in every line of his face. “Hard to tell. The records are scrubbed. But judging from the support grid? At least one more level.”
Aaron whistles low. “Secret underground nightmare bunker. Great. Love those.”
I point to a narrow service line branching off the east edge. “That might lead to an emergency stairwell.”
Jonah looks at me. “You remember it?”
“Not clearly. Just enough to know there was a route Hayes used that didn’t go through the main corridor.”
Ronan straightens. Decision already made. “Then that’s our edge.”
He looks at Ethan. “Primary breach through the hangar with Aaron and Cal. Secondary insertion through the east service line if Jonah can confirm access.”
Then to me.
“You’re with the second team until entry. After that, you hold with Jonah unless Hayes relocates and you are the only positive ID.”
Ethan doesn’t like it.
I can feel that without even looking at him.
But he says nothing.
Because he knows that’s the compromise.
And because every second we waste brings Hayes closer to disappearing.
Ronan checks his watch. “Wheels up in twenty.”
The room breaks again.
This time faster.
Sharper.
Purpose replacing fatigue.
I turn to go with Jonah so we can keep working the route, but Ethan catches my hand one last time.
His voice is low enough only I hear it.
“When this is over…”
I look back at him.
His throat works once.
Then he says, “You’re coming home with me.”
Not a question.
Not a maybe.
Not a someday.
My heart stumbles.
I let my fingers tighten around his. “That sounds dangerously close to hope.”
His eyes lock on mine.
“It is.”
For the first time in a long time, hope doesn’t feel fragile.
It feels like a weapon.
And Hayes has no idea what’s coming for him.