Chapter 9 Ava’s Evidence, Roman’s Promise
Ava’s Evidence, Roman’s Promise
The metal plate over the access panel didn’t just hide the next door. It dared Roman to touch it.
Ava stood close enough that her shoulder brushed his when she leaned in, the slim folder pressed against her ribs like a second heart.
The air in the converted office suite inside the secure transport hub was too clean - filtered, recycled, scrubbed down to the point that every sound felt louder than it should.
The faint hum of power lines vibrated through the floor.
Somewhere beyond the walls, a generator sighed and caught, steady as a heartbeat.
Roman kept his gun angled down, not because he was calm, but because he was trying not to show Ava how hard it was to stay still.
His gaze locked on the etched name on the plate.
He’d trained himself not to speak it, not to think it, not to give it oxygen.
Now it sat there in cold steel, a confession hammered into a place it shouldn’t have existed.
Ava’s voice was quiet when she asked, “Did you expect them to bolt over it?”
“I expected them to watch us,” Roman said. His tone came out colder than he intended. He could feel Ava’s eyes on him, bright and unrelenting, like she was trying to cut through the suspicion that had already begun to grow inside his own command.
The courier’s last message still lived in his mind - redacted where it shouldn’t have been, the chain of custody bent like wire. Evidence that could topple men who thought they were untouchable. Evidence that also made Roman look compromised, like he’d been the one to shepherd the trap into place.
Ava exhaled through her nose, a sharp little sound. “Then stop stalling and let me see what’s behind it.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. “We don’t touch unknown panels.”
“We do when the only way to prove I’m not the reason people are getting buried is to know exactly what I’m holding.” Her fingers slid over the folder’s edge, not opening it yet - just grounding herself. “You brought me here to keep me safe. Fine. Keep me safe by letting me verify what’s real.”
His pulse ticked harder at the word verify.
Because verification meant words. Words meant triggers.
And Ava didn’t know what he’d already learned: the leak inside The Shadows wasn’t just feeding information to their enemies.
It was listening for patterns. Waiting for certain names to be spoken, certain commands to be executed, certain files to be accessed.
He stepped closer to the plate and ran a gloved finger along the bolt line. The metal was fresh. Too fresh. The hub’s security cameras would have logged the interference unless someone had already scrubbed the feed. Someone with access.
Ava’s body angled toward him, protective instinct sparking in her eyes. Not the submissive kind - hers was the kind that made men bleed for underestimating her. She murmured, “Roman.”
He didn’t look at her. “Don’t.”
Her voice sharpened. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this about you trusting me.” He finally met her gaze. The space between them tightened with every second he held it. “If you open that folder in here and those words are in the wrong hands - ”
“It won’t be in the wrong hands.” Ava’s mouth tightened, her legal brain already moving through contingencies like a weapon test. “It’s in my hands. And if they want me to flinch, they’ll be disappointed.”
Roman heard the distant clink of something metal - maybe a cart in a hallway, maybe a lock turning. The sound could have been nothing. It could have been everything.
Ava reached past him toward the sealed panel, slow, deliberate, like she was giving Roman time to stop her. Her fingertips hovered near the edge of the plate. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
Roman’s throat burned. He was afraid of being wrong about the traitor. Afraid of being right and having no way to prove it. Afraid that every promise he’d ever made to protect Ava would be measured against the one thing he couldn’t control: the way the conspiracy had crawled into his own bones.
He said, “I’m afraid the handler already has the evidence loaded into a live system. I’m afraid that when you speak the wrong data aloud, it will send a signal - ”
Ava’s eyes narrowed. “So you think my voice is the trigger.”
“I think it’s the key.” He kept his voice low, controlled. “Because whoever did this knows you. Knows how you operate. Knows you can’t stand not knowing.”
Ava’s gaze flicked to the etched name on the plate again, and for a moment her bravado slipped - just enough to show something raw beneath. She wasn’t afraid of danger. She was afraid of being used.
Then she looked back at him, hard. “Then we’ll do it my way. You don’t get to decide for me what I can handle.”
Roman’s grip tightened on his gun. The fear wasn’t about her physical safety alone. It was about what the evidence would do to her mind when she recognized the reach of the conspiracy - how far it went beyond organized crime and into the places where laws were written, enforced, and sold.
Ava opened the folder.
The sound was soft - paper against paper, a whisper that didn’t belong in a sealed room. The scent of ink and dust hit Roman’s senses, sharp and familiar. The folder’s private seal caught the light, Ava’s seal, Ava’s chain. The kind of detail that made him want to believe in clean proof.
Ava pulled out a slim drive and a stack of printed logs. The printed lines were dense, formatted like court filings, not like syndicate manifests. Her fingertips moved with attorney precision. “Listen to me. If I read the catalog entry aloud, we can cross-check it with the backup checksum - ”
Roman cut in, “You can’t assume the checksum matches.”
Ava’s mouth curved, not kind. “I can. I wrote the motion draft you told me to keep. I built it around the evidence’s structure. If someone altered it - ”
Roman leaned in, close enough that Ava could feel the heat of his anger without him having to raise his voice. “If someone altered it, they’ll know you noticed.”
Ava held his stare. Her voice dropped. “Then we notice fast.”
The hum of the hub deepened. A second sound joined it: a faint chirp, almost like a notification trying to pretend it wasn’t urgent.
Roman stiffened. “That’s not the system.”
Ava’s eyes flicked to the overhead panel. “Neither is the timing.”
Roman moved before she could react. He snapped his gaze to the wall - then to the corner where a conduit ran behind a vent grille. The same place he’d already found evidence of tampering earlier in the safe house raid. The conspiracy wasn’t improvising anymore. It was running a routine.
Ava’s fingers didn’t stop. She pulled up the first log entry on the tablet she’d smuggled into her robe pocket - thin, screen-bright in the sterile air. “The backup indicates the evidence catalog is mirrored into a public-facing index for - ”
Roman grabbed her wrist. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to demand attention.
Ava’s eyes flashed. “Roman.”
He swallowed. “Don’t read it yet.”
“I’m reading it.” Her lips parted on a controlled breath, and Roman watched her decide not to fight his grip with brute force. She turned her wrist slightly, so he could still see the tablet. “I’m reading it because you’re wrong about what scares me.”
Roman’s voice came out rough. “What scares you?”
Ava’s gaze dropped to their hands. Her mouth tightened as if she hated saying it, as if vulnerability was another courtroom where she could lose. “That you’ll decide I’m a liability and start protecting yourself instead of me.”
The confession hit him harder than the chirp of that unseen alert. He’d been suspecting someone inside The Shadows for days, but hearing Ava say it out loud made the suspicion feel like a blade pressed to his own skin.
Roman let go. His fingers flexed once, like they were trying to remember how to behave.
Ava continued, slower now, each word weighed. “The backup evidence implicates not just the syndicate. It implicates political offices and corporate holdings - shell entities tied into - ”
Roman cut his eyes toward the tablet as if looking could stop the information from traveling. “Stop.”
Ava’s voice went brittle. “You’re telling me to stop while I’m holding the only proof I have that I’m not the one they’re using to hurt you.”
A second chirp came, sharper. The tablet flickered. Not a full blackout - just a stutter. Like a live feed attempting to sync.
Roman’s spine went cold. “They’re listening.”
“They’re already listening,” Ava shot back. “That’s why you brought me to a secure hub.”
Roman stepped between Ava and the tablet, blocking the screen from any line of sight through the vent. His gun stayed down, but his body shifted - tight, ready, the way it had been when he’d hunted in places where the air itself felt like a trap.
Ava’s fingers hovered near the tablet again, restrained by her own pride. She asked, “Roman. Who do you think is the leak?”
His answer was immediate and wrong in the way that made him hate himself. “Someone in command.”
Ava didn’t flinch. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can trust.” Roman’s gaze drifted to the etched name on the plate again. His mind circled it like a caged animal. “And I don’t know if the threat is coming from our side or being fed from the outside.”
Ava’s throat bobbed. “So you’re afraid if you clear me, you’ll expose yourself.”
Roman’s jaw clenched so hard it hurt. He couldn’t tell her the truth - that he’d already accepted the possibility of being marked as the compromised commander, because the traitor had positioned his decisions like evidence against him.
He couldn’t tell her that the internal purge had already begun in whispers, in backchannels, in the way certain men stopped meeting his eyes.
Instead, he said, “I’m afraid you’ll get killed.”
Ava’s eyes softened with a grief that wasn’t about death. It was about being seen too late. “I’m already in the crosshairs, Roman. The question is whether you’re going to keep me there like a shield or treat me like I’m capable of making choices.”