Chapter 2 A Threat in Valentina’s Briefcase #3
Enzo looked at her face and saw the fear she didn’t let anyone see: the fear that the enemy would weaponize fragments.
The fear that The Shadows would get blamed for a betrayal they didn’t authorize, because the signatures and time stamps - tampered, stolen, repackaged - could be twisted into a narrative.
He didn’t want her to carry that fear alone. He wanted to take it from her hands and replace it with something steadier.
He held the case out slightly. “Let me take the bag, Val.”
Her eyes flicked to the briefcase clutched against her ribs. “You already have it.”
“I don’t have it.” His voice lowered. “I have what they left behind. The briefcase is still yours. I’m not touching it without you.”
That was the difference between control and possession. Between the kind of dominance that made her feel safe and the kind that made her feel owned.
Valentina’s jaw tightened. “They didn’t get it.”
“No,” Enzo said, and it was true enough to anchor her. “They didn’t get it. But they got close. They got enough to make a lie.”
Her gaze slid to the gloved man pinned against the pillar by Enzo’s earlier shove. The man’s face was hidden behind a hood now, but his breathing was loud. He looked at Enzo like he’d been defeated by a person, not a plan.
Valentina’s voice turned cold. “How many times have you been told you were too slow?”
Enzo didn’t miss the question’s edge. She wasn’t asking about speed. She was asking about his willingness to move the way she needed, the way he’d been trained to move.
He met her eyes. “How many times have you been told you were too dangerous to trust?”
Her lips parted. That one landed deeper than intended.
He saw her swallow hard, saw the moment her defenses tried to rise and failed. She wasn’t used to someone throwing her own fears back at her like a mirror. She was used to controlling the angle.
The gloved man laughed once, a brittle sound. “You can threaten me all you want. The documents are already - ”
Enzo cut him off with a look. “Talk.”
The man’s eyes glinted. “You’ll never know who signed what.”
Valentina stepped forward then, and Enzo felt the shift in her body like a predator stepping into its own territory. She bent slightly, bringing her face closer to the gloved man’s. “No. You’ll know. Because you’ll tell me the truth you were paid to hide.”
The gloved man’s gaze flicked to her briefcase. “The stamp - ”
Enzo’s attention snapped back to the verification stamp. The smear. The residue. “Where?”
The man’s smile was wicked, as if he enjoyed pain. “In the system. In the binder. In the chain-of-custody records.”
Vito’s voice crackled again, closer now, like someone had arrived in time. “Enzo - Val’s secure corridor camera feed is being overwritten. We have a small window to pull the original data before it’s gone.”
Enzo turned his head toward the service corridor, hearing movement - someone approaching fast, boots scraping. He didn’t need to see them to know it was his team. His mind calculated: the attackers had made a move inside her firm’s secure corridor, and they were now erasing evidence.
He made a decision that felt like a gamble. If he left Valentina to take care of the gloved man, the hooded attacker might have time to send the partial copy somewhere. If he left Valentina alone with her briefcase, she could become the target again - right now.
He couldn’t do both. Not without cost.
Valentina’s hand tightened on the briefcase. “What are you thinking?”
He hated that she could read him. He hated that she was right. “I’m thinking you shouldn’t stand here.”
“I’m thinking you shouldn’t make choices for me.” Her eyes hardened. “You’re not my handler.”
Enzo’s gaze dropped to her mouth for a fraction of a second, then returned to her eyes.
The urge to kiss her hit him like a violent wave - an urge he refused to indulge in a garage full of enemies.
Possession wasn’t only about taking. It was about claiming space.
Making the world understand she belonged to the men who would die for her.
“Val,” he said softly, “I’m not trying to handle you. I’m trying to keep you from being hurt while you keep playing hero.”
Her breath trembled once. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“You do,” he said, and the honesty in his voice made it dangerous. “Not because you can’t fight. Because you shouldn’t have to.”
The words made something shift between them. Not a resolution. Not comfort. A crack in the wall, letting in the truth: Enzo’s fear wasn’t that she would fail. It was that she’d succeed and still break herself on the cost.
Valentina’s eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped. “Say it again.”
He understood the challenge. She wanted to hear him admit the truth in a way she could hold onto. She wanted proof that he wasn’t only dangerous when he was angry.
Enzo’s thumb brushed the edge of the case he held, a gesture that anchored him. “I’m scared you’ll pay for this alone.”
Her expression changed - subtle, immediate. The steel in her gaze softened into something rawer. She swallowed, and her voice came out quieter. “Then don’t let them take you from me.”
The statement was impossible and intimate at once. It wasn’t romantic in the usual way. It was ownership disguised as devotion. It was her asking for loyalty with her teeth bared, not her hands open.
Enzo’s chest tightened. “They won’t.”
Vito rushed closer, breath loud in the garage air. “Enzo - good news and bad news.” He glanced at the gloved man, then at Valentina’s face. “Good news: we pulled a partial original feed from the camera blind spot. Bad news: the overwrite started ten seconds before the secure hatch opened.”
Valentina’s eyes flicked to Enzo. “They knew. They were early.”
Vito continued, voice clipped. “And Enzo - chain-of-custody binder log shows a signature request. It’s from the legal arm. The name is… it’s one we recognize from the alliance. Not the current handler. The one who’s supposed to be dead.”
The garage seemed to tilt. Enzo’s mind flashed to previous chapters, to the whispers about the compromised alliance, to the unresolved question of how their legal arm got involved. Dead doesn’t mean gone. Dead means untouchable until someone decides to wear the dead like a mask.
Enzo turned slowly to Valentina. “This isn’t just theft.”
“No,” she said, voice steady but hollowed out by realization. “It’s authorization.”
Enzo felt the case in his hand like a weight that wanted to be opened.
He didn’t open it yet. Not with Valentina watching, not with enemies close and cameras still being overwritten.
The partial copy could contain enough to summon a new threat - enough to create a legal narrative that could poison The Shadows’ alliances.
He forced himself to look at the gloved man again. “Where’s the rest? The full copy.”
The gloved man’s chin lifted. “What you have is what you get.”
Enzo leaned closer. “You’re lying.”
The man’s eyes flicked to Valentina, and something in his gaze said he’d been instructed not to speak unless a certain person was present. That instruction felt like a threat to Valentina’s authority, to her legal standing, to her belief in her own control.
Valentina stepped in, close enough that Enzo had to remind himself not to take over her space. She was furious. She was focused. She was the kind of woman who made violence obey her rules.
“Tell me,” Valentina said to the gloved man. “Who gave you the payload?”
The man hesitated. The silence stretched a second too long. Then
a breath later, he spoke like the words had been pre-approved.
“Legal order,” he said. “From the alliance. From the office you keep pretending doesn’t exist.”
Valentina’s mouth tightened. Her gaze didn’t move from his face, but Enzo saw it - how her pupils contracted, how her composure didn’t crack so much as lock harder. She wasn’t surprised. She was offended. There was a difference, and it made her more dangerous.
Enzo shifted his stance, keeping his body angled between Valentina and the corridor mouth where his team was funneling people out.
The air smelled like hot concrete and exhaust, undercut by the faint chemical bite of sealing resin - like the building itself had been dosed with something that didn’t belong.
Vito muttered, “Office you keep pretending doesn’t exist,” like the phrase tasted wrong in his mouth. “That’s not - ”
“It is,” Valentina cut in. “And if you say the name, you’re going to watch me decide whether to kill you or let you live long enough to regret lying.”
The gloved man didn’t flinch. “I don’t care which.”
Enzo’s patience snapped into a blade edge. “You should.” He kept his voice low, controlled - because control was a promise he made to himself when he couldn’t make one to her. “You think you’re untouchable because your hands are gloved.”
Valentina’s eyes slid to Enzo, a quick check-in that carried a warning: don’t do something that makes her the one who bleeds. Then she looked back at the man. “Who signed it?”
The man’s answer came too fast. “Santino Moretti.”
The name hit like a dropped chain in water - silent for a beat, then heavy ripples spreading everywhere.
Enzo felt his stomach turn. Santino wasn’t just a name from old records.
It was a ghost. An agreement’s author. A family shadow that had lived long enough to become legend, and then - supposedly - had been buried.
Vito’s face went pale under the garage lights. “That’s - no. That signature is on the sealed pact’s chain-of-custody binder. He’s on our binder. He’s - ”
“Dead,” Valentina finished for him, voice flat. “He died years ago.”
The gloved man’s head tilted slightly. “Dead men sign papers.”
Enzo’s fingers tightened around the case he hadn’t opened.
The sealed pact wasn’t in there - only the chain-of-custody binder and the partial evidence Enzo’s team had recovered.
But the threat wasn’t abstract. It was a poisoned pen.
It was a way to make The Shadows look like they’d violated their own agreements.