Chapter 24 When Enzo Feels Unworthy #5
Valentina’s lips pressed together. “And you reacted.”
“I did,” he admitted. “Because I believed I could stop it.”
She studied him for a long beat, and in that silence Enzo could feel the weight of his own failure settling deeper. He couldn’t deny it anymore. He’d failed to stop the public trap. He’d failed to keep his own name from becoming a weapon.
His throat tightened until it hurt. “You think I planned it.”
“I think you benefited from it,” she said, and her voice was so flat it felt like ice over a wound. “I think you wanted me cornered. I think you wanted to prove to yourself you could still control the outcome.”
Enzo’s vision sharpened too hard. For a moment, he saw himself in the past - hands on a steering wheel, eyes forward, making decisions because hesitation was how people died. He saw himself with Valentina in rooms where she’d looked at him like she was choosing him.
And then he saw her now, looking at him like he was the only enemy in the garage.
He couldn’t argue his way out of that.
He had to prove it.
Enzo lifted the marked page. “This is the lowest-level routing they used to set the elevator rig. It’s not the sealed pact itself. It’s the authorization chain that moved access through the raid.” He swallowed. “I can show you where the signature line is forged.”
Valentina’s eyes stayed locked on his face, not the paper. “Show me.”
He started to speak, then stopped.
Because he’d promised himself earlier that he wouldn’t keep her in the dark.
He’d promised he’d be honest. But the truth about where the information came from - about the alliance’s legal arm and the tampering - was tangled with his own involvement.
With his old decisions. With the part of the pact he understood too well.
If he told her the full origin of his knowledge, she would see the mastermind didn’t need a remote control to make him useful.
He was already wired for obedience.
And that was the fear sitting at the bottom of his stomach: that she would believe the mastermind’s narrative because it fit how he’d always been.
Enzo lowered the page slightly, letting the silence stretch. “Not here.”
Valentina’s nostrils flared. “Why?”
“Because someone is watching this stairwell.” He nodded toward the far end of the garage, where shadow pooled behind a thick support column. “And because - ” His voice cracked once, and he hated it. “Because if I explain the chain fully, you’ll think I’m the one who gave them access.”
Valentina went still.
He watched her breathing change - faster, more shallow. The smallest tell, but it told him she’d reached the edge of her control. She could either break into anger or break into retreat.
She chose retreat.
Valentina turned her head away from him, looking down the stairwell as if she expected the person in black gloves to appear again. “You can’t protect me from everything.”
Enzo’s stomach dropped. “I can protect you from them.”
Her laugh was bitter. “You’re not even protecting yourself.”
Enzo stared at her profile, the line of her cheek catching the cold light. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to anchor her to him. But he didn’t. He couldn’t ask for comfort when he was the reason she felt unsafe.
His hands tightened around the marked page until the paper bent at the edges.
“We’re at the lowest point,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. “I can still fix this.”
Valentina didn’t turn back. “Fix it by proving you’re not the mastermind.”
Enzo nodded quickly. “Yes.”
She finally looked at him again. Her eyes were bright. Not with tears - yet. With rage held on a thin wire.
“I’m going to ask you something,” she said. “And if you lie - if you even shade it - I'll stop listening.”
Enzo’s throat tightened. “Ask.”
Valentina lifted her chin. “Did you ever speak to the alliance’s legal arm about the sealed pact before we found the tampering?”
The question hit like a fist. Because the answer wasn’t clean. He’d spoken to people. He’d passed information. He’d been part of decisions made under the assumption that the pact had only one purpose: to bind criminals, to keep enemies from killing each other in the dark.
He hadn’t known about the deeper binding. He hadn’t known about the signature that could kill empires. Not in the way she now understood it.
But he had been involved.
Enzo felt his body react before his mind could craft words. His shoulders stiffened. His gaze dropped. The page in his hand trembled.
Valentina’s expression sharpened into certainty. “You did.”
“No,” Enzo said, and it was the wrong word. The lie tasted like ash instantly. “I spoke to - ”
She cut him off. “You spoke to them.”
Enzo shut his eyes for a brief second. When he opened them, Valentina’s face looked carved out of exhaustion.
He couldn’t keep lying just to keep her from walking away. Not if he wanted her trust. Not if he wanted the love they’d edged toward to survive the conspiracy’s teeth.
He forced the truth out, piece by piece. “I spoke to them because I thought I was preventing tampering. I thought I was tightening the