Chapter 17 A Bodyguard’s Loyalty Test #4
The handler’s gaze slid to Enzo again, like he was pleased to have her attention pinned. “Your voice recordings. The ones you made for the internal verification prompts. The ones you left behind when you were… sloppy.”
Enzo’s stomach dropped hard enough to make his knees threaten to soften.
He’d never been sloppy. He’d been careful in the way that kept men alive.
But the phrase “voice recordings” lit something up behind his ribs - memories of late nights, of training clips he’d recorded to set the cadence Vito needed for backup calls, of the times he’d played his own voice through the system to test response delays.
He’d assumed the recordings were sealed behind his own authority. Assumed wrong.
“You didn’t just impersonate a protector,” Enzo said, low. “You impersonated me.”
The handler tilted his head. “And you’re still standing. So it’s working.”
Vito’s voice came through comm, faint through the suite’s interference. “Enzo - four seconds until full lockdown. I can’t get the cameras back online. I can only… I can only keep the suite from sealing all the way.”
Enzo clenched his teeth. “Do it. Hold it.”
The handler watched Enzo talk into the air like the comm was a leash. Then he spoke, calm and deliberate, as if reciting a script meant to break him. “Valentina. You’re safe. I’m coming.”
Valentina’s face went pale. “That - ”
Enzo’s blood went hotter. The handler had used Enzo’s voice. Not just the sound; the rhythm. Even the slight rasp Enzo got when he was angry, the breath he always took before the word “coming.”
Enzo stepped forward, grabbing the handler’s wrist with his bare hand - no gloves. The handler flinched, not at pain, but at the sudden contact like he hadn’t expected Enzo to touch him at all.
The glove’s material was thick, heat-resistant. Enzo felt the faint vibration of a hidden device through it - something clipped to the inside seam. A transmitter. A trigger.
Enzo’s voice went flat. “You’re not using my recordings for access. You’re using them to command your handler unit.”
The handler’s eyes flickered toward the suite’s intercom panel near the ceiling. “You’re finally catching up.”
Valentina yanked her arm free, stepping toward Enzo as if she could stand in front of whatever truth he was holding. “Who sent you?”
The handler’s gaze didn’t leave Enzo. “Your loyalty test is over.”
Enzo’s chest tightened. Loyalty test. That phrase landed like a blade because it wasn’t metaphor. It was what the mastermind called the moments when people broke. When they chose the wrong person to trust, even once.
Enzo forced himself to breathe through the rage. “My protectors follow my orders.”
The handler’s smile sharpened. “Then why did one of them walk away from your command?”
Enzo’s head snapped, not toward the handler’s face, but toward the hallway beyond - toward the door that should’ve held the protectors outside.
The suite was supposed to be secured with layered redundancy.
Enzo had assigned men to cover doors, cameras, blind angles.
He’d given specific instructions. He’d said - explicitly - no one entered without his confirmation.
Unless someone had overridden his confirmation.
Unless someone had answered to a higher voice.
Enzo’s comm crackled again. Vito’s voice was strained. “Enzo. I need you to listen - ”
But the handler spoke over him, using Enzo’s voice again, and Valentina flinched like she’d been struck.
“Stay with her,” the handler said, perfectly mimicking Enzo’s cadence. “Don’t chase. Secure the room.”
Enzo felt sick. Those words were the exact order he’d given to his assigned bodyguard when they’d split earlier - when Valentina had been temporarily secured nearby and Enzo had chosen to chase the betrayal lead. He’d given the order to protect her from exactly this kind of manipulation.
So the handler hadn’t just copied his voice. He’d copied his intent and turned it into a weapon.
Valentina backed half a step, her eyes dark. “That order… you gave it.”
Enzo didn’t answer. The silence was worse than any confession.
Another sound reached them then - soft, mechanical, from the hallway. A click. A second lock engaging. Not the suite’s main lock, but the door latch behind the handler, the one that would seal him outside if Enzo moved wrong.
Or the one that would trap Valentina with him inside if Enzo hesitated.
The handler shifted his weight, and Enzo saw it: a small case strapped to the inside of the handler’s coat. It wasn’t a gun. It was something flatter, heavier. A device meant to do more than kill - meant to complete a process.
Enzo’s mind raced. If the device wasn’t a weapon, what was it for? Triggering a camera feed? Sending a final authorization? Finishing a recording transfer?
He couldn’t let the handler get the chance to do whatever the mastermind wanted done at this hour.
Valentina’s voice tightened. “Enzo. Tell me what you’re not saying.”
He met her eyes. The intimacy of it - her fear aimed at him, her trust battered and still present - made his throat burn. “They’re using my voice to override command. Which means someone has deep access. Someone can impersonate me at the system level.”
Valentina swallowed. “And the bodyguard?”
Enzo’s gaze flicked toward the hallway again. “He’s compromised. Or he thinks he isn’t.”
The handler laughed under his breath. “You’re still trying to make it about your men. But this is about your voice. Your identity control.”