NADIA'S POV
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The photo is still burning in her head when she arrives at the coffee cart.
She did not sleep. She sat in her car outside the warehouse for forty minutes last night while Roman swept every corner of the space looking for whoever had been inside. He found nothing. No person, no equipment, no sign of forced entry. Just the supplies exactly as she left them and the absolute certainty that someone had been there anyway.
Someone who knew where it was.
Someone who got in and out without a trace and then sent a photo to Roman's phone at the exact moment she was walking down a stairwell. Timed perfectly. Like a message that said - we see everything. We are always one step ahead. Don't forget it.
She did not forget it.
She also did not cancel this meeting.
Roman is already at the coffee cart when she gets there. He is standing slightly to the left of the line, not in it, positioned where he can see both approaches without being obvious about it. She notices that. She also notices he is holding two cups and he hands her one the moment she reaches him, no question, no asking.
She takes a sip.
It is exactly right. Same temperature, same ratio, same everything. She has a very specific way she takes her coffee and she has never told anyone except Cora and before Cora, nobody.
She does not say anything about it.
She sits down at the small table farthest from the cart. He sits across from her. She puts both hands flat on the table where he can see them - not a gesture of peace, a statement. She is not hiding anything. She expects the same.
"Someone called me last night," she says. No preamble. No warm-up. "They told me you're a Watcher. They told me I'm on a removal list. They told me your job might be to get close to me before someone decides I'm too much of a problem." She watches his face. "So before you explain anything else - explain that."
Roman goes very still.
Not the trained stillness she has seen from him before - the professional, deliberate kind. This is different. This is the stillness of a person who just had the ground move under their feet and is deciding whether to pretend it didn't.
He sets his cup down.
"Who called you?" he asks.
There it is.
He is not surprised she knows about the Watchers. She watches his eyes and she can see it clearly - no shock, no confusion about the word itself. He is only surprised that someone told her. Which means the Watchers are real. Which means he is one. Which means everything the Opposition said was at least partially true.
She files it.
"They called themselves Opposition," she says.
Something moves across his face. Fast. Gone before she can fully read it. But she catches enough - it is not fear. It is something colder than fear. Recognition with very bad memories attached.
"Tell me exactly what they said," he says. "Word for word if you can."
"I can." She tells him. All of it. She watches him while she talks and she catalogs every small reaction - the slight tightening around his eyes when she mentions the removal list, the way his jaw settles when she gets to the part about being too important to lose, the complete and total stillness that takes over his whole body when she tells him they said they'd ask her for one thing and she'd know it when they asked.
When she finishes, he is quiet for a long moment.
"They're not wrong about everything," he says finally.
"I know."
He looks up. "You know?"
"You're a Watcher. That part is true. I can see it in your face." She wraps both hands around her cup. "What I don't know is whether the removal list part is true. And I don't know which side of this you're actually on." She meets his eyes directly. "So tell me. All of it. Right now. Because I have eighty-eight days left and I am not spending one of them on someone who is working against me."
Roman looks at her for a long moment. Then he does something she doesn't expect.
He rolls up his sleeve. He holds his forearm across the table so she can see the mark clearly in the morning light. Close. Closer than she's seen it before.
"The Watchers have existed for a long time," he says. "We find people who come back from death changed. We study them. We document what they become." He pauses. "In the beginning, that's all we did."
"But not anymore."
"Three years ago a faction formed inside the organization. They became convinced that returned subjects were accelerating timeline collapses rather than preventing them. They started pushing for removal protocols." His voice is flat. Factual. Like he is reading a report he hates. "I pushed back. I've been pushing back for three years because every piece of research I have says they're wrong. Returned subjects who are supported and informed don't destabilize timelines. They fix them." He looks at her steadily. "You are the most significant returned subject I have ever documented. What you came back with - what's in your chest - is not just infection residue. It is something the organization has been looking for for decades. And yes. There are people inside the Watchers who want you gone before you understand what it is."
Nadia absorbs this.
"And the Opposition?" she asks. "The people who called me?"
"They're not your friends either." His voice gets very quiet. "They're a third faction. They want to use returned subjects. Not protect them. Use them. Whatever they told you about keeping you alive - they have a reason and it is not kindness."
Nadia stares at him.
Three groups. The Watchers. The removal faction. The Opposition. All of them watching her. All of them wanting something from her. All of them moving around her like she is the center of something enormous that nobody has bothered to fully explain.
She thinks about the warehouse photo.
"Roman." She keeps her voice steady. "The photo of my warehouse last night. Was that the removal faction or the Opposition?"
He opens his mouth.
His phone buzzes on the table between them.
They both look at it.
The screen shows a single message from Otto.
Roman. The Opposition didn't just call her. They were inside Mercy General last night. I pulled the security footage. You need to see this now. One of them is someone you know. Someone you trusted.
It's someone inside the Watchers.
Nadia watches Roman's face go completely, utterly white.
And for the first time since she met him, he looks afraid.