Chapter 12 A Notary’s Confession, Half-True #2
Enzo’s stomach turned. Verification stamp smear. The detail was too precise, too technical to be guessed. The mastermind’s plan wasn’t built on rumor. It was built on knowledge.
Valentina’s voice went thin. “How did he know about the resin cradle?”
The notary stared at her like he couldn’t decide which question would kill him faster. “He had seen it before. He’d - he’d handled it.”
Enzo leaned in slightly, keeping his distance from Valentina’s space while forcing the notary to feel his presence. “And when did Donato Greco receive it?”
The notary’s gaze slid to Valentina again. “Not Greco directly. The documents went to Greco’s office, then to a - an intermediary within his political network. A courier. A liaison.”
Valentina exhaled like she’d swallowed broken glass. “So the pact can be weaponized through publicity.”
Enzo didn’t correct her. He didn’t need to.
The picture was already forming. If the sealed pact’s signature could destroy empires, then Donato Greco wasn’t just moving paper.
He was moving leverage into the light, where it could be used to force compliance without ever admitting the organization behind it.
Valentina’s eyes hardened. “You’re telling me the mastermind transferred my documents to a political intermediary, and you’re still pretending you were only threatened?”
The notary’s hands clenched around the pen. “I didn’t choose. I - he said if I refused, he’d - he’d make it look like I embezzled. He’d ruin me. He’d ruin my family.”
Enzo felt the words scrape against something in Valentina’s expression. She didn’t believe he had no agency. But she understood the kind of fear that made men choose the wrong survival.
“Say his name,” Valentina demanded suddenly.
The notary blinked. “I don’t know his name.”
Valentina’s stare didn’t soften. “You know his face.”
“No.” The notary shook his head. “He wore a mask. He spoke through - through a device. Distorted. But - ” His voice dropped further, and his eyes darted toward the desk drawer again.
“But he had a habit. He’d pause when he wanted to emphasize a clause.
Like he knew contracts better than - than anyone. ”
Enzo’s mouth tightened. Contracts. Clauses. Trapdoor clause. The mastermind’s plan kept returning to language, to legal mechanics, to using The Shadows’ own protections against them. It wasn’t just theft. It was activation.
Valentina’s fingers curled, but she didn’t reach for the drawer again. “You notarized a transfer authorization. You stamped it. You have details about the wording.”
“I - ” The notary’s gaze flickered, and Enzo saw the moment he decided to give more. “There was a line about confidentiality and chain-of-custody. He said if the documents were ever challenged publicly, it would trigger - ”
Valentina stepped closer, eyes hungry for the missing piece. “Trigger what.”
The notary opened his mouth, and then his face twisted. His eyes squeezed shut as if pain hit him from the inside.
Enzo reacted without thinking. He moved across the room fast, catching Valentina’s elbow this time - not to stop her, but to keep her from falling toward the notary when he started to slump.
His hand went to the notary’s shoulder. The notary was warm, then suddenly too warm, as if fever flooded him in seconds.
“What did you take?” Enzo demanded, voice snapping.
The notary tried to speak. His lips moved, but the sound came out wet and broken. He clawed at the desk, at the papers, at anything that wasn’t dying.
Valentina’s breath hitched. Her eyes widened - fear, anger, and a kind of grief she didn’t allow herself to show. She looked at Enzo like she needed him to tell her what was happening, like he was the only anchor in a room that had turned hostile.
Enzo’s gaze swept the desk. The lamp. The pen. The notary’s water glass untouched. Then he noticed it: a faint residue at the rim of a small cup beside the papers, the kind of cup a notary might keep for tea or coffee. Darkened where something had been poured and wiped away.
Poison.
Enzo grabbed the cup and tilted it slightly toward the light.
A bitter chemical smell rose, sharp enough to sting his nose.
His mind connected it instantly to the chemical tang that had leaked under the door when Valentina first pressed him.
This wasn’t a random collapse. This was premeditated silencing.
“Donato Greco,” Valentina whispered, as if the name might bring the notary back. “He - ”
Enzo shook his head once. “No. Not Greco. The mastermind.”
The notary’s body twitched. His eyes flew open, frantic and pleading, and then the panic shifted into a kind of grim acceptance. His gaze found Enzo, then Valentina, and he tried to lift a finger.
Enzo leaned closer, close enough to catch the last fragments. “Don’t - ” the notary rasped. His voice was barely air. “Don’t - trust - ”
Valentina moved, but Enzo held her back with one firm palm against her chest. She looked furious, but she didn’t shove him away. Notary poison wasn’t the moment for ego.
Enzo took in the notary’s last breath like it was data. His lips finally managed a word that landed like a weight.
“Intermediary.”
Valentina’s eyes snapped to Enzo’s. “Greco’s intermediary.”
The notary’s head lolled. His mouth opened, then closed. His chest rose once more and then stopped moving.
The room went quiet except for the lamp’s soft buzz and the distant warehouse hum. Enzo felt the silence crawl under his skin. He’d seen men die from bullets. He’d seen men die from knives. This was different. This was death engineered by someone who cared more about legal paper than blood.
Valentina stared at the notary’s face, and her expression didn’t collapse into grief. It sharpened into something harder. Something that made Enzo want to hold her tighter just to feel her steady.
“You knew,” she said softly, to Enzo or the notary, he wasn’t sure.
Enzo’s throat tightened. “I didn’t. I heard enough to know he was telling us the mastermind’s direction. Greco. Intermediary. Transfer authorization.”
Valentina turned her head toward the desk drawer, then toward the stack of papers the notary had been guarding. Her gaze moved with ruthless precision, like she could still extract the missing clause from the dead man’s work.
Enzo’s hand tightened on her elbow. “We don’t rummage like amateurs.”
Valentina’s eyes flicked to his. “We don’t have time for your rules.”
Enzo let out a slow breath through his nose. He could feel her tremor under the anger. She wasn’t just furious - she was terrified that the mastermind had silenced a witness before she could force the full truth out.
He needed to give her something real, something she could keep. “Tell me what you heard,” he said.
Valentina swallowed. “Greco. The intermediary. A clause about confidentiality and chain-of-custody. He said it would trigger - something.”
Enzo’s gaze sharpened. “Trigger what.”
Valentina’s mouth tightened. “I don’t know. But it’s the trapdoor clause. The one that only activates under a specific public filing.”
Enzo felt the groove of the conspiracy deepen. The mastermind wasn’t only trying to expose The Shadows. He was trying to force the trigger in a way that looked legitimate. A political intermediary could file publicly with plausible deniability. A notarized transfer could provide the paper trail.
And the notary - this notary - had been the hinge.
Enzo stepped back and scanned the room fast. The consultation room had one locked door - his door. Another door behind the desk led to a narrow office area. A vent. A small safe in the wall.
If poison had been delivered, someone had been close enough to administer it. Or close enough to have it waiting in the cup before the notary sat down.
The mastermind had planned the confession and the death in the same breath.
Valentina’s eyes tracked his movement. “You think he didn’t die alone.”
Enzo didn’t answer right away. He walked to the desk and pulled on the notary’s papers, but he only lifted the top layer enough to see titles and stamps. Everything looked official - until he found the edge of a transfer authorization form folded too neatly, like it had been opened and resealed.
He didn’t touch it fully. He just looked. The bottom corner had a fresh smudge, as if someone had pressed a thumb to smear ink and then wiped it away.
Verification stamp smear.
Enzo’s stomach clenched. “He tried to leave us something,” he murmured.
Valentina stepped beside him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his coat.
The scent of her - clean, expensive, always too alive in moments like this - hit him, and his body reacted before his mind could calm it.
The anger simmered, the tension sharpened, but beneath it there was another pull: her proximity felt like a decision, not an accident.
Enzo forced his eyes back to the paper.
Valentina’s voice went rough. “He said confidentiality and chain-of-custody. That means the trapdoor clause is tied to a legal challenge.”
Enzo nodded once. “Or a filing that makes the challenge inevitable.”
Valentina’s gaze flicked to his. “If Greco’s network files publicly, they’ll activate the clause and force the sealed pact to trigger its trap.”
Enzo’s pulse thudded in his ears. He’d been the guard for so long that it had blurred into instinct - protect, intercept, deny access. But now he was also a lover in the middle of it. Valentina’s presence made every risk feel personal. Every threat sounded like her name.
The notary’s death changed the rules. It meant the mastermind wasn’t waiting for them to leave. He was controlling the clock.
Enzo heard footsteps outside - the soft, measured kind that didn’t belong to warehouse staff. Someone moving with purpose. Someone who knew the room’s layout.
Valentina’s eyes widened. “Someone else is coming.”
Enzo’s hand slid toward his phone under his coat, but he didn’t call anyone yet. Not without knowing who was on the other side. He moved to the door, listening through the seam.