Chapter 43
MATTEO
Fucking unbelievable. My life seems to be getting harder with every passing day.
I told Alex to meet us in one of the meeting rooms, away from prying eyes and ears. I also asked Elizabeth to come along with me. We’re going to do this together. That much, at least, I owe her.
Alex isn’t here yet, and it’s just me and Elizabeth. She doesn’t say anything. She sits at the large round glass table, as far away from me as possible.
She doesn't even look at me.
I fucked up.
I hurt her in exactly the way she's spent her whole life being hurt. Dismissed and rejected. I don't have the words to explain how fucking awful I feel.
“Elizabe—”
“Don't.” Curt, sharp and deadly. A warning to me to keep away.
She won't let me in. Won't give me a chance to apologize or explain.
“I just want to—”
“Don't.” The word has a sharper edge now, and I have to back off. She has the utmost loathing for me. I deserve it, because I doubted her. After everything she told me, after everything that happened between us, I made her feel like a criminal.
I deserve her contempt, but I can't live with her hating me forever.
I care about her deeply, and I accused her of a heinous act, only to find out that the man I could trust with my life, is the one who has let me down the most.
This entire episode has been emotionally jarring. It feels like everything I knew and believed crumbled into pieces, and now I'm trying desperately to put everything back together again in a way that makes sense.
But Elizabeth hates me, and justly so. I can't come to terms with the idea that I might have lost the one person I love, because of my doubts and fears. I messed this up so badly, so epically, that I can't see how to fix it.
Tense, prickly minutes tick by. Then Alex walks in. His gaze goes to me, then Elizabeth, then me, and I see his body visibly slouch.
He knows.
“Alex,” I say. “Take a seat.”
His expression remains calm as ever. He’s composed, just like he’s always been, as he takes a seat.
“What’s this about?” He glances between us again.
Elizabeth sits, her body rigid, her posture straight, but she looks like she’d rather be anywhere than here.
I look Alex square in the eye. “You accessed a restricted pathway ten minutes ago.”
At first, he doesn’t react but twiddles his thumbs. Then, “That’s not unusual. We’ve all been working extended hours.”
“It was a fake pathway.”
That gets him. Just a fraction. The corner of his mouth tightens. Elizabeth is watching him as closely as I am, but she doesn't say a word.
“It was placed there deliberately. A vulnerability that doesn’t exist anywhere in the system architecture unless someone creates it.” My voice drops. “Elizabeth created it.”
Alex’s gaze flicks to her and he sits up, places his arms on the table. “You’re testing your own systems now?” His tone is light, but his eyes narrow.
“You shouldn’t have touched it,” Elizabeth says.
Alex’s eyes return to mine. “Matteo, what is—”
“I saw the trace.”
“And you’re sure it’s not a misread?” he counters, calmly. “We both know logs can be—”
“Manipulated?” Elizabeth finishes for him.
He shifts position, sitting back now, clasping his hands together on the table, then unclasping them.
“There’s more than the primary trace,” Elizabeth continues. “Shadow authentication. Origin masking. You buried it well, but not well enough.”
Alex sits quietly, like someone who knows he’s been cornered and has realized that there’s no way out.
“Say something,” I bite out. “At least, explain yourself.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s deciding something. Then he straightens in his seat again.
“You shouldn’t have dug that deep.”
He doesn’t even bother to deny it. The insides of my stomach drop so fast I feel hollow. For weeks I’ve been searching for another explanation, another possibility, another outcome.
Alex did this.
“It wasn't supposed to be permanent,” he says, his eyes fixed on the table. “We were migrating systems, years ago. Different infrastructure. Different security protocols. There were delays, access issues, people getting locked out.”
“So you created a backdoor?” Matteo asks.
“It wasn't a backdoor then.” Alex rubs a hand over his face. “It was a shortcut. A temporary access route. Something to make the transition easier. I forgot about it.”
The room falls silent.
“I hadn't used it in years. I barely even remembered it existed. Then...” His voice trails off. “Things happened.”
His eyes meet mine.
Elizabeth folds her arms. “That's how you got around the normal controls.”
“Yes.”
“And my credentials?”
Alex looks away. “I used the access route to mirror your sessions and reuse authentication tokens. Once suspicion started moving toward me, I redirected it toward you.”
“That's why the logs never quite made sense,” Elizabeth says quietly. “Some of the activity looked like mine, but the timing patterns were wrong.”
Elizabeth is as still and as calm as ever.
I wonder if she feels the same beneath the surface, because I'm in pieces inside.
I have lost this wonderful woman forever, and nothing I do will ever get her to look at me again.
I'm struggling with this, being here, sitting here, trying to find out Alex's motive, but also feeling like I've lost my way.
This has to be my most monumental of fuckups.
“Why?” I ask, trying to focus on Alex, and on the task at hand.
He stares at me for a long moment, then he laughs. It’s not light, not filled with amusement, but bitter and twisted. I feel completely let down by this man I thought I knew and trusted.
“You don’t see it, do you?” he snaps.
“See what?” I don’t like his tone.
“This.” He gestures around the room. “All of this. The systems. The power. The decisions made in rooms you’ll never step foot in.”
“I’m sitting in one right now,” I say coldly.
“No,” he replies. “You’re in a controlled environment your father built and you operate inside it, just like your brothers do. None of you question it, or understand what you have, what your privilege has afforded you.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flicks between us, but she stays silent, observing.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I cry. “You breached our systems, and to make matters worse, you framed Elizabeth. Why?”
He shakes his head, swallows, then lowers his gaze to his hands. Then he looks at Elizabeth, eyes soft, like his guard is breaking. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, but you gave me no choice.”
Her eyes widen. “What did I ever do to you?”
“This was nothing to do with you. You were simply collateral, because you’re too smart, because you figured it out.”
“What the fuck?” I yell, because I fucked up there as well, by telling Alex.
I trusted him with my life, and I told him that it could be someone internal.
But he was going to be in charge while I was away, and I felt he needed to know, and that’s the only reason why he framed Elizabeth.
He wanted the heat off himself. He deliberately set her up and incriminated her while she was away with me, told me when we were on vacation.
He loaded the gun, and pointed it at her.
I didn't even doubt him. I trusted his word over hers.
I shouldn't be surprised that she wants nothing to do with me. That she doesn't want to hear my apology, or look at me. I let her down. “You framed Elizabeth, to hide your own tracks. Why did you do any of this?”
Alex’s eyes fill with derision, and I no longer recognize this man. “Because your father shut down a hospital wing,” he says, simply.
I stare at him, not understanding. “What?”
“He pulled funding,” Alex continues, voice steady now. “Cut it like it was nothing, and my niece suffered for it. She’s still suffering, and it’s not looking good.”
I recall him mentioning his niece, how he was checking in on her. Conversations we had in the past now flash through my mind. I vaguely recall that he’d often take time out to see her.
“What hospital?”
“A research unit,” he says. “It was specialized treatment, experimental, but it was working. It gave her a chance. It was hope,” he says, his voice cold and hard. “It helped her.”
Elizabeth opens her mouth, then sits back, like this hits hard.
“She was getting better,” he goes on. “Slowly, but it was working. And then the funding disappeared. She was a kid just trying to get better, but your father didn’t consider the consequences of his actions. To him it was probably a line on a report.”
A cold fissure spreads through my chest, cracking like ice on a frozen pond. This wasn't corporate sabotage. It was purely personal.
Elizabeth shifts, but stays silent.
“I still don't understand why you did this?” I stare at Alex trying to understand why he did it, but I can't.
“You think I did this for fun?” Alex cries. “You think I woke up one day and decided to torch the company I’ve spent years building systems for?” His voice softens. “I loved working here, you know that.”
I do know that, which is why Alex was never under suspicion. But clearly, he snapped.
“What your father did, affected me personally,” he says, quietly. “And now you tell me he's sick? I hope he rots in hell. I hope he never finds peace.”
“Proud of yourself?” I hiss, self-loathing hardening my gut. “You framed an innocent person.”
Why did I believe him over Elizabeth? I've been a fool. We bickered and snapped at one another on vacation. I thought she was hiding things from me, and she was, I now learn, but nothing like this. Nothing sinister. Nothing that was meant to hurt me.
She was protecting herself.
“I needed a shield.”
Elizabeth lets out a short, sharp breath. “And you chose me? Thanks so much, Alex. I thought you were a great guy. I thought I'd found a friend in you. Seems like my intuition really let me down.”
That last part is a shot at me, and I deserve it. I deserve all the hate she wants to throw at me. But I want her to hear me out. I need her to know that I own my mistakes, and I hate myself for not believing her.