Chapter 23 The Campaign Office Raid #2
Enzo’s mouth went dry. Donato’s arrangement meant Donato had been part of the chain. Or someone had used Donato’s name to impersonate him.
Either way, the mastermind was playing the legal arm against the candidate.
Valentina leaned closer to Enzo, her whisper meant only for him. “They’re framing you.”
Enzo stared at her. “I know.”
“And you still want to storm in.” Her eyes flashed, and there was fear under the fire. “Enzo, this is my campaign. If they release anything - if they make it look like you attacked - ”
“I didn’t attack anyone.” The words came out hard, but his chest ached with the knowledge that the mastermind didn’t need the truth. He needed a narrative.
Valentina’s fingers tightened around the routing authorization paper until it crumpled at the edges. “They’ve already used my voice. They’ve already - ”
Enzo cut her off gently. “I’m not here to win a press cycle. I’m here to stop the documents from leaving.”
Valentina’s face twisted, and for a second she looked like she might break. “And what if the documents are already gone?”
Enzo’s mind flashed to the resin cradle case. To the insertion seam. To the way the chain-of-custody binder had been edited with signatures that had looked legitimate until you compared the stroke pressure and the spacing.
Someone could already have a copy.
Someone could already be waiting to trigger the trapdoor clause through a public filing.
He didn’t answer her immediately. He couldn’t lie.
Instead he reached into his jacket and pulled out the burner phone he’d used through the wiring connection in the annex’s law-library corridor. The screen was scratched, the battery icon low.
Valentina stared at it. “You have that?”
“It’s not for aesthetics,” Enzo said.
He moved away from the guard, toward the wall where a camera dome sat in shadow. The glass partitions reflected the burner phone’s glow like a warning flare. He held the phone close, thumb hovering over the call button.
He didn’t dial a number. He tapped a coded sequence he’d learned from the network wiring - an access handshake that redirected through internal lines without leaving an obvious trail.
The phone rang once.
Then it connected.
A voice came through, too muffled at first, then sharp. “Moretti.”
Enzo’s grip tightened. “Donato.”
Silence. Then a soft chuckle, like someone amused by the name. “Donato is gone.”
Enzo’s stomach turned. “Gone where?”
“Where you can’t drag him into the light.” The voice was controlled. Male. Familiar in a way that made Enzo’s skin prickle. He’d heard recordings of the handler using his own voice earlier. That wasn’t the only trick in the bag. Someone else could wear Enzo’s cadence like a suit.
Enzo forced his tone to stay even. “You’re in the office.”
The voice hummed. “You’re in the office. That’s the problem.”
Valentina stepped closer behind him, her gaze locked on the burner phone. Enzo could feel her wanting to snatch it, to demand answers, to tear the truth out of the air.
He didn’t let her. Not yet.
“What did you do with the sealed pact documents?” Enzo asked.
The voice exhaled. “What you always do. You make things personal. You think love is a leash.”
Enzo’s jaw clenched. The mastermind had watched him. Studied him. Learned that Valentina was his soft spot and his vice. Learned that her fear could be used as a detonator.
Valentina’s whisper brushed his ear. “Enzo…”
Enzo kept his eyes forward. “Tell me where Donato Greco is.”
“No,” the voice said calmly. “I’m telling you what you’re going to do.”
Enzo’s pulse kicked. “Which is?”
“You’re going to stop trying to seize the handler.” The voice sharpened. “Because you already failed. The documents are recorded. The chain-of-custody binder has been amended. And the public filing - ”
Valentina stiffened. “Public filing?”
Enzo’s throat tightened. “Say it.”
The voice went on. “The trapdoor clause will be activated. And when it is, Valentina will be the one who looks compromised. Not you. Not me. Her.”
Enzo felt the internal conflict slam into place like a trap snapping shut. His desire to protect her was clear. His need to control chaos was instinctive. But the mastermind wanted him to keep pushing, to push into a position where he could be blamed for everything.
He heard Valentina’s breathing behind him, quick and shallow. She was absorbing the words like they were poison.
Enzo swallowed. “Then where is Donato?”
The voice paused, as if savoring the moment. “You want him because he’s an anchor. A witness. A tool. But you don’t understand what he is.”
Enzo’s mind raced back to the forged witness line in the chain-of-custody binder. To the way someone had inserted a name, shifted the pressure on the pen, and made the signature look like it belonged.
A witness could be planted. A binder could be edited. Donato could be removed.
Or he could be used.
Enzo’s voice went colder. “You’re manipulating us.”
“Of course.” The voice sounded almost bored. “You’re the man who believes in loyalty. I’m the man who understands leverage.”
Valentina jerked her head toward the guard, then toward the glass doors. Her eyes were storming. “Leverage over what? Over me? Over Elena?”
The burner phone voice cut in before Enzo could answer. “Elena is safe. That’s the joke. She didn’t do it. But she’s going to be blamed anyway.”
Enzo’s stomach clenched with a new layer of dread. Elena safe didn’t mean the mastermind wouldn’t use her name as a weapon.
He gritted his teeth. “Where is the handler?”
The voice softened, almost intimate. “In the campaign office, Mr. Moretti. You just haven’t found him yet.”
Enzo’s gaze snapped to the corridor door. “You’re in here.”
The voice laughed quietly. “You’re in here. That’s the thing.”
The line clicked off.
Enzo stared at the burner phone, screen gone dead. His mind raced, but the racing didn’t give him answers. It only sharpened the fear.
Valentina’s eyes were bright with fury and terror. “You said Donato is gone - ”
“It sounds that way.” Enzo ran a hand over his jaw, feeling stubble he hadn’t noticed he’d grown. “And it sounds like the mastermind is using legal leverage to force a narrative.”
Valentina’s voice broke on the last word. “So the documents are recorded already.”
“Or they’re already moving.” Enzo looked at the guard again. “And I’m being blocked from accessing the corridor because they want me to look like I’m interfering with your safety.”
Valentina’s hands trembled. She folded the crumpled authorization paper back and smoothed it like she could fix damage with her fingertips. “They want me to choose the wrong person.”
Enzo’s chest tightened. “And I want you to choose the right one.”
She snapped her head toward him. “You. I choose you. But they’re making this office - this entire campaign - turn into evidence against you.”
Enzo leaned in, his voice low. “Then we stop them before the evidence becomes a verdict.”
Valentina’s eyes searched his face, and in them Enzo saw the same internal conflict she must be fighting: the part of her that wanted to believe the conspiracy had a human shape she could fight, and the part of her that knew conspiracies didn’t care about belief.
She whispered, “How?”
Enzo straightened. He didn’t have the luxury of subtlety. Not in a building designed to trap them with procedure.
“I storm the campaign office bullpen,” he said, and the words tasted like violence. “I find the binder. I find the burner that started this. I find the handler. And I do it without touching anything that can be spun.”
Valentina’s mouth opened, then closed. “They’ll fight you.”
“They already are.” Enzo turned toward the corridor again. “We move fast. We move smart.”
The guard shifted his stance, radio still in hand. He looked like he wanted to protest. But he also looked like he’d been told to let Enzo run into a wall.
Enzo walked past him.
The guard’s radio crackled again. Then another sound joined - footsteps in the hallway beyond the glass partitions. Not the heavy cadence of security. Lighter. Too controlled.
Enzo’s senses sharpened. The bullpen’s air felt colder now, as if the building had turned down its thermostat to make the room more hostile.
Valentina followed close, shoulders tense. “Where are we going?”
“Press desks,” Enzo said. “If the handler wants to move the binder, he’ll do it through a route that looks mundane.”
Valentina’s eyes widened slightly. “You think he’s using the press corridor?”
“I think he’s using what they can access without triggering alarms.” Enzo’s gaze swept the room: the printers, the mail slots, the delivery counter. Everything that moved paper without being treated like contraband.
He reached the nearest desk and grabbed the phone receiver from a press aide station. “Who’s in the mailroom?”
The aide jerked back, startled. “Uh - what?”
Enzo didn’t give him time to form a lie. “Mailroom. Now.”
The aide blinked at Valentina like she might rescue him. Valentina stepped forward, her expression sharp enough to cut. “Answer him.”
The aide swallowed. “Lower level. But the door’s locked.”
Enzo set the receiver down. “Who has keys?”
The aide’s eyes flicked toward the corridor security door. “Private security. And compliance.”
Valentina’s lips pressed tight. “Donato’s compliance unit.”
Enzo’s throat tightened. “Or someone impersonating them.”
The handler’s voice on the burner had said Elena was safe. That meant the mastermind had a reason to keep Elena from being physically harmed. Which meant the mastermind didn’t need Elena dead. He needed Elena blamed.
Which meant the sealed pact documents weren’t just about money. They were about signatures that could ruin empires. About legal chains that could snap.
Enzo’s mind snapped into focus. He turned to Vito’s contact - except Vito wasn’t here. Vito was somewhere else in the Shadows’ network, handling a different angle. Enzo could feel the absence like a missing limb.