Chapter 3 Ava’s Brief Filed in Blood #2
Roman didn’t answer. He pulled the gun up enough to keep his fingers in control, then he moved to the kitchen door, shoulder first, angling his body so the corridor wouldn’t see Ava. “Back.”
Ava didn’t obey. She reached around him and grabbed the folder’s edge, refusing to let him take it alone. Her palm was warm, fierce. “If they’re here for me, they can take it from my hands.”
Roman’s eyes cut to hers. “You think I’m letting you get shot for pride?”
Her lips parted. For a moment, her fierce independence faltered into something raw. “I think you’re letting someone else get you hurt. I think you’re trying to be the only shield and you’re going to crack.”
The words hit him harder than gunfire ever had. Ava didn’t say them as accusation. She said them like observation - like she’d been watching him longer than he realized.
Roman’s throat tightened. He didn’t have time for the tenderness her truth stirred.
He focused on the evidence. He could feel it through the folder’s thin cardboard - the weight of what it held, the way it could tip the whole internal war into a massacre if the wrong people read it first.
“Give me the original,” Roman said, voice clipped. “And you keep a copy. We do this clean.”
Ava froze. “You can’t - ”
“I can.” He met her eyes. “I’m not asking for permission. I’m offering a compromise that keeps you alive long enough to choose your next move.”
Ava’s expression turned sharp again, but the fight in it wasn’t only stubbornness anymore. It was fear dressed as control. “If you take the original, the leak will know I’m cooperating with you.”
Roman’s mouth went hard. “The leak already knows. The question is whether they get to use it.”
The corridor clicked again. Closer now. A muffled scrape, like a tool kissing the doorframe.
Roman grabbed the folder with one decisive motion - Ava’s hand met his, then slid off as he pulled the slim case free.
She resisted for half a breath, then - eyes blazing - she grabbed for the counter drawer where she’d kept a small portable drive and printed backups earlier.
Roman saw it: stacks of pages already clipped, neatly organized, her private seal pressed onto a second set.
She’d prepared for this. Prepared for him.
“You were always going to try to file,” he said, and it wasn’t accusation. It was awe he didn’t want.
Ava’s shoulders rose and fell once. “I was always going to try to survive long enough to matter.”
Roman’s hand tightened around the folder. His gun stayed low, but his body shifted into motion. “Copy. Now.”
Ava yanked the drive free, then shoved the backup sheets into a folder sleeve and shoved it toward him. “Take this. The original is leverage. The copy is mine.”
Roman’s gaze flicked over her face, searching for a lie and finding something worse: sincerity. “Keep it on your person.”
“I will,” Ava said. “And you’ll keep the original away from the leak.”
Roman almost smiled at the way she tried to control the narrative even as the walls tightened around them. Almost.
He turned toward the kitchen door. The hallway’s light had changed - too bright, too white, like someone had brought their own illumination. The clicking stopped. Footsteps gathered.
Roman moved fast, dragging the kitchen door open just enough to see the corridor without exposing Ava fully.
A surveillance team in dark gear stood two doors down, their earpieces catching faint interference.
No uniforms. No insignia. Just the kind of professionalism that came from people who didn’t need to announce themselves.
One of them lifted a hand toward the door lock panel as if confirming a signal. Another tilted their head, eyes scanning the kitchen like they already knew what they’d find.
Roman’s breath went shallow. “They’re not coming for you,” he said, though Ava was still behind him. “They’re coming for the evidence.”
Ava’s voice was a whisper edged with steel. “Then you’d better not give it to them willingly.”
Roman didn’t look back. “I’m not.”
He stepped into the doorway wider, gun finally rising to a ready angle. “Back out,” he ordered the team - his voice carrying the command he’d earned in Special Operations, cold and unquestionable.
The closest operative’s radio crackled. “Target confirmed. Secure the - ”
Roman fired once - not at the man, but through the lock panel to blast it into uselessness. The shot shattered the quiet, a sharp concussion that made Ava flinch, her breath catching. Glass tinkled somewhere nearby. The corridor erupted into motion - shields raised, bodies angling for cover.
Roman shoved Ava behind the counter with his forearm, protective without asking, and grabbed the folder so he could keep it from sight. “Stay low.”
Ava’s hand caught his wrist, fingers tight enough to bruise. “Don’t you dare - ”
Roman’s eyes snapped to hers, and for a second all the tension between them narrowed into the same stubborn point: she wouldn’t let him decide alone.
Then a flash of light cut through the gap in the kitchen door - someone cycling a tactical beam. The safe house’s alarm system chirped once, twice, and then the full wail rose like a siren in a throat.
Roman heard the change in the sound - this wasn’t a quiet alert. This was a breach protocol.
He shoved Ava deeper into the kitchen, guiding her toward the side passage he knew the layout of by memory, then paused just long enough to press his palm against her cheek for one brutal heartbeat, grounding her in the only truth he could offer without breaking.
“Keep the copy,” he said. “No matter what.”
Ava’s eyes burned with the need to argue. “And you?”
Roman turned his head toward the corridor where the surveillance team had started closing the distance, their boots finding a path through the panic like they’d practiced it.
“I take the original,” he said, voice iron. “I get us out alive.”
Ava’s lips parted, but the alarm swallowed the rest of her protest.
The kitchen lights flickered. Somewhere in the safe house, another door slammed into place, sealing a route. Roman heard the click of a lock engaging - final, deliberate.
When he looked back at the hallway, the team had shifted, spreading out to cut off the side passage.
And through the kitchen doorway gap, a new line of preview text shimmered on Ava’s folder sleeve - fresh, smug, updated again.
Location confirmed.
Roman’s stomach dropped, because the message wasn’t just telling him where they were.
It was telling them where Ava would be next.
END OF CURRENT OUTPUT READY FOR CONTINUE