Chapter 21 Matteo’s Reverse Trap for Marzio #3
Matteo’s gaze went sharp. Whoever was sending the directives had assumed Matteo would follow them because it was easier than defiance.
Matteo didn’t have to defy blindly. He could defy with precision.
He could release Celeste to Marzio as bait - while ensuring the missing page couldn’t be extracted without Matteo seeing the handoff.
He could turn the trap into a controlled exchange.
Matteo exhaled slowly, then nodded once at Celeste, as if confirming a deal. “Fine.”
Celeste blinked. “Fine?”
Matteo’s fingers loosened slightly on her coat. “We’ll do it your way.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “Matteo - ”
Matteo didn’t look at her. Not yet. He couldn’t afford her doubt in the middle of a staged compliance. “Stay close.”
Elena’s breath came out harsh. “You’re letting her go?”
Matteo’s voice stayed calm, but his pulse wasn’t. “I’m sending her where Marzio will be forced to show his hand.”
Celeste’s gaze moved like a blade, reading him. “You think you can outsmart Marzio.”
“I think Marzio already outsmarted himself,” Matteo said. “He believes I’ll choose obedience over outcome.”
Celeste’s smile returned, thin and sharp. “And will you?”
Matteo turned his head just enough to let Elena see the truth in his eyes. “I’ll choose outcome.”
Then he took Celeste’s arm and pulled her forward into the open yard, toward the van half-hidden behind containers. The rain made the air feel heavier, like it soaked into his clothes and refused to leave.
He walked like he belonged there. Like he wasn’t carrying a gun and dragging a hostage. Like he wasn’t listening for the next command.
Men watched from behind fencing. Matteo saw the subtle shift in posture when Celeste walked free - like the watchers were waiting for something to trigger.
He heard a click of a remote somewhere in the yard. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just precise.
Then a second sound - an engine turning over.
The van’s lights flared, washing the wet ground in harsh white. A figure stepped down from the van, tall and composed, moving like he’d never had to rush in his life. Matteo didn’t need a face recognition to know the shape of Marzio in the way men moved around him.
Marzio De Santis.
He kept his distance, hands visible, posture relaxed. He looked at Celeste first, then at Matteo, then at Elena.
His eyes lingered on Elena’s ledger key. In the rainlight, the matte device looked like nothing. To Marzio, it looked like a weapon.
“Matteo,” Marzio said, voice smooth. “You came.”
Matteo’s grip tightened on Celeste’s arm. “You wanted compliance.”
Marzio smiled. “I wanted her protected.”
Elena’s breath caught, and Matteo felt the way her body tensed at the lie. Marzio wasn’t protecting Elena. He was controlling the conditions under which Elena would be used - either to validate a contract or to destroy a witness of corruption.
Matteo kept his eyes on Marzio. “You have the missing page.”
Marzio’s smile didn’t change. “Maybe.”
Celeste lifted her chin. “Marzio - ”
Marzio cut her off with a glance. “Quiet.”
Matteo saw Celeste swallow the words she wanted to say. That was the confirmation Matteo needed: Celeste wasn’t the leash-holder. Someone else was giving Marzio the rules, and Celeste was the messenger trapped inside them.
Matteo took a step forward, just one. “Give it to me.”
Marzio’s gaze flicked to Elena. “Give it to her.”
Elena’s eyes sharpened. “No.”
Marzio’s smile thinned. “Then you’ll lose it.”
Matteo felt the trap shift. Marzio anticipated Matteo’s insistence on direct confrontation. He anticipated that Matteo would try to grab the missing page himself.
So Marzio tried to redirect the grab through Elena.
He tried to provoke Elena into stepping forward, into exposing herself, into triggering the enemy assets that were listening for Elena’s coordinates.
Matteo’s phone buzzed again - faster now, almost frantic.
Transfer compliance. Elena’s custody must be maintained.
Matteo’s stomach turned. The directives weren’t just telling him where to go. They were instructing him how to behave in real time to keep the trap working.
Marzio watched Matteo’s face like he could read the directives in his expression.
Matteo leaned slightly toward Elena, voice low enough that only she could hear. “Don’t move.”
Elena’s eyes were wild, fear and fury colliding. “He’s stalling.”
“He’s baiting,” Matteo corrected.
Marzio lifted a hand toward the van. “Celeste will escort the ledger key to the retrieval unit. Matteo will stand down.”
Matteo’s muscles locked. Stand down meant surrender his sidearm. It meant letting Marzio’s men close the distance and take whatever they wanted - either the missing page or the ledger key or Elena herself.
Matteo didn’t stand down.
Instead, he pulled Celeste closer and slapped his own phone against his palm like he was preparing to comply with the directive timing.
Then he did something that looked like obedience and wasn’t.
Matteo shifted his stance and lowered his sidearm just enough for Marzio to see the gesture. His head tilted slightly, like he was accepting the terms.
Marzio’s posture relaxed a fraction, like he’d won.
That was Matteo’s opening.
He jerked Celeste forward - not toward Marzio, but sideways, toward the low wall behind which Elena had taken cover. Celeste stumbled into the rain, her coat flaring, her eyes flashing with surprise that quickly turned into fury.
Marzio’s face didn’t change, but his men moved instantly - one from behind fencing, another from the container stack, both sprinting with the kind of speed that came from training rather than panic.
Matteo fired.
Not at Marzio. Not at Celeste. At the retrieval unit - a small matte device on a tripod that Matteo hadn’t seen until the van’s lights made it visible. He’d spotted its shape when the van engine turned over. A unit built for secure transfer, built to receive or validate the missing page’s access.
The shot shattered the device. Metal clanged. The unit’s screen went dark.
Marzio’s eyes flared, and for the first time his calm cracked. “You idiot.”
Matteo’s answer was a rush of breath through his nose. “You anticipated my obedience. You didn’t anticipate my timing.”
Elena moved then, fast and decisive. She reached for the ledger key and pressed it against a portable reader she’d hidden in her coat lining - something she’d prepared after the backup drive was destroyed.
She wasn’t waiting for Marzio’s retrieval unit.
She was trying to force the missing page’s pathway open while it was still accessible.
Matteo saw the green flicker on her reader and felt his hope surge too sharply, too dangerously.
Marzio’s men surged toward them.
Matteo grabbed Elena by the elbow and pulled her behind the wall, shielding her body with his own as bullets snapped into the concrete. Rain sprayed through small cracks where rounds hit. The smell of cordite mixed with wet earth.
Elena’s reader beeped once - sharp
Elena’s reader beeped once - sharp - and the small screen on it flashed a pattern of symbols that didn’t look like any key Matteo had ever seen on the secure systems he’d dismantled.
Elena’s breath stuttered. Her fingers hovered a hair above the reader like she was afraid the act of contact would trigger something worse than gunfire. “It’s opening.”
“Not wide enough,” Matteo snapped, eyes on the retrieval unit that now sat dead in the rain, its tripod legs slick with runoff. “Marzio wanted a confirmation. He wanted us to hand over the page when it was verified.”
Elena’s gaze cut to him. “Then we verify from here.”
A man came over the wall at a run, coat plastered to his shoulders, weapon already up.
Matteo moved without thinking. He shoved Elena deeper behind the concrete, then twisted, side-stepping the line of fire with his shoulder and driving his sidearm upward - not to shoot - just to knock the muzzle aside.
The impact rang sharp in the air, metal on metal.
The man’s eyes widened. He tried to recover, but Matteo was already in close, his jacket catching on the edge of a rebar grid. Matteo yanked free and drove a hard punch into the man’s throat. The sound Matteo heard wasn’t dramatic - just a wet gasp - and the man folded like he’d been unplugged.
Elena didn’t flinch. She was too busy watching the reader’s screen as if she could intimidate it into showing her the full path. “It’s asking for a second credential.”
Matteo’s phone buzzed in his palm again. The vibration was quick, impatient, like whoever sent it couldn’t afford to wait for his instincts. He glanced down and saw the directive text scroll across the matte black screen - short phrases, cold timing windows.
His jaw tightened. The message didn’t say to stop. It said to complete the transfer compliance and keep custody personnel in place.
Custody personnel.
That phrase hit him like a fist. It wasn’t just about Elena. It was about who else was being controlled.
“Marzio’s not the only one here,” Matteo said, low. “This is a chain. Someone’s feeding him orders and someone’s feeding the whole team.”
Elena’s eyes snapped up. “So you think there’s a handler.”
Matteo didn’t answer with words. He turned his head slightly toward the open yard beyond the wall, where rain made every light look bruised.
The van’s headlights still cut through the mist, but now he saw movement near the fencing - subtle, coordinated.
Not frantic. Not surprised. Like they were waiting for a cue.
Marzio’s voice rose over the gunfire, calm enough to be insulting. “Celeste.”
Matteo’s skin prickled at the name. Celeste had been his bait, his lever - except Matteo had pulled her into the rain just long enough to force Marzio’s men to react. Where was she now?
A scream tore through the yard, high and sudden, cut off mid-breath.
Matteo’s gaze snapped to the container stack. Celeste’s silhouette blurred between two steel walls, her hands clawing at something unseen. Then she stumbled forward into a beam of headlight, eyes wide, mouth open as if she’d tried to warn someone.