Ava's POV
She said yes.
Not because Mercer had convinced her. Not because the logic was airtight or the offer was perfect or she had worked through every implication and arrived at a clean answer. She said yes because Leo was looking at her from across a table in a federal building with a cut above his eye and the open expression that meant the glass was down, and she understood without either of them saying it that they were making this decision together or not at all.
She said yes and Leo said yes and Mercer gave a single nod like she had expected nothing different and the room shifted into motion around them.
There were forms. She signed things she only half read because Reeves kept pointing at lines and her brain was too full to parse legal language at midnight. Leo signed without reading anything, which would have alarmed her a week ago and now just seemed like him calculating that the fine print was less dangerous than the alternative.
