I know.
Too good.
Always was.
“What does she have?” Ronan asks.
Vale’s expression darkens.
“Names. Accounts. fallback sites. And something we haven’t been able to decrypt yet.”
Jonah swears quietly.
“Why not send a retrieval team?” Cal asks.
Vale looks at me.
“Because if she sees the wrong face, she’ll disappear again. She’s running for her life.”
I don’t say anything.
Don’t need to.
The room already knows.
This is my mission.
Mine to lead.
Mine to survive.
Mine to clean up.
“Ava Mercer,” I say slowly, forcing the words past the pressure building in my chest. “Last confirmed killed eight years ago in Bucharest.”
Vale nods.
“She was embedded deeper than we knew.”
“Or someone wanted us to think she was dead.”
That silence says more than an answer.
I close the file.
“What’s the objective?”
“Bring her in alive,” Vale says. “Gain her trust if you can. Extract whatever she’s carrying before Ascendancy gets to her.”
“And if she won’t come?”
Vale holds my gaze.
“Then you convince her.”
I look back down at the photo one last time.
Ava’s face is bruised. Tired. Defiant.
