Chapter 2 A Threat in Valentina’s Briefcase #2
Valentina didn’t flinch. “You’re not on my visitor list.”
Enzo watched the man’s hands. Black gloves, but the fingers had a faint scuff along the knuckles - work gloves that had been used for more than paperwork. His wrists were restrained by a thin band, too neat to be casual. A tool at the ready.
The man’s eyes flicked to Enzo’s hand on Valentina’s elbow, then back to Valentina’s face. “There’s been a procedural error. We need to verify - ”
Enzo cut him off. “She already verified.”
The man’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Verification is ongoing.”
Valentina’s gaze sharpened. “Who are you?”
The man held her gaze for a beat too long, then glanced past her shoulder toward the secure corridor entrance. That glance was a confession: he wasn’t the one who mattered. He was the one who waited.
Enzo’s mind raced through possibilities. The alliance’s legal arm had been compromised, but how? Through bribery? Through blackmail? Through a signature? Through a sealed pact that had been touched by the wrong hands too many years ago?
The man took a step closer, and the air changed. That was when Enzo smelled it - metallic and faintly chemical, like adhesive or solvent. The scent didn’t belong in a clean corporate garage. It belonged to a tampering kit.
Valentina stiffened beside him. Enzo felt it through his touch.
“You brought something,” Valentina said, voice careful.
Enzo’s eyes narrowed. The gloved man lifted a small device - an applicator with a thin nozzle. Resin cradle insertion seam, his mind whispered, not as knowledge but as memory. Someone had learned where the insertion lived. Someone had planned for it.
Enzo released Valentina’s elbow just enough to move between them.
“Back up,” he said, calm as a blade.
The man didn’t obey. He angled his device toward Valentina’s briefcase as if he believed he could reach it through Enzo’s body. The motion was quick, practiced.
Enzo moved faster.
He didn’t draw a gun. He used his shoulder like a battering ram, slamming into the man’s side and knocking the applicator hand upward. The device clattered against concrete with a sharp metallic ring. It bounced once and skidded toward a drain grate.
Valentina’s breath hitched - then she moved too, stepping forward with her briefcase like it was a weapon. The instant she was in motion, Enzo saw the truth of her threat: she wasn’t just carrying documents. She was ready to keep them in her hands even if her hands were the last thing she had.
The gloved man recovered with a grunt. His hand shot into his coat, and Enzo’s instincts screamed again - weapon, restraint, something designed to make Valentina comply without anyone hearing her scream.
Enzo grabbed the man’s wrist instead of his gun. He twisted with enough force to make pain bloom. The man hissed, but the hiss wasn’t surprise. It was anger.
“Stop,” Valentina snapped, and her voice carried authority like it always did when she was on offense. “You think you can touch my things and walk away?”
Enzo felt her words like a hand on his chest. She wasn’t afraid of violence. She was afraid of losing control of what violence could do to her future.
The gloved man spat something between his teeth, then tried to wrench free. Enzo held him anyway, jaw clenched. “Who sent you?”
The man’s gaze slid to the secure door. “You’ll find out when the stamp is clean.”
That sentence landed like a punch. Enzo’s mind flashed to the verification stamp - smearing, tampering, residue. The evidence of a covert move. The enemy wasn’t only stealing the pact. They were trying to alter verification so the pact could be used or denied later.
Valentina’s voice went quieter, more dangerous. “You’re talking about the verification stamp.”
The man’s smile returned, thin and ugly. “We’re talking about what’s already been decided.”
Enzo tightened his grip. “No one decided anything without The Shadows knowing.”
The gloved man’s eyes flicked to Enzo. For the first time, he looked directly at Enzo like he recognized him - not just as a bodyguard, but as part of a larger machine. “You don’t know the whole agreement.”
Enzo felt something in his gut turn. A decades-old agreement, one signature that could kill empires - The Shadows learning it was compromised - this wasn’t random. It was coordinated. It was aimed at Valentina because she had the legal documents that could prove or collapse everything.
Vito shouted over radio interference, voice tight. “Enzo - service corridor breach. Another one is at the hatch. They’re trying to get the bag through a side access.”
Enzo didn’t let go of the man. “Valentina. Bag behind me.”
Valentina’s eyes flashed. “I’m not putting my life behind you like it’s a suitcase.”
“Do it,” he said, and there was no room for argument in his tone.
Her chest rose sharply. Then - because she was stubborn, because she was strategic - she complied on her terms. She pulled the briefcase up and tucked it against her ribs, turning her body so the bag was protected by her own frame.
She moved like someone used to being the center of a threat rather than the prey.
The gloved man tried again to reach for the briefcase with his free hand. Enzo struck his knuckles with a flat palm, snapping the motion off. The man stumbled back, cursing under his breath.
And then the secure door hissed open.
Cool air spilled out - air that smelled like disinfectant and electronics. A second attacker stepped into view, face partially hidden by a hood. Their hands were bare, but the posture was wrong for a corporate worker. Too ready. Too focused.
Enzo’s blood went cold.
The second attacker didn’t aim at Enzo. They aimed at the sealed corridor hatch behind the secure door - where chain-of-custody documentation should have been verified, where the resin cradle’s status should have been logged properly.
Their fingers moved toward a panel with a quick efficiency that suggested they’d rehearsed this exact moment.
Valentina’s voice cut sharp, aimed at Enzo but meant for the attacker too. “They tampered with the verification.”
Enzo’s eyes tracked her face. “How do you know that?”
Her gaze stayed on the hatch. “Because the meeting had a question in it that didn’t belong. Someone asked for a copy of the chain-of-custody binder under a pretext that sounded legal but wasn’t ours.”
Enzo’s mind snapped to the rumor he’d heard earlier - an unauthorized authorization linked to the alliance’s legal arm. This was the proof threading itself into place.
The hooded attacker’s hand slammed a panel. A small compartment clicked open. The sound was too clean. Too prepared.
Vito’s voice went frantic. “They’re not just tampering with a stamp. They’re pulling part of the system’s log. That chain-of-custody binder - digital copy maybe - someone wants the signatures and time stamps.”
Enzo’s grip on the gloved man tightened until the man’s breath turned harsh. The gloved man’s eyes narrowed, then darted toward the hooded attacker.
“Stop them,” Valentina said, and her voice shook - not with fear for herself, but with fury at the violation. “Enzo - stop them.”
Enzo didn’t answer her with words. He moved.
He shoved the gloved man backward into the pillar with enough force to knock him off balance, then sprinted three steps toward the secure door.
His shoes squeaked against the concrete in the wet corner of the garage, and the sound echoed in a way that made him feel like the building was judging him.
The hooded attacker turned their head just enough to see him. Their posture tightened, and Enzo saw something in their hand - a small, rectangular case. Not the sealed pact itself. Not the resin cradle. But a container meant to hold a partial copy.
A partial copy.
The evidence of the documents being targeted wasn’t just the tampering kit and the smeared verification stamp. It was the case. The attacker had come prepared to make something portable.
Enzo closed the distance, reaching for the case with his right hand.
“Don’t,” Valentina said behind him, and the word carried more than warning. It carried a plea.
He paused half a heartbeat - just long enough for the hooded attacker to react.
The attacker swung the case toward the side, aiming it at the camera blind spot. Enzo’s hand missed by inches. The case struck something - maybe a conduit, maybe a wall mount - then bounced and skittered toward the drain grate.
Enzo lunged, catching the case by the edge as it fell, his fingers scraping against metal. The case was slick. Cold. It made his skin crawl. He pulled it close, heart hammering, and the hooded attacker moved again - faster now, frantic.
They didn’t try to fight him. They tried to vanish.
A side access panel opened with a click. The hooded attacker slipped into the narrow corridor like water finding a crack. Enzo grabbed for their sleeve and caught only fabric, ripped away with a wet tear sound.
The attacker disappeared.
Silence snapped back into place like a rubber band recoiling. Only the fluorescent buzz and Valentina’s harsh breath remained.
Enzo turned, case in his hand, and found Valentina staring at the secure door hatch like it had personally insulted her. Her eyes were glassy with anger and something else - hurt, maybe, that someone had reached for what was hers.
He approached slowly, giving her space to decide what she could handle. The garage smelled of damp concrete and the faint chemical residue from the applicator that had hit the ground. His knuckles were scraped; his suit jacket had a faint tear near the shoulder from the struggle.
Valentina’s gaze dropped to his hand, to the case. “You have it.”
He nodded once. “Partial copy. Not the whole thing.”
Her throat bobbed. “That’s what they wanted. A piece they could use without the sealed pact being present.”