CHAPTER 2 — The Room Without Windows
CHAPTER 2 — The Room Without Windows
The building was not a mansion.
It was worse.
It was quiet.
Too clean. Too controlled. Every surface looked designed to survive violence.
Ava was escorted through corridors lit in soft gold tones that felt intentionally misleading—warm enough to relax someone, too structured to be comforting.
Roman walked ahead of her.
Not rushed. Not cautious.
Certain.
They stopped at a door with no handle on the outside.
A guard opened it remotely.
“Inside,” Roman said.
Ava didn’t move.
“I’m not your prisoner.”
His eyes flicked to her again. “No,” he agreed. “You’re my unanswered question.”
That almost made her laugh. Almost.
She stepped inside anyway.
The room had no windows.
Just a table. Two chairs. A wall of screens currently turned off.
And the kind of silence that felt engineered.
Roman closed the door behind them.
For the first time since the explosion, they were completely alone.
Ava turned on him immediately. “Start talking.”
“I intend to.”
“Good. Start with why I was told not to let you reach your car.”
That landed.
Not shock.
Focus.
Roman studied her for a long moment. Then he walked to the table and placed something on it.
A phone.
A cheap burner model.
Ava frowned. “What’s that?”
“The device that sent you the message.”
Her breath slowed.
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing about tonight is impossible,” he said. “Only intentional.”
Ava stepped closer despite herself. “Where did you get it?”
“In the Bentley wreckage.”
Her mind snapped through possibilities.
“Then whoever planted the bomb—”
“Had access to my vehicle,” Roman finished. “Yes.”
A silence stretched.
Ava felt it now—the shift under everything. The realization that this wasn’t just an assassination attempt.
It was internal.
Roman watched her process it.
Then: “Tell me everything you heard in that lobby.”
Ava hesitated.
She could still lie.
She should still lie.
But the memory of the bomb—of the timing, of the precision—made her throat tighten.
“Two men,” she said slowly. “Talking near the bar. One said something about ‘confirmation before Vale reaches the drop.’”
Roman’s expression didn’t change.
But something behind his eyes hardened.
Ava continued. “The other said, ‘if he gets in the car, it’s done.’”
Roman nodded once, as if confirming a calculation.
Then he asked, “And why did you kiss me?”
Ava froze.
“That is not relevant.”
“It is,” he said simply. “Because it bought you seconds you didn’t have. And it made me hesitate.”
Her jaw tightened. “It was instinct.”
“No,” Roman said quietly. “It was decision under pressure.”
A beat.
His gaze lowered slightly. “You don’t act without intent.”
That statement shouldn’t have affected her.
It did anyway.
Ava looked away first. “I didn’t want you to die.”
Roman studied her for a long moment.
Then he said something she didn’t expect.
“Neither do I.”
That should have been obvious.
May you like
It wasn’t.
Because the way he said it sounded less like survival… and more like warning.
