Chapter 23 The Missing Page in a Church Vault #3
Matteo’s phone buzzed again. A new coded message popped up, shorter than the previous ones, like it was meant to be read in a single breath.
SECONDARY NODE LOCKDOWN: ACTIVE
INTERNAL RESPONSE PROTOCOL: COMPELLING
Matteo’s throat went tight.
Internal response protocol meant his phone was now being used to enforce something beyond his original order. It meant the system had decided he was part of the mechanism.
Elena saw the shift in his face. “What now?”
Matteo kept his eyes on the hatch opening. “They’re locking down nodes around the church.”
Elena’s gaze darted around the scaffolding. “So there isn’t a clean way out.”
“There may be one,” Matteo said. “But it won’t be clean for someone else.”
Elena’s mouth tightened. “You’re thinking like them.”
Matteo didn’t deny it. Thinking like them was sometimes the only way to survive them.
Below, a heavy impact sounded - metal against stone. One of the men was forcing the hatch or breaking it. The sound shook dust from the tarp.
Elena grabbed Matteo’s forearm, fingers digging in. “We can’t get trapped here.”
Matteo leaned closer to her, voice low enough to stay private. “We won’t.”
He moved them toward a side passage between two support beams, using the church restoration’s clutter as cover.
The space narrowed, forcing them to press close to the walls.
Elena’s shoulder brushed Matteo’s chest; the contact made him aware of her heat in the cold.
It wasn’t comfort. It was proof that they were still alive - and still vulnerable.
The boots above the hatch were louder now. A man’s voice carried through the opening.
“Search the upper restoration. She can’t disappear.”
Matteo’s fingers tightened around his sidearm. The ledger page was secured, but the cost of retrieving it had already started - network alarm, node lockdown, men already in motion.
And Elena’s suspicion wasn’t theoretical anymore. The system wasn’t just hunting the evidence. It was hunting the person who held it.
Elena’s voice came out tight. “Matteo.”
He looked at her.
Her eyes were fixed on the scaffolding above them, where a maintenance ladder led to an access panel. The ladder looked old enough to snap. But it was also the only route that didn’t run through the corridor where the men were already converging.
“They’ll follow,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
Elena’s expression hardened further. “If they follow me, they’ll lose time. If they follow you, they’ll think they can separate us.”
Matteo stared at her. “You’re planning to - ”
She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “Not sacrifice. Not like that. I’m planning to make them choose wrong.”
Matteo’s throat tightened. “That’s still a gamble.”
Elena met his eyes. “Everything is a gamble when someone else sets the rules.”
The impact below the hatch intensified. The hatch itself started to rattle, metal protesting under force. Matteo could feel vibrations through the floorboards.
He made the decision fast, because the enemy was already counting down.
He pulled Elena close and pressed his mouth near her ear - not a kiss, not comfort. A promise disguised as breath. “When we move, you stay close enough that they can’t decide who’s the target.”
Elena’s lashes fluttered. For a second, her expression softened into something too intimate for this cold corridor.
Then the soft moment died as the hatch finally gave with a heavy metallic groan.
A man’s silhouette spilled into view below, then disappeared as he climbed toward the upper level. Matteo shifted his stance, sidearm up, eyes tracking the movement.
Elena’s hand found his jacket seam where the ledger page was hidden. Her fingers hovered there, then pulled away, like she couldn’t decide whether to reassure him or warn him.
The first man emerged onto the upper restoration space with a flashlight that cut through dust. He scanned left and right, his breathing controlled but not calm. His voice carried.
“Where are they?”
Matteo didn’t answer. He watched the man’s stance, the way his weight shifted - ready to fire if he saw movement.
Elena moved first.
She stepped out from behind the support beam with a deliberate, controlled motion, hands visible. Her face held a strain that looked like fear - fear weaponized, the kind men responded to like dogs to a whistle.
The man’s flashlight jerked toward her. “There.”
Elena’s voice was steady enough to be believable. “We’re not hiding. You want the page? It’s gone.”
Matteo’s pulse spiked at the words. Elena was feeding them information, shaping their assumptions.
Elena turned her head slightly, looking over her shoulder toward Matteo’s hiding spot. Her eyes flashed a warning: Don’t shoot unless I tell you to.
The man below her position took a step, lowering his weapon slightly. “Where?”
Elena’s mouth tightened. “You don’t get it for free.”
A second figure appeared behind him in the hatch opening, then another, their boots thudding as they climbed. The men were moving with confidence now, because Elena’s performance had given them a direction.
Matteo’s phone buzzed again - this time the vibration was longer, like an incoming data burst. His screen flashed with a new directive, urgent and clipped.
NODE brOADCAST: TRACKING CONFIRMED
ELENA DEVICE COORDINATES: ACTIVE
EXTRA ASSET DEPLOYMENT: IMMINENT
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. The vault’s controlled release had routed the network alert - but it had also validated Elena’s device coordinates. The system wasn’t just telling men where to look. It was telling their assets where Elena was.
Elena’s voice sharpened. “Matteo.”
He glanced at her. She was still facing the men with her hands visible, eyes locked on the lead man. Her posture was tense, but she wasn’t panicking. She was negotiating with her body language.
Matteo understood the shape of it: she was buying him seconds to move them to the ladder access panel.
The lead man took another step. “Show me your hands.”
Elena’s gaze flicked toward the ladder. “You should be asking about the vault.”
The man’s expression tightened. “We already know it triggered.”
Elena’s lips parted as if she might say something else - then she swallowed it. She turned her head slightly again, just enough that Matteo could see the micro-expression: a signal to move.
Matteo moved.
He stepped out from cover, raising his sidearm - but not firing. The angle forced the lead man to choose between Elena’s visible hands and Matteo’s weapon.
The second man behind him lifted his own gun, trying to align his aim.
Matteo fired once, a controlled shot that struck the flashlight housing in the lead man’s hand. The beam shattered, scattering bright shards of light into dust. The sound was sharp, violent - then the restoration space echoed with curses.
Elena flinched, not from fear but from the reflex to sell surprise.
The lead man hissed. “You - ”
Matteo didn’t let him finish. He lunged forward, using the scaffolding’s clutter as cover, moving in close enough that gunfire became dangerous for everyone involved - including him.
He couldn’t afford a stray shot that would draw attention aboveground, and he couldn’t afford to create panic that would turn this into a public spectacle.
The lead man swung his weapon toward Matteo, but Elena moved with him - stepping into his line just enough to disrupt his aim. Matteo felt the tremor of her improvisation. She was using her body as a wedge.
A third man shouted from the hatch opening. “Secure her!”
Elena’s eyes snapped to Matteo. For a heartbeat, she looked like she wanted to argue, like she wanted to tell him she could handle it. Then the urgency in her face changed into acceptance.
Matteo caught Elena’s wrist and
Matteo caught Elena’s wrist and dragged her a half-step back, just enough to break the lead man’s clean line of sight. Her skin was warm through her sleeve, and the contact jolted something in him that had no business existing inside a vault full of rigged machinery.
“Move,” he said, low.
Elena’s jaw clenched as if she hated being given orders in the middle of her own nightmare. Still, she moved - fast, precise, aligning her body with the scaffolding leg so the men above couldn’t see her full profile.
The lead man recovered first. He kicked at the debris - an old crate splintering against the stone - and his boot scraped sparks from the ladder rung. “Vault’s open. We’re not leaving until we pull the page.”
Matteo’s gaze swept the dark corners where the restoration crew had pretended not to hide their systems. There was no visible camera in the ceiling, no obvious sensor, but he could feel the vault watching them through the way the air stayed unnaturally still.
Elena leaned closer, voice tight. “They’re not just here for us.”
“I know.”
Her eyes flashed toward Matteo’s phone. “The broadcast - ”
“It’s the vault’s trigger,” he said, and hated how calm his tone sounded. He wasn’t calm. He was counting seconds in a way that made his teeth ache. “They’re getting a network-wide ping. The rig is doing what it was built to do.”
She swallowed. “Then we take the page and we go.”
Matteo didn’t answer. He couldn’t afford optimism when the system had already proven it could weaponize her device coordinates and his phone directives. He just moved, guiding Elena toward the back wall where the ledger key had to be used.
The transfer device wasn’t a flourish. It was a small, matte unit he kept concealed inside his jacket, the kind that looked harmless until it touched the right interface. Matteo slid his hand along Elena’s arm, guiding her behind the scaffolding pillar, then pulled his phone up with his thumb.
A new notification stacked over the earlier one, the letters stark against the dimness.
NODE brOADCAST: EVIDENCE RELEASE ARMED
COUNTDOWN: 09:47
VAULT STATUS: LOCKED - FORCED ACCESS DETECTED
Elena’s breath went shallow. “Forced access?”
Matteo kept his gaze on the wall panel. “That’s what they’re calling what happens when they try to take it.”