Chapter 17 – "Always a Target"
Dominic doesn't come home that night.
Ava doesn't sleep. She sits in the dark with the burner phone clenched in her hand, waiting for a message, a knock, a sign—something.
She replays her conversation with Noah again and again. He said he'd be careful. He said he had contacts in Zurich. But he doesn't understand what kind of world she's trapped in now.
When Dominic finally walks in the next morning, there's blood on his sleeve and a cut above his brow.
She doesn't ask where he's been.
But this time, he speaks first.
> "They know you're here."
He pours a drink without looking at her. His movements are slow, deliberate.
> "Who?" Ava demands.
> "The people who want leverage. And now they know what you are to me."
She laughs—a bitter, cracked sound.
> "What am I to you, Dominic?"
He sets the glass down and turns.
> "A vulnerability. A mistake."
It lands like a slap.
But he keeps going.
> "You were supposed to be a name on a paper. A clean solution to a messy problem. I watched you. Studied you. I chose you because I thought you were controllable."
Ava flinches, but she doesn't break.
Not this time.
> "And now?"
He looks at her for a long moment. Something flickers across his face, something dangerously close to regret.
> "Now you're a variable I can't predict. And that makes you a liability—to me, to them, to yourself."
She takes a step forward, fire burning under her skin.
> "I gave up everything for my mother. You took my life and turned it into strategy. You used me."
He doesn't deny it.
> "Yes."
One word. Flat. Honest.
And somehow worse than any lie he's ever told.
But Ava stands taller.
> "Then you'd better start realizing something, Dominic. If I was always a target—"
She walks past him, her voice low and cold—
> "I can learn how to aim too."