The knock wasn't a knock. It was the slam of a reinforced steel door being blown inward with surgical precision.
Smoke. Shouts. The rush of boots.
Ava stepped out of the smoke; the air froze. The gunfire stopped like someone hit pause on the universe, but inside Lilly.
A war detonated.
Sam stood beside her, gun raised but eyes flicking between them, uncertain. Lilly didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
Ava looked the same and yet not at all older, harder, like she'd spent every day since Havana walking through hell and letting the flames lick her clean.
"Lilly," she said softly. Like that word still meant something.
Lilly's fists clenched.
"No," she whispered. Then louder fiercer, "No! You don't get to say my name."
Ava's jaw tightened. "I didn't have a choice—"
"You had a choice, "You chose to vanish. You let me think you were dead."
Ava took a step forward.
Lilly moved like lightning.
She closed the space between them and spat in Ava's face.
A hush fell like ash.
Sam's breath caught audibly.
Ava stood there; expression unreadable as Lilly's venom dripped from her cheek.
"I waited for you," Lilly hissed, every syllable shaking with barely contained fury. "I grieved you. I broke for you. And all that time you were alive and what? Playing shadow games? You trained me to trust no one—and you proved yourself right."
Ava wiped her face slowly, deliberately. "I didn't come back for forgiveness."
"Good," Lilly said, her voice like glass. "Because you're not getting it."
Ava dropped the USB drive on the table between them like a gauntlet.
"I came back because we have a job to do. Because this doesn't end with me. Or with you. It ends with the people who made us into weapons and then left us to rot."
Lilly's pride flared like gasoline on a match. "I don't work with cowards."
Ava's eyes flickered—briefly. But there was steel behind them, not regret. "You'll work with whoever helps you burn it all down."
Sam stepped in then, gentle fingers brushing Lilly's arm. "Lilly. Whatever this is—it's bigger than us. You know it."
Lilly's eyes didn't leave Ava. Not for a second. "I'll go on the mission," she growled. "But don't think for one damn second this means I trust her."
Ava gave a faint smile, cold and haunting. "Trust is a luxury none of us can afford."
Lilly turned her back on her, every line of her body screaming tension.
Sam caught her as she passed, whispered low against her temple: "You didn't need to spit. But… it was kinda hot."
Lilly smirked despite herself, jaw still tight. "She deserved worse."
And behind them, Ava just watched—with the look of someone who's seen every version of love: the kind that heals, the kind that haunts, and the kind that just might kill you.