Chapter 13 Ava’s Panic, Roman’s Control
Ava’s Panic, Roman’s Control
Roman stood over Ava with the ledger in his grasp and watched the doors seal behind her as if closing around a body that wasn’t his to protect anymore.
The sterile alcove they’d shoved her into smelled like bleach and something metallic underneath, the kind of clean that meant they’d scrubbed away anything that could be traced.
The overhead lights were too bright, too white - no shadows for hope to hide in.
Ava lay strapped to the examination gurney, her lashes damp from the sedation, her throat working around a swallow that didn’t fully land.
Every breath came out thinner than the last, but her eyes - her furious, capable eyes - were still awake enough to burn.
The restraint cuffs bit into her wrists. Roman could feel the imprint of their pressure even from where he stood. The ledger sat in his hand like a live thing, edges sharp, weight wrong. It wasn’t just evidence now. It was a key to a plan that had already killed people.
Ava’s head turned toward him with a jerky violence, like her body was trying to throw itself free of the drugs. “You - ” Her voice scraped, rough with sedation. “Roman.”
He didn’t answer her name. He stepped closer until he could see the tremor running along her jaw. “Don’t talk.”
Her eyes flicked to the ledger, then away, as if acknowledging it would make it real. “I can’t - ” Another swallow. “I can’t lose it.”
“You’re not losing anything,” he said, low and flat, the way he spoke to men who tried to bargain with bullets.
His gun stayed angled down against his thigh, but his attention wasn’t on it.
It was on her. On the way her fingers tried to curl against the straps anyway.
“I have it. I’m keeping you conscious long enough to use it. ”
Ava’s breath hitched, and the panic rode in on it like a blade. “Conscious? That’s what you call this?” Her gaze snapped back to him, wet and furious. “They drugged me. They sealed me in here. They - ”
“They needed you contained.” Roman leaned in just far enough for the air between them to carry his voice. “And you’re still alive.”
Her mouth twisted. “For now.”
He’d told himself that restraint was mercy - controlled variables, predictable outcomes. He’d used restraint on himself first. On his emotions. On his impulse to touch her bare skin and decide that feeling something was worth the risk.
Tonight, the sedation wasn’t mercy. It was a leash.
Ava’s fear was already clawing at the seams of her composure, and Roman could see the moment it would tip into something worse than panic.
He’d watched men go feral in locked rooms. He’d watched what happened when the mind realized it could die and the body didn’t get a say.
Ava’s eyes widened. “Where are they taking me?”
Roman held her gaze. “Medical transfer,” he said.
Her throat bobbed again. “That wasn’t medical. That was - ” She sucked in a breath, and the sedative made the movement clumsy, like her body was delayed. “That was a threat with a nicer name.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. He’d heard the facility voice. Calm. Judging. A voice that never rushed, because rushing meant acknowledging uncertainty. The words still rang in his head: Lantern Protocol activation - medical transfer confirmed.
Ava’s panic surged anyway, as if the facility’s language had been designed to fit her worst instincts. “No.” The word came out ragged. “No, no, no. Roman, don’t - ”
He moved before she could finish. One hand slid under the strap at her wrist, not loosening it - just checking where it would bite if she thrashed. The other hand lifted the ledger slightly so she could see it. “Look at me.”
Her eyes clung to his fingers. Her lashes fluttered, slow. “You’re right there and they still took me.”
“They took you because you were moving too fast,” he said. “Because you insisted on the motion. Because you - ” He stopped himself. He wouldn’t blame her. Not when her fear was already carving her open.
Ava’s lips parted, and her breath came in a short, ugly pulse. “Because I’m the one who can’t be controlled.”
Roman could’ve lied and soothed. He could’ve given her a promise that made her eyes soften and her body relax into compliance. He’d done it before, for people who didn’t know better. For people who wanted to be convinced.
But Ava wasn’t that kind of prey. She was a predator with a lawyer’s mind, and predators didn’t calm down because you told them to. They calmed down when they believed you’d survive with them.
Her gaze dropped to the ledger again. “If they take it - ”
“I won’t let them.” He pulled the ledger closer to his chest, shielding it from her line of sight for a second.
The instinct to hide it from her was immediate - he hated that he wanted her focused on him, not the evidence.
Hated that he wanted to control the information the way the facility controlled her body.
Control had a way of spreading like infection.
Ava’s brow furrowed. “Roman.”
He softened his voice by half a notch. Not warm. Not gentle. Controlled. “You’re sedated. You’re not thinking straight. I need you stable.”
Her nostrils flared. The sedation made her movements sluggish, but her anger sharpened every sound. “You always say that like it’s a gift.”
“It’s a necessity.”
She swallowed again, harder, as if trying to force herself out of the drugs with will alone. “Necessity for who?”
The question hit him like a fist to the ribs. For him. For the plan. For the evidence. For the Shadows. For the people he couldn’t afford to lose.
Roman’s throat tightened. He forced his attention back to her hands, to the way her fingers were already numb at the edges. “For you,” he said, and it came out truer than he expected. “If you come apart, they win.”
Ava’s eyes went glassy for a heartbeat, not from the sedation alone. Something deeper tried to rise behind her expression - something she refused to let show because she’d never survived by begging.
Roman leaned closer, his voice dropping until only she could hear. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
Her breath stuttered. She stared at him like he was asking for a confession she didn’t have the language for. “You’re not a therapist,” she rasped.
“I’m not.” He kept his face still. Kept the world from tilting. “But I’m the one here. And you’re strapped to a bed in a place that calls itself clean while it burns people down inside.” He tapped the ledger once, a hard, deliberate motion. “So tell me.”
Ava’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, where the lights buzzed faintly. The sound threaded through the silence like a warning. “I’m afraid,” she said slowly, “that you’ll decide I’m too dangerous to keep. That you’ll lock me away from the truth because it’s easier.”
Roman felt the words catch on his ribs. He hadn’t locked her away from truth. He’d locked her away from death. But the difference didn’t matter when the fear was already in her bones.
He adjusted his stance, lowering himself until he was closer to her level. The straps creaked when she shifted her wrists. “I didn’t bring you this far to decide you’re a liability.”
Her laugh was wet and humorless. “You brought me here because you couldn’t stop it. Because you didn’t have a choice.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “I always have a choice.”
Ava’s gaze sharpened. “Then choose me. Not the ledger. Not the motion. Me.”
He could’ve been cruel. He could’ve made her wait, made her earn his comfort like obedience. He could’ve reminded her that he was the commander, that she was under his protection, that she didn’t get to demand anything.
Instead, he reached out and cupped her cheek, careful where his fingers touched. Ava’s skin was warm, but her body didn’t lean into it. Her eyes stayed fixed on his hand like she was bracing for a trap.
“You think I don’t want you,” he said quietly. “You think I don’t care.”
Ava’s throat worked. “I think you care the way you control everything else. Like I’m something you can keep from breaking by holding it tighter.”
Roman’s thumb brushed the edge of her jaw - barely there, but enough that her breath caught. “I care like I’m afraid of losing you.”
That was the truth he didn’t say out loud. Not because he couldn’t. Because he couldn’t afford the weakness. And because saying it would mean admitting how much he’d already been pulled off balance.
Ava’s eyes shimmered, her panic fighting for dominance. “Afraid,” she repeated, voice breaking. “Then why are you letting them take me from you?”
He pulled back half an inch, not from her, but to keep himself from doing something reckless - like kissing her, like promising more than he could guarantee. He was disciplined. He was cold. He was protective.
But he was also a man who’d been trained to survive by calculating threats, not by touching the parts of himself that wanted comfort.
“Because I’m buying time,” he said. “Time to stabilize you and get the ledger into a form they can’t burn.”
Ava’s eyes widened at the word burn. “You think they’ll - ”
“They already tried,” Roman said.
He hadn’t planned to tell her that yet. He hadn’t planned to show her the bruise of the facility’s tactics.
But the sedation was thinning, and her mind was too sharp to be kept in the dark.
If he didn’t give her a reason to trust him now, she would start tearing at the restraints with her whole body.
She would make noise. She would trigger whatever came next.
Ava stared at him, and the panic shifted into something worse: realization. “What did you do?”
Roman’s hand tightened around the ledger. He’d used a portion of its protective coating when the lockdown began - micro-detonations of chemical inhibitors to prevent a full trace. It had cost him clarity. It had saved the evidence from being fully destroyed. Not completely.
He opened the ledger just enough to show her what remained visible on the internal plate - burned edges, charred lines where ink should’ve been. Like a page that had been eaten.
Ava’s breath stopped. “No.”
Roman watched her expression as if it were a countdown. “One legible name remains.”
Her gaze clung to the partially destroyed characters, and her lips moved silently before she found her voice. “That’s - ” Her eyes flicked up to him, sudden fear sharpening into anger again. “That’s not possible. That’s - ”
Roman’s pulse kicked. “Read it.”
Ava swallowed, and the sedation made her movement clumsy, but her mind didn’t slow.
She stared hard enough that the light reflected in her pupils.
“It’s only a partial,” she whispered. “But it matches a role. An internal role.” Her voice shook.
“A position that doesn’t touch evidence. A position that routes people.”
Roman’s stomach turned. Internal leak. The facility wasn’t just a trap for them. It was proof of a system inside The Shadows that could move bodies like pieces and keep the hands clean.
Ava’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, like she was forcing herself not to panic all the way through. When she opened them again, she looked at Roman with raw need. “You said it was one person.”
“It is,” Roman said. “But the name is connected to a role. That means someone used authority, not just access.”
Ava’s mouth trembled. “Then they didn’t just leak me. They staged the entire chain.”
Roman felt his control strain - felt it in the way his fingers wanted to crush the ledger. Felt it in the pressure behind his eyes. He didn’t have the luxury of rage. Rage would make him reckless.
He lowered his voice, keeping it steady so she could hear him over her own fear. “I’m going to keep you conscious. I’m going to get you out. And you’re going to trust me when the next part is ugly.”
Ava’s gaze searched his face, hunting for lies. “What if I don’t want to be contained anymore?”
Roman’s expression didn’t change. He couldn’t give her permission to fight her restraints while the facility watched.
But he could give her something else - something that didn’t feel like control.
“Then you’ll fight in the way that keeps you alive,” he said.
“With your mind. With your timing. With your voice. Not your wrists.”
Ava’s breath shook, and her eyes went bright with the effort of not breaking. “You’re deciding what I’m allowed to do.”
“No,” he said. “I’m deciding what we can survive.”
For a moment, the only sound was the distant hum of machines and the faint click of ventilation. Ava’s chest rose and fell. Roman could feel the sedation fighting her. He could also feel her fighting back.
Then the overhead speakers crackled, and the calm voice returned, smoother than a blade sliding free.
“Medical transfer stage initiated. Commander Roman, step to the alcove’s access panel. Courier confirmation required.”
Roman didn’t move. His gaze stayed on Ava, on the way her eyes snapped toward the sound like an animal sensing the handler.
Ava’s panic flared again. “No,” she whispered. “They want you away from me.”
“They want leverage.” Roman’s hand slid to the strap at her shoulder, checking the latch. “And they want you to think I’ll choose the ledger over you.”
Ava’s voice went tight. “Will you?”
Roman leaned closer until his mouth was near her ear, close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath through the restraint’s fabric. “I’ll choose you,” he said. “But I’ll do it in a way that keeps you breathing when the doors close again.”
Ava stared at him, stunned by the plainness of it. The sedation made her slow, but her trust - earned trust - was starting to move. Not fully. Not safely.
The speaker crackled again. “Commander Roman. Compliance requested within ten seconds.”
Roman’s pulse hammered. Ten seconds. That was nothing. It was a leash too.
He stood, gun still angled down, ledger secured against his ribs. “Stay with me,” he told Ava, and he hated how commanding it sounded even as it was meant to be reassurance. “Don’t fight the sedation. If you fight it, you’ll spasm, and they’ll take that as permission to move you.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “So you’re going to go.”
Roman met her gaze. “I’m going to make them think they’re in control.”
His fingers hovered over the access panel as the countdown began in the facility’s sterile voice. The numbers didn’t matter as much as the way Ava’s breath hitched - like she was bracing for the moment he’d step away and she’d disappear.
The panel lights flickered from amber to red.
And then Ava’s restraint alarm - silent until now - chirped once, sharp as a gun cocking, as if her body had just become part of the trap too.
Roman’s hand froze over the panel.
Ava’s eyes met his, wide and terrified, and she mouthed a single word: “Roman - ”
The alcove door unlocked with a soft, deliberate click.