Chapter 42 #3
His eyes lock on mine. “You always do this,” he mutters.
“Do what?”
“Talk like you already know what move everyone is going to make.”
I almost laugh, but there’s no humor in me. “That’s because I usually do.”
For a moment something old and familiar passes between us. A version of us that’s not so old. A version that was happy, and carefree and falling. It hurts that things have come to this.
He lets out a low groan. “We’ll do it your way. We’ll wait.”
I tell him that we need to get back to my desk, that I need my screens.
“Won’t Alex wonder what I’m doing at your desk?”
“He’s in the server room.”
Matteo follows me out and I feel the change in the air almost immediately. People notice when Matteo Knight leaves his office and plants himself near my desk. Sonny glances up from his workstation. Joel looks between us, then quickly back to his code.
No one says a word.
And I don’t really want to know what they might be thinking.
I sit, and Matteo pulls up another chair, puts it right beside me.
It leaves little room between us and I quickly lose focus.
For a few seconds I forget what I’m supposed to be doing because I’m overwhelmed by the scent of his cologne, something dark and rebellious.
Unmistakably Matteo. Suddenly, I’m pulled back into moments of magic.
His apartment, the kitchen stool, the hotel room, Dubrovnik.
His mouth at my throat, his hand sliding under my clothes.
I drag my mind back to the screen. Minutes pass but there’s nothing.
I keep one eye on the live activity, one on the mirrored log trail.
Matteo is quiet beside me, but the silence between us speaks volumes.
He’s all bunched up like a tight coil. I can feel the stiffness in his body.
The way he wants to resist this, doesn’t want to believe it.
“You don’t have to stay here, if you can’t take it,” I murmur without looking at him.
“I can take it.”
“You’re wound so tight I’m worried you might snap.”
I think he chortles. It’s a peculiar sound I can’t quite place. “This isn’t funny.”
“Nor is being accused of something you’re not guilty of.”
Then it happens. The monitor blinks. It’s a tiny flicker, followed by another. My body is on high alert. There it is. The bait file awakens.
Someone’s touched it.
I sit up straighter, fingers moving quickly now on my mouse, opening the trace, following the interaction as it unfolds in real time. Access request. Internal route. Masked behind standard maintenance activity.
He’s clever, but not quite hacker-level clever. Beside me, Matteo goes still in a completely different way.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice weary. I don’t answer immediately, because I’m already drilling down, stripping the activity apart, peeling away the normal wrapper it’s hidden behind.
The same machine signature appears beneath it. The same route. The same origin point. My pulse starts hammering. “Oh my God,” I whisper.
“What?”
I turn the screen slightly toward him and point. “There. See that?”
He leans in, his shoulder brushing mine. “What am I looking at?”
“He touched the marker.”
“Who?”
I click twice, open the underlying origin trace, then the authentication record beneath it. The one I’d suspected was there but hadn’t been able to prove until now.
A username appears.
acrawford
For a few seconds, I just stare at it.
“No way,” I whisper.
I click again, pulling up the employee directory attached to the account.
The profile loads.
ALEX CRAWFORD
For one suspended second Matteo doesn’t react at all. It’s like his whole body forgets how. Then he stands up so abruptly the chair legs scrape the floor.
Sonny and Joel both glance over.
“No,” Matteo says again, a desperation in his tone.
I look up at him. “He took it.”
His face has gone white.
“He interacted with the false pathway, then tried to bury the touch under routine activity. Only he couldn’t know I’d tagged it.” I swallow, hearing my own voice go flat and precise. “This isn’t just overlap anymore. It’s him. Origin point, timestamp, behavioral match. It’s him. Irrefutable proof.”
Matteo stares at the screen like he’s willing it to change and show a different outcome. Then, very softly, “Jesus Fucking Christ,” he mutters.
It takes a while for my emotions to hit. At first I sink back against my chair, relief turning my bones to jelly. My stomach sinks, and fury rears its ugly head.
Alex tried to frame me.
Alex, whom I trusted and thought was a good guy, decent and respectable and a friend. I experienced weeks of humiliation, suspicion and whispers, not just the restrictions on my account. I tried not to notice the rumors that spread. The gossip that tore around the office like wildfire.
I can’t shake it, the look on Matteo’s face in Dubrovnik when he confronted me with Alex’s allegations.
All because this man wanted a shield, wanted to pin his crimes on me.
Why?
Because I was a woman? Because I was convenient? Because I found out it was an inside job. Because I figured it out.
I rise to standing. “You see it now?”
“Into my office.”
Matteo walks away, and I see the way his shoulders sag, the heaviness in his stride. The weight he carries. A part of me fills with resentment. I thought proving it wasn’t me would change everything. I thought he’d feel reassured. Instead, he looks broken. Devastated even.
It hurts more than ever.
I walk past him into the office, and he shuts the door behind us. He looks at me then, and I almost wish he didn’t, because I can see exactly what he’s thinking. It’s not just that Alex did it. It's that Alex was one of his people. One of the people he trusted.
Standing here, watching him unravel, I can't help noticing that he looks more devastated by Alex's betrayal than relieved by my innocence. A tight knot forms in my chest.
“It’s not enough is it?” My voice is hoarse, with disappointment and dismay. “It hurts more that it’s him. I thought it would be enough that I’d proved it wasn’t me.”
He opens his mouth, but I step back and look away, needing to get away from here. From him.
“Elizabeth,” he says, voice rough. “I’m sorry—”
I shake my head once. “Don’t.”
His face twists like I’ve struck him, and oddly, that gives me a sense of satisfaction, because I want him to feel that pain.
“What’s going on?” Sonny asks, rushing in.
“Where’s Alex?” Matteo growls.