Chapter 17 A Bodyguard’s Loyalty Test #2
Vito didn’t ask why Elena. He just moved. Elena was the kind of woman who knew how to appear invisible while she collected information like dust. She’d been a quiet anchor in the past, the one person who never let fear decide what she did.
Enzo stayed at the corridor, listening.
Footsteps approached - soft, measured. The kind of walking that didn’t belong to a panicked intruder. It belonged to someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
A door clicked somewhere near the corner, and a man emerged into view.
Dark suit. Black gloves.
The man wasn’t the one Enzo had seen before with the message. This one carried himself differently - more deliberate, less theatrical. His shoulders were set like he’d been trained to move without showing nerves. The gloves were spotless. No scuffs. No grime. No real life.
He stopped a few feet away and tilted his head, like he was meeting someone in a lobby. “Enzo Moretti.”
Enzo didn’t flinch at the use of his full name. The enemy liked formality. It made their threats feel official.
“Who are you?” Enzo asked.
The man’s voice was calm. “A messenger. A handler. A job.”
Enzo’s gaze flicked to the man’s hands. “Whose job.”
The handler smiled just slightly, like it hurt him to show teeth. “Yours.”
Enzo’s fingers tightened. “You’re inside my security.”
“I’m inside your problem.” The handler’s eyes moved to the suite door. “And your problem is about to become a solution.”
Enzo stepped closer, careful not to let his anger turn into a visible weakness. “You’re not here for Valentina’s folder. You’re here for my people.”
The handler’s smile faded. “I’m here to make sure the pact is safe from people who worship rules.”
Enzo stared at him. “Rules are what keep us alive.”
“Rules are what get people killed when the wrong voice calls them.” The handler lifted one gloved hand and tapped his own wrist as if checking a watch. “Your protector is about to receive a command.”
Enzo felt the corridor tilt. A protector - who? Vito was outside. Elena was not here yet. That left the others Enzo had assigned. The men who’d been with Valentina since the safehouse chaos earlier in the week. The ones he believed were still his.
The handler’s head turned slightly, and Enzo realized the man wasn’t looking at him - he was looking past him, at the camera feed.
“Do you hear it?” the handler asked, voice almost conversational. “That’s your voice on the air.”
Enzo’s blood roared. He didn’t need the phone to know. The building’s speakers - those hidden ones the security systems used for alerts - could be hijacked. If the handler had access to the network, he could push audio through them.
A sudden sound cut through the corridor: the faint crackle of a speaker turning on. Then Enzo’s voice, imperfect only in the way a recording never quite carries breath. “Valentina. Open the door. You’re safe. I’m coming.”
The words were wrong. Enzo had never said that. He didn’t order Valentina to open doors. He didn’t soothe her with “safe” when he knew the enemy was already inside the walls.
The handler watched Enzo like he was waiting for a reaction.
Enzo’s chest tightened. It wasn’t just impersonation. It was manipulation designed to split loyalty. If Enzo’s voice told a protector to open something, the protector would follow - because loyalty meant obedience.
Enzo lunged forward before the next command could come. He grabbed the handler by the shoulder - gloved hand meeting fabric. The suit was cold under his fingers, the kind of cold that came from synthetic materials and careful storage, not from a man who’d been sweating in the field.
The handler didn’t resist. He let Enzo pull him a step, then twisted with smooth efficiency and brought one gloved hand up to Enzo’s neck.
Enzo caught the wrist, force snapping into his grip. The glove didn’t slip, and the handler’s arm muscles moved like he was stronger than he looked.
“You’re not supposed to touch me,” the handler said, and his voice sounded almost amused. “You’re supposed to stop your protector.”
Enzo shoved him back. “I’m doing both.”
The handler’s head tilted again. “Then watch what happens when your voice tells them to stand down.”
As if on cue, the suite door clicked. Not opening - unlocking. A lock that had been denying Enzo suddenly shifted, green light flashing.
The handler stepped aside like a man presenting a stage. “Go ahead. Walk in.”
Enzo didn’t move. His instincts screamed that if he crossed that threshold, he’d be walking into a killing prepared with his own authority.
He turned his head slightly, eyes scanning the corridor. A vent above the door. A red dot on the ceiling. Too precise. Too placed.
“Vito,” Enzo called, voice sharp into the comm he wore discreetly. “Where the hell are you?”
Static answered first, then Vito’s voice, strained. “Elena is moving. I’m - Enzo, there’s something wrong with your channel.”
Enzo’s stomach dropped. “Wrong how?”
Vito exhaled. “It’s not you. It’s like… like someone is pinging it with your recordings.”
Enzo closed his eyes for half a second. He saw the handler’s grin. He saw the rerouted network cable in the stairwell panel. He saw the way the enemy had already built the trap around his voice control.
The handler took a step closer, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry to the cameras. “You can’t stop what you don’t hear in time.”
Enzo met his gaze. “I hear enough.”
The handler’s eyes flicked to the suite door again. “Then you’ll hear the next thing.”
Enzo’s comm crackled and then Enzo’s own voice came through again, smoother than any recording should be. “Don’t interfere. Valentina needs space.”
That line - those exact words - hit Enzo like a fist. Valentina had never asked for space. Not from him. Not after what she’d said in earlier moments when she fought him with her truth and her fear.
This wasn’t just impersonation. It was rewriting his relationship with her into something obedient and cold.
Enzo’s hands trembled for a second before he forced them still. His mind flashed to Valentina’s face when she spoke about her ledger, about the fear she carried like a private religion. She’d trusted him with pieces of herself. This enemy was taking those pieces and turning them into weapons.
The suite door opened a fraction, then stopped - like the system was waiting for someone to confirm authorization from inside.
A silhouette appeared in the narrow gap, just enough to suggest motion. Not Valentina. Too broad in the shoulders. The gloved man stepped into the corridor, one hand hovering near the inside edge of the doorframe like he was ready to close it.
Enzo moved before his brain could bargain with his instincts. He grabbed the door and shoved it wider, putting his body between the interior and the corridor.
The gloved man reacted fast - he swung an arm and pressed something into Enzo’s chest, hard and cold.
Enzo staggered. The object wasn’t a gun, not exactly. It was a small device with a flat face and a faint vibration. A thermal trigger? A timer? Enzo didn’t have time to identify it. The handler had planned more than one kind of violence.
Enzo slammed his forearm into the gloved man’s wrist, knocking the device off-line. It clattered against the tile and skidded, spinning toward the edge of the corridor.
The handler behind him cursed under his breath - just a fraction of real emotion slipping through. “Stop!”
Enzo bent and kicked the device back toward the suite door, then slammed the door shut with a metallic thud that made the whole hallway shudder.
The glass in the door’s inset shimmered from the impact. The handler’s body tensed like he wanted to rush in, but he didn’t. He stayed out, as if the enemy had designed this part to be watched.
Enzo stood there, breathing hard, listening to the muffled chaos behind the door. A scuffle. A thud. Then silence again. Silence too clean.
Vito’s voice came through again, tight and urgent. “Enzo. I’m seeing something on the feed. Your suite - there’s a second security layer. It’s locking down.”
Enzo’s throat went dry. “How long until it locks all the way?”
“Ten seconds.” Vito sounded like he hated every second. “Nine - Enzo, I can’t get through. My access is - ”
“Stolen,” Enzo finished, teeth grinding.
The handler in dark gloves stepped forward again, calm as ever. “Loyalty test. That’s what you wanted.”
Enzo turned on him, fury turning bright. “No. That’s what you wanted. The question is whether my protectors are loyal enough to resist you.”
The handler leaned close to the camera’s line, as if he wanted the footage to carry his words. “They’re loyal to the voice you trained them to obey.”
Enzo’s vision tunneled. He wanted to hit the handler, to break his jaw, to drag the enemy’s handler mask off and show who stood behind it. But violence wasn’t going to fix the system locked around Valentina’s door.
He forced his mind to focus. The device had been meant to trigger something inside the suite. If Valentina was inside, even motionless, even protected, the enemy would use the chaos to create an opening. They’d kill her while making it look like an accident, a collapse, a controlled breach.
Enzo’s hand reached for the burner phone again, but it was already vibrating in his pocket with an incoming message.
He didn’t check it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by text while the suite locked down.
Instead, he stepped to the corridor’s side wall where the emergency panel sat behind a locked cover. He yanked the cover open with brute force, cursing the metal’s resistance. Inside, wires and a manual override switch waited like a last breath.
Vito shouted through comm, “Enzo, don’t - ”
Enzo ignored him. If the enemy wanted to control his voice, Enzo would control the building’s spine.
He grabbed the manual override switch and pulled it.
Alarms didn’t blare. The panel instead displayed a single line of text on its small screen: AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED - MATCH ENZO.
Enzo froze.