Chapter 1 Ava in Roman’s Shadow #2
He hates that answer. It means the code isn’t hers, which means it’s theirs. It means the syndicate has reached this edge of the city and is now testing how far Roman’s plan can hold.
Roman moves to the small security panel beside the door. His fingers hover over the controls. He doesn’t press yet. He listens. He hears the faint hum of a device outside - a transmitter, low frequency, not meant to be heard but impossible not to feel once you know what it is.
Ava’s voice drops. “That’s not a courier.”
Roman looks at her. “No.”
The panel displays nothing - no face, no shadow, just a blank feed. Roman’s stomach tightens. A second later, a small red light blinks on the wall beside the door. He didn’t notice it before. Someone installed it during the time he was distracted.
A trap with patience.
Ava steps closer to the panel, peering. “There’s something mounted.”
Roman’s throat goes tight. “I know.”
“How?” Her eyes turn on him, accusing even as fear tightens her mouth. “You were sure this place was scrubbed.”
Roman’s mind flashes through his own steps - who he called, who he trusted, how he verified the safe-house crew before he moved Ava inside. He’d believed the leak was contained, or at least predictable.
Now the cost of belief is in the room with them.
A coded message appears on the panel screen - not a view, not a live feed. Plain text, blocky and cold, as if typed by someone who doesn’t care about grammar or mercy.
AVA COLLINS.
ROMAN, YOU brOUGHT HER TO ME.
Ava goes rigid. The air tastes metallic, like pennies on her tongue. Roman feels it too - anger, then an ugly surge of dread. The message isn’t just a threat. It’s proof that the syndicate doesn’t need to crack the safe house.
They just need to know where it is.
Ava’s eyes shine with something Roman refuses to name. Rage. Fear. Determination. All of it twisted together until she looks like she might shatter herself just to prove she can.
“Who sent it?” she demands, voice tight.
Roman’s gaze stays on the screen. His mind searches for the leak, for the point where his confidence became a blind spot. “Not the courier.”
“Then the leak is inside The Shadows,” Ava says, like she’s concluding a case. Like she’s building a brief out of blood and static.
Roman’s jaw clenches hard enough it aches. “Yes.”
Ava turns toward him, too fast again. “Then we stop running and we - ”
“No.” Roman cuts her off, and his voice is sharper than he intends. The second he hears it, he knows he’s pushed too hard. Ava’s expression tightens, her hurt flashing like a bruise under skin.
Roman forces his tone lower, controlled. “We don’t argue in front of threats. We move.”
Ava’s gaze drops to the folder he set aside. “You took it.”
“I secured it,” Roman says.
Ava’s lips press together. “Securing it doesn’t erase that message.”
Roman takes her by the wrist - gentle enough to show consent, firm enough to keep her from making another decision that gets her killed. He guides her away from the door, toward the back wall where the emergency exit is hidden behind a panel. The house is too quiet. The silence feels staged.
Ava’s breath catches at his touch, the heat of her skin flaring under his palm. Her eyes lift to his, and for a moment the anger in them softens into something rawer - need, maybe, or the helplessness of being protected when she’s spent her life protecting herself.
Then the second knock sounds at the door, louder this time. Not code. Not polite.
A fist.
Roman’s hand tightens on her wrist. “Stay close.”
Ava’s voice trembles just enough to betray her. “Roman. Tell me you didn’t bring me here thinking you could outsmart them alone.”
He doesn’t answer the way she wants. He answers the way he can. “I didn’t think I’d need to.”
The panel beside the door flickers, the text scrolling again - new lines, fast, as if whoever sent it is watching their movement through walls Roman can’t see.
SHE’S SAFE.
FOR NOW.
Roman feels the words like a weight dropping into his gut. Safe house or not, the syndicate isn’t just threatening Ava.
They’re measuring how long Roman can keep her alive before he breaks his own plan trying.
And the worst part - the part Roman can’t swallow - is the implication: they’re not waiting for Ava to run.
They’re waiting for Roman to choose.
He hauls the emergency panel open. Cold air pours in from the hidden stairwell, smelling like damp concrete and old dust. Ava steps toward it, but she looks back at the door once, eyes blazing.
“Roman,” she says, and her voice is steadier than his fear. “If they know where we are, they know what I carry. They want me to react.”
Roman’s gaze meets hers. “Then don’t react.”
Ava’s expression sharpens. “You keep asking me not to be myself.”
Roman’s control strains again, but he drags her into the stairwell before the door can give in. The steps clatter under their feet, echoing down the narrow throat of the building. Their breaths sound too loud in the dark.
At the bottom of the stairs, Roman reaches for the latch on the side exit. He expects the usual - another alley, another risk, another set of choices.
Instead, the latch turns easily, and the door swings wider than it should.
A small, neat pile of evidence bags sits on the threshold - fresh, sealed, stamped with a logo Roman recognizes from the syndicate’s legal front.
Ava stares at them, stunned into stillness.
Roman’s mind blanks for one brutal second, because the bags aren’t just evidence.
They’re his proof that the leak isn’t only inside The Shadows.
It’s close enough to touch her case file - and already trying to reframe her life.
Behind them, the safe house door slams upstairs with a sound like a gunshot.
Ava inhales sharply. Roman doesn’t let go of her wrist.
“What is that?” she whispers.
Roman’s eyes lift to the stamped seal on the nearest bag. He reads the name printed beneath the logo - clean type, deliberate placement.
It matches Ava’s folder.
And beneath it, in smaller code, a second line that makes Roman’s blood go colder than the stairwell air:
NEXT MOVE: ROMAN’S TRUST.
He yanks Ava behind him, dragging them into the street’s thin cover - and as he does, a car engine starts two blocks away, slow and patient, as if it’s been waiting for this exact moment.
Ava’s gaze snaps to the streetlight, to the path the car will take.
“Roman,” she says, voice strained. “They’re not just targeting me.”
He tastes the truth before he says it. “No.”
The car lights sweep across the alley entrance, bright enough to brand them shadows. Roman grips Ava’s wrist harder, moving them backward, away from the light.
Ava’s eyes meet his - fear threaded with fury, hope bruised into something sharper.
Then she speaks the decision that will either save them or burn them both.
“I’m going to use it,” she says, nodding toward the evidence bags. “Not their way.”
Roman’s protective instincts flare - commanding, cold. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Ava leans closer, breath hot against his knuckles. “You already decided. When you brought me into your safe plan.”
The alley fills with the sound of footsteps - measured, confident, coming from the wrong direction.
Roman has one heartbeat to choose between dragging Ava deeper into hiding or trusting her to fight with the evidence they’re baiting him with.
He chooses her by instinct.
And the second he starts to move, Ava’s phone - left behind on the table - buzzes through the wall, muffled but urgent, like a heartbeat the safe house can’t hide.
On the screen, Roman can’t see the caller ID.
But he can see the preview text when the light catches it through the door gap.
It’s a location update.
Their location.
Already.