Chapter 20 Cargo Holds and Hidden Witnesses #4
The man’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Because you didn’t hide him from the right people.”
A hard metallic clang echoed from somewhere above them. The skiff shifted again, not enough to throw them, but enough to tell Elena they were being repositioned deliberately - like moving a chess piece closer to the board edge where it could be captured.
Matteo’s voice came out low, clipped. “Name.”
The man paused as if considering whether he should answer. Then he said, “Marzio doesn’t get to keep all the money mouth secrets.”
Elena flinched at the phrase. Money mouth. The words she’d coaxed from Elena’s last fragments of truth, the way her mind had latched onto it because it sounded like a role, not a person.
The man continued, “You’re going to hand him over. Or you’re going to watch the hold fill with smoke.”
Elena’s chest tightened. Smoke meant sealed vents, sealed exits. Matteo had blocked the main hatch, but the skiff still had places where air could be fed or cut off. If the enemy could breathe the hold, they could suffocate it.
Matteo finally lowered his hand. Not toward his sidearm - toward the interior latch beside Elena, where the panel seam met the frame. He reached with precision, fingertips sliding under a metal lip.
Elena’s eyes widened. “Matteo - ”
He didn’t look at her. “Stay behind me.”
Elena’s instinct screamed to argue, but the hold was too small for pride. She moved half a step, letting the tarps and crates place her further back, closer to the witness’s hiding space.
The man on the other side of the panel spoke again, and his tone sharpened. “You’ve got one conversation left in you. Make it count.”
Matteo’s fingers found a latch and tugged. The seam of light narrowed as the panel shifted back.
The man’s eyes flared. He slammed his palm against the panel from the other side, and the sound boomed through the hold - heavy, impatient. “He’s not going to make it out of there.”
Elena couldn’t stop herself. “Who is he?”
The man’s answer came fast, as if Elena’s question annoyed him. “A witness. A liability. A mouth that thinks it can keep talking after the money mouth paid for his silence.”
Matteo jerked the panel higher and then shoved it shut. The seam vanished, leaving only the hold’s dim gray light and the wet hiss of rain on tarps.
The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was a held breath. Elena could hear her own heartbeat and the faint creak of the skiff’s structure.
Then came footsteps - multiple pairs, measured and close. Not random deck hands. People who’d done this before and didn’t need to hurry because the hold already belonged to them.
Matteo didn’t draw his sidearm yet, but Elena saw the shift in him - the way his shoulders lowered as if he was stepping into a fight he’d already rehearsed in his head.
She whispered, “The witness is here?”
Matteo’s gaze moved past her, toward the tarps. “He’s not supposed to be. Which means the enemy expects him to be.”
Elena’s stomach churned. “They said he was under the tarps.”
Matteo’s expression tightened. “They’re fishing. But they’re not lying about everything.”
Elena’s mind scrambled through what she knew: the tracking tag, the coded directives, the way Marzio’s name had already surfaced as an intermediary. Now this - witness hidden in their hold like a bomb with a human fuse.
She forced herself to look down at the floor between crates, where the tarps sagged in uneven folds. There were footprints in the dust, small and careful, as if someone had tried to move without making noise.
Under the tarp edge, Elena saw a thin strip of fabric - torn and damp, likely from a coat. A handprint smudged tarred rope, the kind of mark made by someone who’d been dragged and then forced to lie still.
Elena swallowed hard. “We have to get him out.”
Matteo’s eyes cut to hers. “We have to get him out without letting them take him first.”
A muffled voice sounded from the far side of the hold - male, roughened by smoke or fatigue. “Check the perimeter. He’s in there.”
Another voice answered, closer to the panel door. “We don’t want noise. We want him quiet.”
Elena’s pulse spiked. Quiet meant dead.
She reached for the tarp edge, fingers finding wet fabric that stuck to her skin with a tacky chill. Matteo’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist - not hard, but firm enough to stop her.
His eyes were dark. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?” Elena hissed, anger flaring. “They’re coming.”
Matteo’s gaze flicked to her phone pocket. “For them to commit.”
Elena hated the patience in his voice. Hated that it sounded like discipline instead of mercy. “Commit to what?”
Matteo’s mouth tightened. “To the door.”
The hold door - internal access at the skiff’s side - was different from the panel Matteo had shut. If they were approaching the door, it meant they believed they could breach it without waking the witness.
Elena’s throat tightened. She could almost taste the tarps, the moldy wetness. She could hear the enemy’s breath through the metal, too controlled to be panic, too focused to be searching by chance.
The footsteps stopped. A pause followed, and then a tool scraped against metal - something being fitted, something designed to cut.
Elena felt her skin crawl. “They’re going to open it.”
Matteo’s sidearm finally came free from his jacket, quiet and deliberate. The familiar weight pressed against his palm, and Elena saw the way his fingers settled around it like they’d done this in dreams.
He didn’t raise it. He held it low, pointed toward the floor, ready to move fast if the door burst.
Elena’s gaze dropped to the tarp folds again. “If the witness is alive…”
Matteo’s eyes met hers. Something in his face hardened, but not toward her. Toward the enemy. Toward the mission he couldn’t control. “If he’s alive, he’s scared. And scared people lie.”
Elena’s breath caught. “Because they’re threatened.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. “Because they want to survive. They choose the truth that keeps them breathing.”
A metallic snap echoed as the tool bit into the door frame. The skiff shuddered, and Elena’s body reacted before her mind could - she leaned closer to the tarp, moving her hand under the fabric edge.
The moment she touched the witness, she felt it: a pulse under skin, a breath that came too shallow, too controlled. Someone was there. Someone had been listening.
Elena swallowed, lips parting on a question she didn’t want to ask because it might sound like mercy. “Hey - ”
A hand shot out from under the tarp, gripping her wrist with sudden strength. The fingers were cold, knuckles bruised, and the nails were torn like the witness had tried to dig at restraints.
Elena froze, startled by the grip’s force. Pain flared where his hand clamped down.
Matteo stepped in instantly. “Let go.”
The witness’s eyes appeared in the dim light - wide, bloodshot, frantic. He looked past Matteo and straight at Elena like he recognized the name attached to her face.
His lips moved before sound came. When he spoke, it was broken, as if his mouth had been trained to protect itself. “Elena.”
Elena’s throat tightened. “Yes. I’m here. We can get you out.”
The witness shook his head violently. His breath came in short bursts that smelled faintly of stale coffee and something metallic underneath - fear sweat.
“No,” he rasped. “Not… not out.”
Matteo’s voice cut through the hold’s tension. “Talk.”
The witness’s gaze darted toward the door where the cutting tool still worked. “They’ll - ”
“They’ll what?” Elena demanded, anger forcing her to move closer despite the witness’s grip on her wrist.
His eyes flicked to her phone pocket, to the way she held herself like a target. “They’ll say I… I made it up.”
Elena’s stomach twisted. “Who will say that?”
The witness’s grip loosened a fraction, as if he was losing strength. “Marzio… money mouth.” The words came out like they scraped his throat. “He said… he said it wasn’t… it was just - ”
The cutting tool screeched, metal screaming against metal, and the hold door shuddered. The witness flinched hard, eyes squeezing shut for a second like the sound physically hurt him.
Matteo moved, bringing his body between Elena and the door. His sidearm rose slightly now, muzzle angled toward the entrance.
Elena didn’t stop the witness. She leaned close enough to catch his breath. “Who else was in it? Who paid him?”
The witness’s lips trembled. He tried to answer and couldn’t find the words without breaking. “There was… a man. Always a man. Different faces. Same… voice.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “Dante?”
The witness jerked his head, frantic. “No. Not - ”
He stopped. His throat worked like he was swallowing the rest of the truth at gunpoint.
Elena felt something cold settle in her gut. The witness knew more than he was willing to say, and the fear wasn’t random. It was rehearsed.
The witness’s hand tightened once more around Elena’s wrist, nails digging. “They said if I talk… if I say names… they take my family.”
Elena’s breath caught. “They threatened you.”
The witness’s eyes filled with something that wasn’t just tears. It was rage that had nowhere to go, fear that had eaten the rest. “They don’t have to threaten. They already know where I sleep.”
The door finally gave with a heavy metallic groan. The hold’s air shifted, warmer from outside, carrying diesel and wet saltwater. Elena heard the boots of men rushing in.
Matteo fired - not at the witness, not at Elena, but at the first figure entering the hold. The shot