Chapter 25 Roman Chooses Her Over Power
Roman Chooses Her Over Power
Roman’s hand tightened around the gun as if the metal could anchor him to something solid.
The cracked monitors in front of him flickered with a delayed stutter - warehouse static bleeding into pixels - then steadied just long enough to show Ava’s feed again: Ava Collins, upright in the center of the frame like she’d been born into the frame’s violence, her expression too calm for the way the room around her looked staged.
He’d found the locker. He’d found the keycard. He’d found the note with “Enzo handoff” scrawled in a hand that didn’t bother hiding its confidence. And now Ava was being pulled into another trap with the same precision as the last one - except this time the trap had teeth and it had already bitten.
Ava turned her head in the feed, as if she felt his eyes even through glass and encrypted distance.
The live video stuttered, then corrected itself, and in that correction Roman saw it: a new angle, a new light strip along the edge of the warehouse wall.
Someone had moved the camera. Someone had hands inside the same system he’d been trying to override.
His headset crackled with the facility’s dead air, the kind that made sound feel hunted. “Roman,” a voice said from somewhere behind the locked door - different from the traitor’s warped calm. It came through the intercom like a verdict, low and certain. “You’re late.”
Roman didn’t answer. He didn’t waste breath on a warning he already felt in his bones.
He shoved the gun closer to his thigh and stepped out of the command office, boots thudding over cold concrete.
The corridor outside smelled of dust and hot wiring, the air metallic with old electricity.
Somewhere deeper in the train yard, a generator coughed - then went quiet, leaving only the thin ticking of cooling machinery.
Ava’s location wasn’t supposed to be a variable anymore. He’d built the plan so it would be a constant.
His plan had a new equation.
He reached the stairwell where he’d left her - where he’d told himself he could keep her safe long enough to force leadership’s eyes onto the evidence. The door was half-open. Not kicked. Not forced. Just… left.
Ava wouldn’t leave it that way.
Roman pushed in, quick and silent, sweeping with his peripheral vision before his gun even rose.
The room was dim, the kind of dim that turned every shadow into a suspect.
A chair sat wrong - slid an inch toward the wall.
A lamp was off when it should’ve been on.
And on the floor, a faint trail of something dark marbled the concrete like spilled ink.
His mouth dried.
“Ava.” He kept his voice clipped, controlled, the way he always did when he needed his mind to stay sharp. “Where are you?”
A soft laugh answered - female, amused, not afraid. “You came alone.”
Roman’s gun leveled toward the sound. “Show yourself.”
No footsteps. No rushing. The air itself seemed to tighten, like the room had decided to hold its breath for him. Then the overhead light flicked once, twice, as if someone wanted him to see what they’d done.
Ava stepped into view from behind a partition draped with tarps. Her hands were free. Her eyes weren’t.
She stood too still, like her body had learned obedience to someone else’s threat.
Her hair was disheveled, and there was a faint bruise blooming along her jaw where a hand must’ve grabbed her hard enough to leave a signature.
She didn’t look broken, but she looked… measured.
Like she was assessing the distance between the danger and the exits.
Roman’s relief came in a thin, dangerous line - relief he immediately hated himself for. “What happened?”
Ava’s gaze cut past him, tracking the room’s angles. “Someone wanted you to walk in.”
Roman took one step forward, gun steady. “Did they touch you?”
Her lips parted, then closed. The bruise on her jaw made the question feel childish.
“They tried,” she said at last. Her voice held that lawyer clarity - the one that turned fear into argument. “And you’re going to hate that I didn’t make it easy.”
Roman’s jaw clenched. He could feel the heat of his temper rising, sharp as the gun’s metal. “Ava - ”
“Don’t.” Her eyes flashed. “Don’t use my name like it’s a leash.”
That stung more than the bruise.
He forced the gun slightly lower, not lowering his guard - just adjusting the angle so she could see he still treated her like a person. “Tell me where the evidence is.”
Ava’s throat bobbed once as she swallowed. “Still with me.”
The lie would’ve been easier. The truth felt like a knife sliding under his ribs. “You shouldn’t have brought it.”
“I brought it because I’m not a prisoner.” She shifted her weight, a controlled movement that still managed to show pain in the tightness of her shoulders. “And because you don’t get to decide what I can live with.”
Roman’s eyes flicked to her wrist. There was no rope burn. No cuff marks. Whoever had ambushed her hadn’t bothered with restraints; they’d wanted her alert. Wanted her to witness her own fear.
His voice dropped. “Who’s doing this?”
Ava’s gaze tilted toward the tarp partition, then away, as if she’d already mapped the threat and refused to give it the satisfaction of her fear. “Someone who thinks you’ll choose obedience over accountability.”
Roman’s fingers tightened around the grip. He thought about the forged access history he’d seen on his own systems, the purge verification that had stripped him of clearance. He thought about the traitor’s voice on the intercom, the way it had promised control like it was a favor.
The voice came again - this time close, like it was inside the room’s walls. “Commander Roman.”
Roman turned sharply, scanning. Nothing. No person. Just that cold familiarity, the way the sound hit his eardrums like a hand.
Ava’s breath hitched - just once. She’d heard it too.
Roman kept his stance between Ava and the empty air. “If you’re here, show yourself.”
A pause. Then the female voice - amused, nearer than it should’ve been - spoke from behind the tarp partition. “He’s so disciplined. You’d think it would protect you.”
Ava moved then, not toward the voice, but toward Roman - close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. Her touch was brief, deliberate. A signal.
Her fingers brushed his sleeve, and Roman felt her pulse through fabric. “It’s not just her,” Ava whispered, just for him. “Listen to the room.”
Roman listened. The silence wasn’t natural. Under the quiet was a low hum - barely there - like a device running on standby. A transmitter. A jammer.
They weren’t hunting him in a room.
They were managing the narrative.
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “Ava, get behind me.”
She didn’t. Instead, she lifted her chin, eyes steady on the darkness. “You want me to hide? For you to carry my evidence while you play savior?”
Roman swallowed the argument burning on his tongue. He wasn’t playing savior. He was trying to keep her alive long enough to force the truth into daylight.
But she was right about one thing: he’d been acting like her life was something he could control. Like her choices were variables he could solve.
He’d learned too late that The Shadows didn’t just eat mistakes. It ate people.
The tarp partition shifted. A figure stepped out - not one of the Shadows, not any uniform Roman recognized. Dark clothing. No insignia. A face that looked designed to be forgettable. The kind of person who could walk through a crowd and leave no fingerprints on memory.
The woman’s eyes flicked to Ava’s bruise and then back to Roman with a quick, calculating smile. “You’re supposed to be grateful,” she said. “We gave you what you wanted.”
Roman’s gun rose fully again. “What I wanted was my people alive.”
“Then you should’ve protected your commander’s integrity.” The woman tilted her head, studying him like he was a problem she could solve by changing one piece. “You still think the leadership will listen when you can’t even prove you’re you.”
Roman felt the floor tilt under him - not physically, but internally. She knew about the purge verification. She knew about the shadow account file. She knew his internal history wasn’t safe.
Ava’s voice cut in, sharp as a courtroom objection. “Who are you?”
The woman’s smile thinned. “Someone who knows you don’t understand how much power costs.”
Roman’s attention snapped to Ava. Her posture was too controlled, but her eyes were brighter than fear. Anger. Determination. The same stubborn refusal he’d seen since the first time he’d watched her dissect a witness’s lies.
His chest tightened.
He couldn’t afford to let this become one more fight where she got herself killed because she refused to be owned by anyone.
He also couldn’t afford to keep pretending he was the only one who had the right to decide.
Roman took a step closer to Ava - not past her, not shielding her like she was fragile. He moved so his body angled to guard her back as she stood at his side, shoulder to shoulder, both of them facing the threat.
“I’ll make it simple,” Roman said, voice low and flat. “You let her go. You walk out. You tell me where the clean ledger copy is, and you answer for whoever touched her.”
Ava didn’t flinch at his words. She looked at him like she wanted to see if he meant it.
The woman laughed softly. “Public stand,” she murmured. “That’s what you call it.”
Roman didn’t move. “Call it what you want.”
Ava’s hand slid up to his forearm, fingers closing with a pressure that wasn’t pleading. It was consent. Partnership. A claim. “Roman.”
His name from her mouth hit like heat in the wrong place.
He met her eyes. “Yes.”
Her gaze didn’t drop to his gun. It stayed locked on the woman. “If leadership won’t listen to you, then they’ll have to listen to both of us.”
The words landed between them like a vow.
Roman felt something in him break open - not soft, not safe. Something hard and disciplined that had been holding back truth because he’d thought truth would get her killed.
He’d been wrong.