Chapter 30 Enzo’s Handoff Begins Tonight
Enzo’s Handoff Begins Tonight
The last ping didn’t feel like sound. It felt like a pressure change in the walls - like the secure comms room inhaled, then held it until Roman moved.
Ava’s breath warmed the edge of his wrist where her fingers had hooked his sleeve, anchoring herself to him the way she’d refused to anchor to anyone else.
The console screen still glowed dimly, cycling through encrypted channels that had gone dead during the last sabotage attempt, and now one of them blinked again - short, precise, confirming Enzo’s movement.
Roman kept his gun angled down, not because he was careless, but because he refused to give his hands an excuse to tremble. Discipline was his religion. Ava had watched him practice it like it was another language, and tonight her eyes didn’t ask for comfort - they demanded control.
“You’re sure it’s him?” she asked, voice low enough that it didn’t carry past the humming vents.
Roman didn’t look away from the console. “The ping matches the pattern tied to Enzo’s handoff node.” He let the words land without softness. The last time anyone had promised a pattern, the evidence vault had tried to erase his identity. “It’s not a guess.”
Ava shifted closer anyway, the folder stamped with her private seal pressed against her ribs under her jacket.
Even through fabric, he could feel the heat of it - like the ledger and the folder were living things that could bite.
“Then we do this clean,” she said. “No more rerouting. No more forbidden channels.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. “Protocol is how you survive long enough to fight again.”
Her gaze flicked to his hand on the edge of the desk, to the way his thumb hovered near a hardwired bypass toggle he’d sworn he wouldn’t touch unless it was unavoidable. “Protocol is also how they bury you while you’re still trying to follow the rules.”
The air smelled faintly of ozone and cold metal.
The lights were too white, too sterile, and the room’s scrubbed quiet made every small noise louder - the soft click of the console relay, the faint tick of coolant in a hidden duct.
Roman could feel the building’s layers around them, each one designed to keep secrets in and threats out.
He’d brought Ava into this place because it was supposed to be safe.
Safe didn’t mean protected from betrayal. Safe only meant the enemy hadn’t decided to act yet.
On the console, the final encrypted ping opened a narrow window - one line of text, stripped of anything that could be traced by eyes that weren’t meant to see it. Roman’s access history had been compromised before. He wasn’t going to repeat that mistake by trusting what the system offered.
He keyed in a manual verification, slow and deliberate.
The screen flickered, then returned a confirmation only his command terminal could render: a cryptographic handshake that used Enzo’s private key - an identifier Roman had never met in person, but had studied through the Shadows’ internal architecture. The ping was real. Enzo was moving.
Ava’s fingers tightened on his sleeve. “If he’s moving,” she said, “then the handoff is in motion. Which means our window is smaller than we think.”
Roman finally turned his head, meeting her eyes. “Our window is whatever I can hold.”
Her expression sharpened - brilliant, fierce, the way it always got when she wanted to be brave in a world that punished bravery. “Hold it, then.”
The comms room door remained shut, but Roman heard the building breathe around them.
The security system’s low-frequency hum shifted pitch, like a lock learning they were inside.
He watched the console’s status indicators roll through a routine that wasn’t routine at all - an automated integrity sweep that shouldn’t have triggered while the room was sealed.
Ava noticed it too. “That’s not a normal scan.”
“No,” Roman said. His pulse didn’t speed; it simply became more aware. “It’s a test.”
“A test for what?” she demanded.
Roman’s mind went to the insider he’d never been able to name.
The one who’d manipulated evidence chains, wiped ledger access, and redirected the forced broadcast. The one who’d left enough breadcrumbs to keep Roman reacting, never choosing.
“For whether the system will let us communicate with the outside network,” he said.
Ava’s gaze dropped to the folder under her jacket. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we lose the ability to warn him.” Warning Enzo wasn’t just about saving one man. It was about keeping Ava from becoming the next casualty in a chain that was being threaded through her evidence.
Ava’s throat bobbed, but she didn’t look away. “We don’t warn him,” she said, “we follow protocol, and we let whatever Enzo is walking into - ”
Roman cut in, voice flat. “We don’t let anyone die because we wanted to be clean.”
Her eyes flashed. “You think I want anyone dead?”
He stared at her for a beat too long, letting the silence do the work. He wasn’t accusing her of wanting death. He was afraid of her certainty - the same kind that had made her insist on filing motions with compromised evidence even when he’d told her it would get her killed.
Ava leaned in, close enough that he could hear the small catch of her breath. “You’re afraid,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Roman’s mouth went dry. “I’m prepared.”
She didn’t accept it. “Prepared is what you tell yourself when you don’t want to say ‘afraid.’”
That vulnerability made something twist behind his ribs - not romantic, not soft.
It was the raw edge of being seen. Roman had lived his entire adult life training people to survive the worst day of their lives.
He’d never been trained to survive being witnessed while he was failing at something as simple as keeping her alive.
He reached for the console’s manual overlay and brought up the coded channel list. The room’s integrity sweep continued, now showing minor anomalies - tiny delays in handshake verification, like someone was tapping the system with gloved fingers.
Ava’s voice dropped. “Roman.”
He didn’t look at her. “Stay behind me.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No.” His tone stayed disciplined, but the words were for her fear, not her pride. “You’re the one who reads the truth in every lie. That’s why they want you isolated. That’s why this room is being tested.”
Ava’s jaw tightened. “Then we beat their test.”
Roman exhaled once, controlled. He tapped in a command sequence that wasn’t forbidden yet - just a narrow slip along the edge of allowed communication. The console responded with a sterile acknowledgment. For half a second, he felt the relief of not having to choose.
Then the status indicator blinked red.
ACCESS DENIED - UNAUTHORIZED HANDOFF ROUTE DETECTED.
Roman’s stomach turned cold. They’d anticipated the handoff. They’d built a tripwire to catch any attempt to contact Enzo through the normal channels. The integrity sweep wasn’t a test of whether the system could communicate. It was a test of whether Roman would obey.
Ava leaned closer, reading the red line. “You told me no more forbidden routes.”
“I said protocol is how you survive.” Roman’s fingers hovered over the bypass toggle. He could feel the metal under his glove, the slight vibration from the console’s power supply. “But protocol doesn’t account for someone inside the Shadows who’s willing to kill to keep control.”
Ava’s gaze locked on his hand. “If you use the bypass, you’re admitting you can’t trust the system.”
Roman looked at her. “I don’t trust it.”
Her eyes sharpened with a new kind of tension - anger edged with hurt. “Then don’t do it like it’s just another order you can follow. If you warn him wrong - if you - ”
“If I warn him at all,” Roman corrected, “it has to be precise enough that only Enzo can decode it.”
Ava swallowed. “And you can?”
“I can.” He felt the weight of his access history - the proof he’d shown her earlier, the way the system had let him be manipulated without his knowledge.
He couldn’t unsee it. He couldn’t pretend his credentials were clean.
“Because the bypass won’t send a message.
It will send a key fragment through a timing window tied to Enzo’s handoff node.
Only he will recognize it as a warning.”
Ava’s fingers slid under his sleeve to grip his wrist, grounding him. Her touch was warm and stubborn. “And what does it cost you?”
Roman didn’t answer immediately. He watched the console’s integrity sweep bar creep forward like a countdown wearing a friendly face. Somewhere beyond the walls, security contractors or syndicate muscle could be moving, listening for the moment the wrong signal hit the wrong receiver.
“It costs time,” he said finally. “And it puts my command access on record in a way that can be audited.”
Ava’s eyes flicked, calculating. “They’ll use that against you.”
“They already have.” Roman finally allowed himself a glance at her face, letting her see the truth he’d been holding back. “They just haven’t decided how.”
Ava’s breath shuddered. “You’re not afraid of getting punished.”
He let the silence stretch until her expression softened with understanding she didn’t want. “I’m afraid,” he admitted, “that if I follow protocol and Enzo walks into a trap, you’ll blame yourself.”
Ava went still. The folder under her jacket pressed harder against her body as if it wanted to join the argument. “I don’t blame myself for other people’s choices.”
Roman’s voice dropped. “Not consciously.”
Her eyes flickered, and for a moment the attorney in her went quiet. The woman who could dissect a lie and still believe in justice - she looked like she was standing on the edge of something she’d never named.
Roman felt it - the fear under her fear.
Ava’s voice was barely more than breath. “I’m afraid that my evidence is a weapon they can aim at me.”
Roman’s throat tightened. “It’s not a weapon.”