Chapter 30 Enzo’s Handoff Begins Tonight #2
“It will be in their hands.” She lifted her chin, determined again, but her eyes stayed wet with the kind of emotion she didn’t like to show. “It always was. They used my work against me before. They’ll do it again.”
Roman reached up and brushed his thumb along the edge of her jaw, not quite a caress - more like a reminder that she was solid, real, not just another file in a case. “Then we take it back.”
He hit the bypass toggle.
The console emitted a sharp, brief tone - like a warning swallowed before it could become sound. The integrity sweep bar froze, then resumed at a slower pace, as if someone on the other end had realized they were being outplayed and was scrambling to adjust.
Ava’s hand tightened on his wrist. “Roman - ”
“Hold still.” He keyed in the coded fragment exactly as Enzo’s handoff node required. The characters on the screen were meaningless to anyone except the person who’d built the system and the person who’d been taught how to listen for it. Roman didn’t send a sentence. He sent a pattern.
He watched the console display a confirmation:
HANDOFF FRAGMENT QUEUED - ENZO NODE ONLY.
Then the red line vanished, replaced by a neutral status that looked like compliance. It wasn’t compliance. It was camouflage.
Ava exhaled hard, relief and anger colliding on her face. “So he can decode it.”
“Yes.” Roman’s gaze stayed on the console. “But the trap’s still out there.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed. “And the fallout is still here.”
Roman’s radio - an internal channel not meant for casual use - clicked once with a soft burst of encrypted vibration.
Another ping followed almost immediately, this one not from Enzo.
It came from Ava’s ledger validation subsystem, the part of the Shadows’ network that had been used earlier to manipulate evidence.
The ping carried one item: a legal document packet stamped with Ava’s private seal.
Ava stared at it like it had teeth. “My seal - ”
Roman’s blood cooled further. “It’s real.”
She stepped toward the screen, then stopped herself as if she expected it to burn her. “Why now?”
Roman didn’t like how her voice wavered on the last word. “Because someone wants you to read it before you can think about it.”
Ava’s jaw set. “I’m not a child, Roman.”
“I know.” He watched her hand hover over the accept button. He wanted to stop her, and he couldn’t - because she wasn’t wrong about who she was. “If it’s poisoned, you’ll smell it.”
Ava’s eyes cut to his. “And if it’s poisoned, you’ll stop me.”
He didn’t correct her. He couldn’t promise that. Not with a traitor in their walls. Not with the comms room’s integrity sweep running like a metronome for someone else’s violence.
Ava accepted the document.
The screen filled with a clean, structured packet - case metadata, chain-of-custody references that were supposed to be compromised, and a final attachment that made Ava’s face go utterly still.
Her lips parted. “This is impossible.”
Roman leaned in, reading over her shoulder.
He saw the proof - fresh, coherent, the kind of evidence the courts wanted and the syndicate feared.
It didn’t just confirm the syndicate’s collapse; it explained how the collapse had been engineered - from inside the Shadows and through the same corporate entities Ava had suspected. The last page wasn’t a signature.
It was a name.
ENZO.
Ava’s breath left her in a sharp, shocked sound. “They - ” She swallowed hard, the attorney voice failing. “They named him as the key.”
Roman’s mind raced through what that meant.
Enzo wasn’t just moving as a courier. He was positioned as the next protagonist in the Shadows’ plan - placed into the architecture like a lock waiting for the right key.
And if the traitor had orchestrated this, then the comms room wasn’t just a place to hand off a warning. It was a stage.
Ava turned her face toward Roman, and the fear there was no longer about herself. It was about being too late for someone else. “If his name is on that page,” she whispered, “then they’ve already decided what happens to him.”
Roman’s throat tightened. He hated the way his body wanted to move before his mind could plan. He forced himself to stay anchored to the room, to the console, to the risk calculus Ava deserved. “It means the handoff is real,” he said. “And it means Enzo has access to the decode fragment.”
Ava’s eyes glistened, furious tears threatening. “You sent him a warning.”
“I did.” Roman’s voice was controlled, but his pulse betrayed him. “Now he knows what they’re trying to do.”
Ava looked back at the screen, and her hand trembled as she traced the edge of the last page without touching it. “This isn’t just a legal document,” she said. “It’s bait.”
Roman nodded once. “And it’s also leverage.”
Ava’s gaze snapped up. “Leverage against who?”
Roman listened to the room’s hum. The integrity sweep resumed at normal speed, and the security system flashed a new alert - one that wasn’t about the outside network.
INTERNAL ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED.
The door lock clicked, not unlocking - tightening. Sealing. Trapping.
Ava stiffened. “They’re here.”
Roman grabbed her folder - both the physical folder and the ledger packet - pulling them close to his chest as if he could shield paper with muscle. His gun rose into position, angled down but ready. “Stay behind me.”
Ava’s eyes flashed. “No.”
Roman met her gaze. “Ava.”
She held his stare, fierce and trembling at the same time. “Roman. You already made your choice. Don’t make another one that erases me.”
The comms room lights flickered once, a brief stutter that made the console screen distort. Then the screen snapped back with a new message - short, ugly, unmistakably from someone who had been inside their system long enough to speak its language.
HANDOFF COMPLETE - BEGIN EXTRACTION.
Ava’s face went pale. “Extraction?”
Roman’s hands went colder around the folder. Someone had confirmed Enzo’s movement and used Ava’s document to lock him into the next phase. Now they were coming for her, not because they needed the evidence anymore - because they needed Ava to stay alive long enough to make Enzo follow the plan.
Roman swallowed the rage. He didn’t have time for fear.
He had time for action.
He stepped toward the console, fingers moving fast over the manual routing panel - trying to keep Ava from being isolated again, trying to keep the comms room from becoming the trap that swallowed them both.
The integrity sweep beeped - once, twice - then the door lock released with a soft click that sounded too polite.
Ava’s breath caught behind him.
The comms room door began to open, and Roman saw the dark silhouette framed in the thin strip of hallway light - someone with the confidence of an insider and the patience of a predator.
Roman raised his gun a fraction higher.
The silhouette’s voice came through the doorway, smooth and familiar in the way a knife could be familiar. “Commanders,” it said. “Enzo’s handoff begins tonight. And you - Ava - are coming with us.”
Roman didn’t lower the weapon. “If you step in,” he said, “you’ll die right here.”
The silhouette smiled, and the comms room’s console flashed a final line of text - unreadable to Ava, readable to Roman.
DECODE CONFIRMED.
Then the hallway light behind the figure went out, as if the building itself had decided to watch in silence.
END OF CURRENT OUTPUT READY FOR CONTINUE