Chapter 15 Enzo Breaks His Own Rules #2
Valentina’s eyes flashed. “What version?”
Enzo felt the question land like a weight. He didn’t like that she asked. Questions were dangerous. Answers were worse.
The man lifted a hand, palm down. “You can stop pretending you don’t understand. Someone already told us you’d try to route through him.” His voice dropped a notch. “And someone already prepared for it.”
Enzo’s mind snapped to his own surveillance test from Vito. The pings. The waiting. The way it stopped like a signal.
“They’re watching my network,” Enzo said.
The man’s eyes gleamed with confirmation. “Yes.”
Valentina’s fingers tightened on the folder. “So you came to stop us.”
“I came to make sure you stop in the right place.” The man’s gaze slid over Enzo’s shoulder toward the stairwell door - the keypad, the maintenance panel Enzo had opened. “You opened something you shouldn’t. You connected your… channel. That means you’re already compromised.”
Enzo’s pulse throbbed in his ears. He forced his face to remain blank. “If I’m compromised, why are you talking instead of taking?”
The man’s smile turned colder. “Because you still think you’re the one choosing the outcome.”
He took one step forward. The corridor’s air felt tighter, the lemon polish scent suddenly sharp enough to sting.
Valentina shifted behind Enzo, her presence like a blade pressed close to his back. “Enzo.”
He heard it in her voice: a warning, but also a plea. She didn’t want him to sacrifice himself - she just didn’t know how to keep him from doing it.
Enzo’s hand moved, quick and decisive. He yanked the folder from Valentina’s grip and held it out - just for a second - toward the suited man.
The man lunged his gaze to it, reflex sharp.
Valentina’s eyes widened, anger flaring through fear. “Enzo!”
Enzo didn’t look at her. His attention stayed on the man. “Here’s what I’m carrying. You can take it.”
The suited man’s hand lifted, slow enough to be deliberate. “I don’t take gifts.”
Enzo’s smile was brief and brutal. “It’s not a gift.”
He twisted the folder in his grip and snapped it open - revealing routing authorization paper - and then, with a flick of his wrist, he let the paper fall into the corridor’s waste bin. Not out the door. Not into the man’s reach. Into the bin where it would be messy and time-consuming to salvage.
The man’s eyes changed instantly. Not surprise. Irritation.
Enzo used the same instant to tug Valentina back toward the corridor’s side wall. He pressed her shoulder against the plaster and slid his fingers to the maintenance panel again, pulling it wider. The wiring conduit yawned open, a hidden path to reroute their next step.
The suited man swore under his breath - one syllable, impatient.
“Stop them,” he snapped.
Footsteps surged from the desk area. Two more shapes blocked the corridor entrance now, fast and coordinated.
One wore black gloves - Enzo caught the telltale sheen of cheap latex under the suit sleeve.
The other carried nothing visible but the way his weight shifted promised he didn’t need a gun to end a life.
Valentina’s breath hitched as she realized the gloves. Her voice sharpened. “Notary’s attacker.”
Enzo didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it. He just moved.
He pulled the burner phone from the conduit access space and shoved it into Valentina’s hand. “Hold this.”
Her eyes flashed. “Enzo - ”
“Do it,” he said, and the authority in his tone surprised even him. He’d never been gentle when he needed results. Gentleness was for after the danger.
Valentina grabbed the phone anyway, like her body had decided before her mind could argue.
Enzo stepped into the corridor’s center, facing the suited man and the glove-wearing threat. “Giuseppe Lattanzi,” he called out, voice carrying. “If you’re watching, this is your chance to prove you’re still ours.”
The suited man’s expression tightened. “Don’t say names you can’t protect.”
Enzo took a half-step forward. He could feel sweat cooling beneath his collar.
He could hear the hum of the building’s lights, too loud now.
He could also hear the smallest sound from somewhere above - like a camera being adjusted, like a lens being repositioned to catch the moment he chose to sacrifice.
He wasn’t going to give them that clean shot.
He lifted his hands slowly, palms visible, as if surrendering. “Take the routing authorization,” he said, loud enough for the men to hear. “Take the papers. You won’t find the original copy inside the bin.”
The suited man barked a laugh. “You think I don’t know you’re bluffing?”
Enzo’s eyes cut to Valentina, just once. She was tucked against the wall now, burner phone gripped, her face pale under the corridor’s white light. She looked like someone who had spent her life refusing to be cornered - until the corner came with legal ink and surveillance.
He hated that he’d put her there.
He hated that he’d made the decision without asking.
But he’d do it again, because the alternative was watching them take her and call it procedure.
Enzo’s voice dropped, meant for Valentina alone. “When I tell you, you run down the stairwell. Not toward the archives. Toward the records storage. There’s a dumb exit there. A service door.”
Valentina’s eyes searched his face, looking for the lie. She didn’t find one.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
Because he’d watched this annex before. Because he’d learned its weak points the same way he’d learned to read shadows - by paying attention until they bled their secrets.
He couldn’t say any of it. Not with men listening, not with the suited man’s gaze latched to him like a hook.
Instead, Enzo said, “I’ve done worse.”
The glove-wearing man moved first - fast, hands reaching for Enzo’s coat. Enzo turned his shoulder just enough to misdirect, then drove his forearm upward in a hard block meant to break reach without breaking bone. The man grunted, stumbling half a step.
In the same motion, Enzo slammed his palm into the suited man’s chest - not a punch, but a shove that drove the man back into the corridor wall. The impact rang through the plaster.
The suited man’s breath punched out of him. His eyes flashed with something like surprise - then anger.
“You think you can - ”
Enzo cut him off by grabbing the suited man’s lapel and yanking him toward the corridor desk’s edge, where a metal drawer sat half-open. Enzo slammed it shut, trapping the suited man’s hand inside the drawer’s lip.
The suited man screamed - raw, unpracticed.
Valentina flinched at the sound, her body reacting before her mind. Enzo’s grip tightened on the suited man just enough to keep him from wrenching free.
“Valentina,” Enzo said, voice urgent.
She looked at him, eyes wide. “Now?”
“Now,” he said.
Valentina moved.
She ran - not toward the archives, not toward the main door, but toward the stairwell door’s side. Enzo watched her feet as she descended the steps, the sound of her shoes fading down into the building’s lower levels. The annex swallowed her like a throat closing.
Enzo turned back to the suited man and the glove-wearing threat. The men were recovering fast. That told him something. They weren’t amateurs. They were muscle for an operation that had already decided how this would go.
The glove-wearing man lunged again. Enzo met him with his own movement - shoulder, elbow, a hard twist that forced the man’s arm sideways. The sound of fabric tearing was sharp. The man hissed, grabbing at Enzo’s coat seam.
Enzo felt the fabric pull at his shoulder. He could have removed his coat to free himself, but that would slow him. He couldn’t slow. Not with Valentina down below and men above ready to seal every exit.
He shoved the glove-wearing man back toward the corridor entrance and grabbed the chain-of-custody binder from his own coat pocket. He flipped it open to the page with the forged witness line - the one that had already raised questions about alliance involvement.
He pressed the binder against the waste bin where he’d dropped the routing authorization paper.
Then he let the binder fall.
Paper slid, binder thudded, and the suited man’s attention snapped to it - because anyone trained for surveillance would read movement as evidence. If he made it look like the routing authorization was gone, they’d scramble to retrieve it. They’d waste time.
Enzo didn’t need their time. He needed their focus to stay above while Valentina got to the records storage service door.
He moved for the stairwell entrance himself.
The glove-wearing man caught his ankle as Enzo stepped onto the first step. “Not - ”
Enzo yanked his foot free with a sharp twist, then kicked the man’s knee hard enough to send him down onto the corridor floor. The man groaned, clutching the pain. Enzo didn’t stop to watch. He climbed down the stairwell two steps at a time, his breath ragged, his hands slick with sweat.
Below, the air turned colder. The sound of Valentina’s footsteps had stopped. That meant she’d either reached the service door or she’d been caught.
Enzo’s vision sharpened. He could feel the building’s hum, the way the lights flickered faintly as if losing power in sections. Somewhere ahead, a metal latch clicked.
Valentina’s voice came from around the corner, lower than before. “Enzo - don’t.”
He rounded the corner and found her pressed against a doorframe in a narrow records hallway. The service door was in front of her, half-open, a thin strip of darkness beyond. She held the burner phone in both hands like it could shield her.
And in the hallway, two men stood between her and the open door. One wore black gloves. The other wore no gloves but had a calm face that made Enzo’s stomach tighten.
They weren’t surprised to see him.
They’d anticipated this route.
Enzo stopped just inside the hallway, hands raised slightly, palms outward. “Valentina, step back.”
She didn’t move. “They’re here.”
“I know.”
The man without gloves spoke first, voice smooth. “Enzo Moretti. You’ve broken protocol so thoroughly you’ve made it easy.”
Enzo’s jaw flexed. “Where’s Giuseppe?”