Chapter 24 The Evidence That Names Enemies #2
“Am I?” The man stepped closer, careful, like he wanted Roman to smell the lie on him. He smelled like cold smoke and cheap cologne layered over sweat. “Tell me, Roman. Do you still believe you can save her with your hands?”
Something twisted in Roman’s chest. The question was designed to bait him into showing emotion. Ava had said the same thing in her own way - she hated being treated like she needed saving. She’d also hated being lied to.
Roman took one step forward.
The man lifted his weapon, not firing - yet.
Roman’s eyes narrowed. The muzzle wasn’t pointed like it was about to kill. It was pointed like it was about to control. Like it wanted Roman to freeze in a specific place.
He didn’t freeze. He moved to the left, forcing the angle to change.
The gunshot cracked the night - loud, violent. The bullet tore through the oilcloth inside the locker Roman had opened, spraying a dark oily mist that stank like burnt machine grease.
Roman flinched despite himself.
That was the cost of keeping the gun down too far - of letting the other man dictate the first exchange. Discipline held, but it didn’t erase damage.
The man grinned as if Roman had confirmed something. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m not bleeding,” Roman said, voice tight.
“You will be.” The man’s eyes flicked toward the shed. “And she’ll be worse than hurt.”
A sound came then - two sharp impacts, metallic, from behind the shed door. Followed by Ava’s voice.
Not screaming. Not pleading.
Ava’s voice was clipped and furious, like she was arguing with someone who didn’t understand law or logic. “Don’t touch the bag.”
Roman’s lungs locked on the inhale. He knew that tone. The same tone she used when she dismantled a witness on the stand, when she refused to let fear become her attorney.
The man by the lockers tilted his head, listening like he enjoyed it. “You hear her? She’s fighting. That’s sweet.”
Roman moved toward the shed, but the yard ground felt wrong beneath his boots - slightly too smooth, like something had been laid over the gravel. He scanned the surface and saw it: thin wire threading along the base of a support post, disappearing under rusted plates.
Trip lines.
Ava hadn’t walked blindly. Someone had made sure she’d step into the exact place where the trap would spring.
Roman’s mind snapped to action. He fired once - not at the man, but at the wire near the ground. The shot bit metal. Sparks skittered, died quickly, and the wire segment loosened.
The man swore, stepping back.
Roman rushed the shed door and shoved it open.
Ava was there.
Her hair was pulled back tight, strands damp at the temples from the sweat that came with running.
She held a slim bag against her body, the evidence folder inside it - Roman could tell by the way she guarded the strap, by the rigid set of her shoulders.
A smear of grime streaked her cheek, and her eyes found Roman instantly, relief and fury colliding in the same breath.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.
Relief hit Roman so hard it almost made him stumble. She was alive. She was here. She was - still stubbornly hers.
“Not alone,” Roman said, and his voice came out rougher than he meant. He pushed closer, gun lifted now, angled at the door behind her, ready for whatever waited in the corridor. “Give me the bag.”
Ava’s jaw tightened. “No. You don’t get to take it like you’re the only one who can carry it.”
Roman’s gaze dropped to her hands. Her fingers were white at the edges of the strap. She wasn’t just angry. She was braced for violence.
“Someone planted this,” he said. “They’re expecting you to follow the thread.”
Ava’s eyes sharpened. “I already know.”
He blinked at her, confusion spiking. “You - ”
“They scrambled my trail,” she cut in, voice low, dangerous. “They wanted me to arrive at the moment they could control you. And they tried to control me too.”
Roman’s pulse hammered. “Where’s the person who set it?”
Ava’s gaze flicked past him.
Behind Roman, the shed’s interior wall shifted with a soft click - panels sliding into place like teeth closing. The air changed, thickened, as if ventilation had been sealed.
Ava went still.
Roman turned fast.
Ava’s breath caught. “Roman - ”
Too late.
The man from the lockers was already inside the shed, moving with practiced speed. He didn’t look surprised. He looked satisfied - like he’d been waiting for the moment Ava and Roman were close enough to become a single target.
He raised his weapon, muzzle trained on Roman’s chest.
Then he looked at Ava and smiled like a man offering a gift. “Now you can see why the note said you’d arrive when she didn’t.”
Roman felt it - felt the trap’s logic click into place.
Ava’s eyes went wide, and her face drained of color as she stared at the floor near her feet. A small device sat there, newly activated, its light blinking in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
Ava backed a half-step, but the shed had already sealed.
“What is that?” Roman demanded, though he already knew it wasn’t meant for display.
Ava swallowed. Her throat bobbed once. “It’s not for you.”
Roman’s blood went cold.
The man’s finger tightened on the trigger, and his voice dropped into something almost kind. “Because Enzo needs her alive for the handoff.”
Roman moved without thinking - drove forward, shoulder first, using his body as a shield while his gun stayed trained on the man. The shot that followed was fast, brutal, and aimed to stop him.
The bullet hit - metal and fabric, a grunt, then the man staggered.
But the device on the floor didn’t care about gunfire.
Ava’s eyes met Roman’s for a single, savage second, the kind of look that wasn’t about romance or blame. It was about choice - about whether she’d run with the evidence even when the cost was measured in seconds.
“Roman,” she whispered, and the name sounded like a warning and a plea at once.
The shed lights flickered once.
Then the floor under Ava’s feet flashed with a brief, blinding heat - enough to yank the air from Roman’s lungs.
He grabbed her, yanking her back toward him, but the force threw her shoulder against his chest. Pain flared in her face, sharp and real.
The man laughed through the grit and stumbled toward the sealed side door, fumbling for something on his wrist.
Roman didn’t let him.
He lunged, caught the man’s arm, twisted until bones complained - until the weapon dropped and skittered out of reach.
Ava’s hand clamped onto Roman’s forearm, her grip too strong for someone hurt only to distract. “Don’t - ”
Roman’s eyes snapped to the device again.
It wasn’t finished.
Ava’s voice shook now, just barely. “It’s counting down to the next system - one that opens when I’m moved.”
Roman understood with a sick clarity that made his stomach churn: the trap wasn’t trying to kill her outright. It was trying to transfer her - transfer her location, her access, her leverage - exactly where Enzo’s handoff started.
Outside the shed, distant engines rolled into motion - slow, deliberate.
And then Roman heard it: Ava’s evidence bag thump once, twice, as something inside shifted to a new lock.
A new latch clicked.
Ava stared at the bag like it had betrayed her.
Roman looked down and saw a thin strip of red wax seal across the folder’s edge - freshly pressed, impossible.
Someone had gotten to it already.
And behind Roman’s ribs, the truth settled fully again: the traitor wasn’t just watching.
They were taking control of what mattered most - right now.