Chapter 8 Ava Taken, Roman’s Line Crosses #3
He pressed his gun to the panel seam and aimed for the weak spot - not to break it fully, just to create a gap. His discipline screamed at him to stop, to wait, to preserve evidence and options.
But Ava’s breath on the other side of the door told him waiting was a luxury he didn’t have.
He fired again - another shot into the seam. The metal warped, then split with a shriek that made his ears ring. Cold air rushed through the gap, smelling like disinfectant and something metallic underneath.
Roman shoved the door open enough to see inside.
The server room was darker than it should’ve been, lit by emergency strips along the floor.
In the center, Ava was slumped against the far wall, wrists bound behind her back with restraints that looked too clean to be amateur work.
Her hair was disordered, her lips pressed tight, eyes blazing even as she winced at the intrusion.
Roman’s heart slammed against his ribs. Relief hit him so hard it was almost pain.
“Ava,” he said, and the sound of her name came out rougher than he intended.
She lifted her head. Her gaze snagged on him like a hook. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t speak immediately - she looked at his hands, the gun, the way his shoulders were angled like he was ready to take a bullet for her again.
Then she managed, “You shouldn’t have - ”
“I know,” he cut in, crouching beside her. He tugged at the restraints, feeling the tightness, the way they were engineered not to yield quickly. “Can you move your fingers?”
A brief tremor ran through her, not fear - anger. “I can breathe. That’s about it.”
The alarm behind him changed pitch. The walls seemed to tighten, and the corridor lights blinked in a pattern that made Roman’s gut twist.
The purge timer was accelerating.
He kept his eyes on Ava while he worked, knife sliding into the restraint’s locking channel with careful pressure. The metal resisted, then released with a snap that made her inhale sharply.
Ava’s hands fell forward when the restraints loosened. She flexed her wrists once, twice, then pressed her palms to the wall to steady herself.
Roman helped her stand, keeping his body between her and the door. She leaned into him for half a second - too long to be accidental, too controlled to be weakness. Her breath warmed his chest.
“Who took me?” she demanded, voice steady now that she could speak. “And where’s your folder?”
Roman’s grip tightened on the fabric of her shirt. He could feel her pulse under his palm. He could also feel the invisible net tightening around him - his broadcast on the forbidden channel had already pulled attention, and now the corridor was shifting from rescue to punishment.
He didn’t answer her question. Not yet.
Instead, he brought his mouth near her ear and said, “We leave now. I’ll explain when you’re safe.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t break protocol just to rescue me.”
Roman’s silence was an admission.
Her gaze flicked to his earpiece. The device crackled again, and this time the voice on it wasn’t distorted. It was clear.
“Commander Roman,” the voice said, “stand down. You are the only one who initiated the override request. Ava Collins was located immediately after. That pattern is… inconvenient.”
Ava’s breath hitched, small and sharp.
Roman felt it - the shift in her trust from him as protector to him as suspect. The syndicate had planned for her to need him. The traitor within The Shadows had planned for her to doubt him.
Roman tightened his hold on her, then loosened it just enough to take control again. He stepped toward the torn seam in the server door, dragging Ava with him.
As they moved, the corridor lights flared, and a new sound rolled through the building: the low thrum of a security system cycling into full purge mode. Not a countdown.
A start.
Ava stumbled once, and Roman caught her by the waist. Her body was warm, alive, furious. She pressed her forehead briefly against his shoulder like she could steady herself on him.
“Roman,” she whispered, and this time the word held fear. “Tell me you’re not - ”
“I’m not,” he said, too fast. Too hard. It landed wrong, like he was trying to convince her instead of reassure her.
Her eyes flashed, hurt cutting through anger. “Then prove it.”
He pulled the forbidden channel device from his ear and snapped it off mid-transmission, cutting the voice feed - silencing the evidence of what he’d done.
It was a gamble. A deliberate act of self-sabotage to keep the leak from controlling the narrative through that channel.
He could feel the consequences already in the air, like static before lightning.
Behind them, the server room’s purge alarms surged to a higher register. The building seemed to inhale.
And as Roman shoved Ava into the next service corridor, a burst of gunfire cracked through the hall - The Shadows’ weapons, turned inward.
Someone had decided Roman was the traitor.
And the moment they reached the next junction, Ava’s gaze snapped to the wall where a metal plate had been bolted over an access panel - etched into it, shallow and deliberate, the name etched into the metal, clear as a confession.
Not Roman’s.
The traitor’s.
It was a name Roman had trained himself never to speak aloud.