Chapter 24 Elena Breaks When Matteo Lies #3
“I’m going public,” Elena said, and the fury in her voice came back, hot and bright. “You can restrain me, Matteo, but you can’t hold me hostage in a church restoration project.”
“I can,” Matteo said quietly.
The words made her skin go cold.
He wasn’t talking like a man who might. He was talking like a man who could do it without flinching. The realization hit her so hard she forgot to breathe for a second.
Elena forced air into her lungs. “You don’t get to decide what my life is.”
Matteo’s gaze held hers. “I’m deciding what your death isn’t.”
She stared at him, and the world narrowed to the ledger bag he held and the way his body blocked the stairs. There was no room for her argument. No room for her logic. Only his control, his fear, his silence.
She hated him in that moment - not because he was cruel, but because he was consistent. Because he’d chosen again. Because her truth mattered less than his plan to keep her from breaking.
“I asked you about Dante,” Elena said, voice shaking. “You lied with silence.”
Matteo’s expression tightened. “I didn’t lie.”
“You did,” Elena insisted, and the words tasted like bile. “You knew the truth would change how I see you. So you stopped me from seeing it.”
Matteo’s eyes flashed. “You think I stopped you because I wanted to keep you blind?”
Elena swallowed hard. “Why else?”
Matteo’s silence stretched. The wind rattled the scaffolding again. The building seemed to listen.
Then Matteo spoke, and the words came out controlled but strained. “Because if you understand what Dante is, you’ll try to reach him.”
Elena’s breath caught. “What makes you think I’d - ”
“Because you already have,” Matteo cut in, and his voice sharpened. “You’ve been chasing him through every lead since the first time the name surfaced. You don’t stop when you’re scared. You run toward the thing that hurts.”
Elena stared at him, stunned by the precision of it. She could deny it, but the denial would sound like a lie. Her fear had always driven her. It just wore the mask of determination.
“Dante is involved,” Elena said. “That’s what you won’t say. You won’t say how. You won’t say why.”
Matteo’s eyes stayed locked on hers. “Because it’s not just Dante.”
Elena’s stomach dropped. “What does that mean?”
“It means the network is bigger than you think,” Matteo said. “And your public exposure won’t expose them. It will paint a target on you while they laugh about how you chose the stage instead of the trap.”
Elena’s breath came fast. “So what? You keep me out of the truth forever?”
Matteo shook his head once. “No.”
That single word sounded like a thread of hope.
Elena clung to it, even as anger clawed at her. “Then tell me what you hid.”
Matteo’s jaw flexed. “Not here.”
Elena’s eyes burned. “Not here.”
His gaze dropped to her hands again, to the cloth bag he held away from her body. “Not with the network alerted.”
Elena’s laugh came out broken. “So you admit it. The network is alerted. And you still won’t tell me.”
Matteo’s face tightened like he wanted to take the words back. Like he wanted to say something else, something that would make her trust him again.
But the scaffolding shifted under the strain of their fight. A bolt snapped somewhere close - metal shrieked against metal, a sound that made Elena flinch.
Matteo moved instantly, gripping the rail. The ledger bag stayed in his hand, but his other arm swung out to catch Elena as the plank dipped.
Elena’s heart slammed. She clutched at his sleeve, fingers catching fabric. His body was solid against hers, warm through his jacket, the smell of him - clean leather and the faint chemical tang of gun oil - filling her senses.
For one terrible second, she felt safe. For one terrible second, she felt loved.
Then he pulled her back again, and the tender moment snapped into brutal reality.
His grip tightened on her upper arm.
“Stop,” Elena gasped, panic flaring as her balance shifted again. “Matteo - ”
He hauled her away from the edge, guiding her toward the stairs with force that didn’t leave room for her consent. The movement was swift, efficient, and it made her want to scream. She wasn’t a fragile object. She wasn’t something to be moved like luggage.
They reached the top of the stairs, and Matteo shoved the cloth bag into the inner pocket of his jacket. He didn’t secure it. He assumed he didn’t need to.
Elena’s eyes widened. “That’s my evidence.”
Matteo’s reply was immediate. “It’s my responsibility.”
“Your responsibility,” Elena repeated, voice trembling with rage. “To keep me from seeing Dante.”
Matteo didn’t answer. He descended the stairs, Elena following because her body obeyed him even as her mind screamed not to. Her boots hit stone steps slick with dust. The air below smelled different - cooler, damp, threaded with the faint odor of old insulation.
As they moved, Elena caught snippets of sound from the church interior. Footsteps. Not restoration workers. The pacing was too steady, too purposeful. Someone was moving with intent.
Matteo heard it too. His posture changed instantly - shoulders squared, chin lifted, attention sharpened like a blade.
“Elena,” he said, low.
She looked at him, breath tight. “You’re going to restrain me again.”
Matteo’s eyes didn’t waver. “I’m going to keep you from running into a trap.”
Elena’s laugh was barely audible. “I’m already in one.”
The church interior opened ahead like a throat. Tarps hung in heavy folds. A narrow corridor led toward the temporary broadcasting equipment restoration staff had installed for press coverage - something Matteo had warned her about earlier, something the network could use.
Elena’s mind latched onto the corridor like it was a lifeline. If there was equipment here, if there was a way to broadcast, then she could force the truth into the air before the network could sanitize it.
Her blood heated. She could feel the ledger page in Matteo’s pocket like a heartbeat. Every second he held it, it felt like theft.
Matteo stopped at the edge of the corridor, listening.
Elena could smell the damp stone and the faint chemical scent of cleaning agents. Underneath it all, something else threaded through the air - ozone and metal, the sharpness of electronics warming up.
There were men in the church. She’d heard them. She’d felt them.
Matteo’s voice dropped. “Don’t move.”
Elena’s pulse spiked. “That
“Don’t move,” Elena’s pulse spiked.
Matteo’s hand slid up her forearm, firm enough to pin her without bruising, the pressure precise like he’d practiced it. His sidearm stayed out of sight, but the weight of it pressed against the fabric of his jacket when he leaned toward her.
Elena tried to draw a breath that didn’t shake. “You’re telling me not to move while you’re the one moving my body.”
His gaze snapped to her face, dark and controlled. “If you walk into that corridor, you’ll trigger the wrong kind of attention.”
The church swallowed her voice. The corridor ahead looked harmless - tarps, scaffolding wrapped in netting, the faint glow of work lamps - but Elena could feel the way the air changed near it, like the building itself held its breath for a decision.
She swallowed. “You already have the ledger page. You already have Dante’s name. What are you protecting me from?”
Matteo’s jaw flexed once. “From what happens after you decide to make it public.”
Elena stared at him, and something inside her buckled with rage so hot it burned through fear. “That’s the truth, Matteo. Not your version. You’re acting like silence is safety.”
His eyes held hers for a beat too long. Then his attention flicked - not to the corridor, but to the space above it, where scaffolding crossed like a ribcage.
He listened again.
Footsteps shifted. A soft scrape, like a boot against metal. Someone moved near the press setup, and the sound carried different than the restoration crew’s casual rhythm. These steps had purpose.
Elena’s throat tightened. “There are men here for me.”
Matteo didn’t deny it. That denial never came from him when it mattered.
He leaned closer, his voice a knife kept low. “If they hear you ask questions out loud, you’ll give them exactly what they want.”
Elena’s hands curled at her sides. Her nails bit into her skin. “What do they want? You to keep lying?”
The word tasted wrong. She hadn’t meant to say it that way. She’d meant to accuse him of withholding, of choosing secrecy over her safety - but lying was a line, and once she crossed it, she couldn’t take it back.
Matteo’s expression didn’t change, but the tension in his shoulders deepened, like a door locking from the inside.
“I didn’t lie,” he said.
Elena felt the answer hit her like a slap. “You hid Dante.”
“I protected you from Dante’s template.”
“You protected yourself from my reaction.”
Silence stretched between them, thick enough to chew.
From the corridor, a faint electronic whine rose and fell. The press equipment - if it was what it looked like - was being powered up or tested. Someone had access. Someone had chosen this place.
Elena’s gaze went to the cloth bag Matteo had shoved into his jacket. The ledger key wasn’t visible, but she could feel the shape of it in her mind. The page mattered. The evidence mattered. Dante’s involvement mattered.
Her panic surged into something sharper. If the network could sanitize her story, then she needed to shove the truth into the air before they could decide what the world saw.
Matteo’s hand tightened on her forearm. “Elena.”
She jerked slightly, trying to pull free. He didn’t let her. His grip was a boundary, not a cage, but her body didn’t believe him. Her body only knew that she was being held back from action.
Her voice went tight. “Let me go.”
“No.”
Elena’s breath came in short bursts. “You can’t - ”
“I can,” he cut in, and the force of it startled her. Not anger. Command. The kind he used when people were about to die.
The footsteps in the corridor stopped.
Then a voice - male, calm, too close - drifted toward them.
“Matteo.”