Chapter 20 Ava’s Target List Turns Personal
Ava’s Target List Turns Personal
The street-level safe drop smelled like wet concrete and oil, like the underbelly of the city had been sweating for hours.
Roman crouched behind a dented delivery crate, Roman’s gun angled down, his shoulder tight against cold brick as the rain hissed through a cracked awning.
Across the street, an old training facility loomed - faded chain-link, half-lit windows, the silhouette of a yard that used to be used for discipline and now looked like it belonged to someone else’s appetite.
A slim folder stamped with Ava’s private seal rested under Roman’s jacket, heavy enough to pull his thoughts off every other threat.
The ledger wasn’t just compromised. It was rewritten with a timeline that didn’t start with him - it started before he’d ever worn the uniform that made him dangerous.
That meant the conspiracy had always had access to the network, always had a way to steer the chain of custody through hands like Ava’s, through decisions like hers.
And somewhere in that chain, the syndicate had learned Ava’s name.
Roman’s earpiece crackled with a low, distorted voice as a nearby surveillance camera blinked into life - one of the watcher’s little eyes, or one of the syndicate’s.
The audio wasn’t clear enough to trust, but the timing was.
A message had been pushed to the syndicate’s internal routing.
A target list had been generated - names tied to Roman’s past, to the people who’d once been under his command.
People he’d promised to keep out of the blast radius even when he’d thought he was only ever saving himself.
His throat went dry anyway.
Ava was two steps behind him, close enough that her warmth brushed the back of his hand when she shifted.
She wore her coat like armor - sleek, dark, controlled.
The rain slicked her hair to her collar, and the light caught the edge of her seal as she checked the folder’s position through Roman’s jacket, like she could read the future by touch.
“You’re shaking,” she murmured.
Roman didn’t look at her. He watched the training facility’s gate, the slight movement of a shadow behind the fence line. “I’m not.”
Ava’s breath fogged the air between them, a thin cloud that vanished fast. “Your right thumb is tapping the same rhythm it did when you were trying to decide whether to tell me about the overwrite. Don’t insult me.”
The familiarity of her accusation hit him harder than it should have. He hated being known. He hated that she could see him in moments he tried to bury.
“I tapped once,” he said.
“You tapped twice,” she corrected, voice quiet but edged. “And you’re counting. That’s what you do when you’re trying to control everything you can’t.”
Roman finally turned his head enough to catch her face in the dim.
Her eyes were bright - too alive for the kind of danger that waited behind every corner.
She’d spent years in courtrooms, in affidavits, in controlled arguments.
He’d watched her take down men who thought law was a weapon that only cut one way.
But this wasn’t a courtroom. This was a street-level drop where the rules were written in blood and latency.
He could feel her urge to reach for the folder, to pull it out and make the syndicate panic with it.
Ava wanted to confront the list publicly.
She wanted to force the world to look. Roman knew what would happen if she did - what the syndicate would do in the first ten minutes after her evidence hit the open air.
They’d move like a hive. They wouldn’t wait for a trial.
They’d start assassinating the people tied to Roman’s past because that’s what the list was for.
Ava leaned closer. “They’re targeting people you used to protect.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. “They’re targeting people who know you’ll come for them.”
Her nostrils flared, anger sharpening her scent. Rain, cold fabric, and the faint metallic bite of her fear she refused to name. “Then we don’t wait for them to decide who dies.”
Roman’s hand closed over the folder beneath his jacket, sealing it against his ribs. “We don’t get to decide what they already set in motion.”
Ava’s mouth parted as if she’d argue, then snapped shut.
She stared at the facility gate again, but Roman could see her calculating - how many seconds it took to cross the street, where a shooter would position themselves, how long it would take to reach the nearest cover.
She was already building a plan that didn’t include him stopping her.
He hated that she was good at this. He hated that she’d become good at surviving because he’d needed her to.
A car idled somewhere down the block, tires whispering through puddles. The sound was ordinary enough that it could’ve been harmless. The way it carried, though - too steady, too deliberate - made Roman’s spine go rigid.
He signaled Ava with a subtle tilt of his chin. Move with me, not toward the danger.
Ava moved, but not how Roman wanted. She walked like she belonged in the rain, like the city had never dared to deny her anything.
When she reached the corner, she leaned out just enough to see the fence line.
A second later, her gaze caught on something near the gate - two silhouettes in dark jackets, one with a rifle slung low, the other holding a phone up at a slight angle as if watching a live feed.
Ava’s lips tightened. “They’re coordinating.”
Roman’s earpiece hissed again, this time with a clean burst of static that resolved into a short command phrase - something clipped and coded. Not enough to read, but enough to confirm the syndicate wasn’t winging it.
They were already executing.
Roman drew a breath through his nose, tasting damp air and exhaust. He stepped from cover, gun coming up in a controlled arc. “Stay behind me.”
Ava didn’t argue. She did something worse - she stepped to the side, aligning her body with his line of fire. Not behind. Beside. Close enough that if he fell, she’d still be within reach of whatever the watcher had planned.
“Roman,” she said, and his name sounded like a tether.
He hated that she sounded worried.
He pushed forward anyway, boots on slick pavement, the world reduced to distance and angles. The two silhouettes at the gate turned their heads at the same time - trained reflex, the kind you only learned when you expected resistance.
The first shot cracked the rain, sharp and bright. The bullet tore through the fence line not a foot from Roman’s shoulder. Heat flared against his coat where the round passed close enough to shave fabric.
Roman fired once - one clean shot aimed for the rifle hand. The man’s weapon clattered into the wet grit. His face twisted in pain, mouth open in a sound that didn’t come out as language.
The second silhouette raised their phone instead of their gun. A gesture like they were confirming something. Then they looked past Roman, toward Ava.
Ava’s breath caught. Roman saw it, saw the way she turned her head just enough to follow the shooter’s sightline. Her eyes flicked to the far side of the yard where a small service door sat half-hidden behind overgrown brush.
Someone was moving there.
Roman’s mind flashed an image - past briefings, names on reports, faces he’d told himself he’d never see again because he’d kept them safe. The target list wasn’t abstract. It had a body count written into it already.
Roman moved, low and fast, closing the distance between them and the gate. His training made the sprint smooth, but the street fought him - slick ground, puddles sucking at his soles, rain stinging his eyes.
The shooter with the phone fired a single round toward Ava’s position. The shot wasn’t meant to kill. It was meant to force her to react, to pull her toward the door, to separate her from Roman’s control.
Ava reacted anyway - she ducked, rolled her shoulder, and came up with her own compact weapon. The sound of her first shot was smaller than Roman’s, but it landed. The phone clattered from the shooter’s grip, screen shattering on the pavement with a wet crack.
The man crumpled, clutching his side, breath ragged.
Roman reached the gate line and shoved it with his shoulder, metal groaning. The fence gave just enough for him to slip through. Rain soaked his jacket immediately, cold water threading into his collar. He didn’t care. He cared about the service door now - about the movement he’d seen behind brush.
Ava followed at a pace that matched his urgency, eyes locked forward, jaw set like she could force time to obey her. “Who’s behind that door?” she demanded.
Roman didn’t answer because his mind was already answering itself with the kind of certainty that tasted like rust.
“Don’t,” he said.
Ava’s eyes flashed at the command. “Don’t what?”
Roman stepped toward the service door, gun steady, and spotted the key detail that made his stomach drop. The handle had a fresh smear of something dark - grease or blood. The lock wasn’t forced; it was opened from the inside with someone who expected them.
Ava saw it too. Her voice dropped, sharper now with fear she refused to dress in softness. “That’s not a random target.”
“It’s a message,” Roman said.
Ava’s gaze darted toward the gate where the two shooters lay bleeding in the rain. “Then why haven’t they come out and finished it?”
Because they didn’t want to fight her. Because they wanted her to see the bodies. Because they wanted her to associate her evidence with the deaths they’d cause. Roman could feel the watcher’s patience in every second that passed without a second wave.
He pushed the service door open.
The air inside was warmer - stale, chemical, layered with old sweat and mildew. A training room had been converted into a holding space. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, making every surface look sickly white. Metal benches lined the walls. A single chair sat in the center like a stage prop.