Chapter 58 Ethan
Ethan
I knew it wasn’t good.
Calls in the middle of the night mean one of two things—someone’s dead, or someone’s about to be.
I’m already reaching for my boots when my secure phone vibrates a second time across the table in the dark safehouse room.
One message.
Move now. Tier One priority. Eyes only.
No location in the text. No details.
Just the kind of order that means the details are bad enough they don’t want them sitting anywhere for more than a few seconds.
I’m dressed and out the door in under three minutes.
Washington is quiet at this hour. Too quiet. The kind of stillness that never lasts.
By the time I step into the underground briefing room, Ronan is already there, leaning against the far wall like a ghost someone forgot to bury. Jonah is seated at the table, elbows on his knees, jaw tight. Cal stands near the screen with his arms crossed.
Jase and Mila aren’t here.
Good.
They’ve earned a breath.
Daniel sure as hell has.
That leaves me.
Which means whatever this is, it’s mine.
The door opens again.
Director Vale steps inside with two armed agents behind him and a sealed black case in one hand.
His face tells me enough.
This is bad.
“Cross,” he says.
“Director.”
He sets the case on the table but doesn’t open it right away. His gaze sweeps the room once, measuring all of us.
“We intercepted a movement order out of Prague six hours ago.”
Jonah straightens. “Ascendancy?”
Vale nods once. “A surviving faction. Smaller cell. More aggressive. They’re trying to recover leverage after Zurich.”
“Leverage,” Cal repeats. “What kind?”
Vale flips open the case.
Inside is a photo.
Female.
Thirtys.
Dark hair pulled back.
Sharp eyes.
Blood on one side of her face.
Even before I pick it up, something in my chest goes hard and cold.
No.
No damn way.
I stare at the image.
Every sound in the room drops away.
Because I know that face.
I know the mouth that used to curve when she thought I was being too serious.
I know the eyes that once looked at me like I was the only man in the room.
I know the woman in the picture.
And she was never supposed to be seen again.
“Ava Mercer,” Vale says.
The name lands like a bullet.
Jonah looks at me. “You know her.”
Not a question.
I keep staring at the photo.
“She’s dead.”
Vale’s voice stays level. “Apparently not.”
That gets me looking up.
“What is this?”
“She surfaced forty-eight hours ago in Vienna,” he says. “Our source lost eyes on her two hours later. Three men ended up dead in the apartment she fled.”
Ronan pushes off the wall. “Three trained men?”
“Yes.”
Cal lets out a low breath. “So she’s not running scared.”
“No,” Vale says. “She’s running armed.”
I look back down at the photo.
Ava.
Alive.
After all this time.
After the blood.
The fire.
The report that said there was nothing left to recover.
Every muscle in my body locks down harder.
“This isn’t possible.”
Vale slides another file across the table.
I open it.
Inside are surveillance stills, timestamps, travel routes, partial interceptions.
Then one page stops me cold.
A handwritten note.
Scanned.
Three words.
Tell Ethan run.
My jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
That’s her handwriting.
I know it.
I would know it anywhere.
“Where is she now?” I ask.
Vale’s eyes don’t leave mine.
“We think she’s headed for a dead-drop site outside Prague.”
“We think?”
“She’s good.”
Yeah.
I know.
Too good.
Always was.
“What does she have?” Ronan asks.
Vale’s expression darkens.
“Names. Accounts. fallback sites. And something we haven’t been able to decrypt yet.”
Jonah swears quietly.
“Why not send a retrieval team?” Cal asks.
Vale looks at me.
“Because if she sees the wrong face, she’ll disappear again. She’s running for her life.”
I don’t say anything.
Don’t need to.
The room already knows.
This is my mission.
Mine to lead.
Mine to survive.
Mine to clean up.
“Ava Mercer,” I say slowly, forcing the words past the pressure building in my chest. “Last confirmed killed eight years ago in Bucharest.”
Vale nods.
“She was embedded deeper than we knew.”
“Or someone wanted us to think she was dead.”
That silence says more than an answer.
I close the file.
“What’s the objective?”
“Bring her in alive,” Vale says. “Gain her trust if you can. Extract whatever she’s carrying before Ascendancy gets to her.”
“And if she won’t come?”
Vale holds my gaze.
“Then you convince her.”
I look back down at the photo one last time.
Ava’s face is bruised. Tired. Defiant.
Alive.
After eight years, she’s alive.
And somehow that’s worse than grief ever was.
Because grief is final.
This?
This rips everything back open.
I set the photo down.
“When do we leave?”
Vale answers without hesitation.
“Ten minutes.”
Good.
Because if I stand here any longer, I might start remembering things I buried for a reason.
The way she laughed.
The way she fought.
The way she kissed me like the world was already ending. The way our bodies were together.
I shove all of it down where it belongs.
Mission first.
Always.
But as I reach for the file, one thought cuts through all the rest.
If Ava Mercer is alive…
Then someone lied to me.
And I’m going to find out who.