Chapter 24 Elena Breaks When Matteo Lies #4
Elena froze. Matteo’s head turned just enough that Elena couldn’t see his full reaction, but she could see his stillness sharpen. Like a predator hearing a name spoken by someone who didn’t have the right.
Matteo didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on the corridor, and his silence was its own threat.
The voice came again, closer. “We’re ready.”
Elena’s stomach dropped. Ready for what? Ready to broadcast? Ready to take the page? Ready to put her on display like a confession they’d written?
Matteo finally spoke, and his tone was smooth enough to pass for polite if Elena hadn’t learned how carefully he hid everything real. “You’re early.”
“We don’t miss orders.” The voice carried a faint smile Elena could hear. “Not when it’s about her.”
Her skin prickled. “About me,” Elena repeated, and her voice sounded too loud in the stone space.
Matteo’s head turned fully toward her then, just long enough for Elena to see something there that made her stomach twist - regret, buried under control.
“Keep your mouth closed,” he said.
The words weren’t cruel. They were protective. That was the worst part.
Elena hated that her body wanted to trust the way he held her, the way he positioned himself between her and the corridor. She hated that his protection looked like a lie because it refused to explain itself.
“I’m not a child,” she whispered.
His eyes were dark. “You’re not safe when you talk.”
The corridor’s lamp flared brighter, casting harsh light across the tarps and scaffolding.
Elena saw movement now - two men, not restoration workers, their uniforms too clean against the church’s dust. Their faces were turned partially away, like they didn’t need her full attention to recognize her.
Their hands weren’t idle. One held something small and matte - another device, another key to a locked door. The other kept his body angled toward Matteo, ready to block if Matteo tried to step forward.
Elena’s heart hammered hard enough to make her ears ring.
Matteo’s grip on her forearm shifted, guiding her back one step, toward the stairwell they’d come from. He wasn’t dragging her - he was steering. Still control. Still refusal.
But the corridor men had already noticed. One of them took half a step, and the sound of his boot on stone was a threat with no words.
“Matteo,” the calm voice said again, and this time it wasn’t friendly. “She’s going to broadcast. That’s the directive.”
Elena’s eyes snapped to Matteo. “Directive,” she echoed. “So you did get orders. You did - ”
Matteo’s mouth tightened. He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t deny it.
Her panic sharpened into fury. “You kept it from me.”
He leaned closer, and his breath warmed her cheek. “I kept it from you because you would run.”
Elena’s voice broke. “I would - because I need to - ”
“Because they want you to,” he finished for her.
The corridor men advanced a fraction, like they’d been waiting for Matteo to say the word “they.” Like they’d been listening for permission.
Elena’s vision narrowed. The church smelled of dust and old stone, but now there was another scent underneath - cool metal, faint antiseptic, the kind of smell that came with weapons and restraints.
She stopped fighting his grip for a second, not because she agreed, but because she was calculating how to make her next move matter.
“If you’re right,” Elena whispered, “then you already know what they’re going to do.”
Matteo’s eyes flicked to hers. “I know what they want you to do.”
Elena’s throat tightened. “Tell me.”
Matteo stared at her as if the request hurt him. Then he looked away, toward the corridor, and his silence felt like betrayal again.
Elena’s chest rose and fell too fast. Her thoughts spiraled: Dante’s name on that note. Matteo’s careful refusal to say more. The men with purpose. The press equipment humming up like a mouth preparing to speak.
The network had alerted. The truth was in their hands, and it was about to be shaped into something else.
She couldn’t let them decide what people believed.
Elena pulled against Matteo’s grip - not hard enough to tear skin, but enough to force his attention back to her. “I’m going.”
Matteo’s hand tightened. “No.”
Elena’s eyes burned. “Yes.”
The corridor men moved again. This time one of them crossed the line of distance between them and the corridor, angling toward Elena.
Matteo’s body shifted, blocking the approach. The movement was quick, practiced - his shoulder turned, his stance widened, his hand dropping closer to where his sidearm sat hidden.
Elena saw it and still didn’t understand why he didn’t just shoot. Why he didn’t just end this.
Then she realized what he was doing.
He was trying not to make it worse.
He was trying to control the kind of violence the network could use as proof that she was dangerous, unstable, hysterical. The kind of footage that would let them sanitize her evidence into a threat story.
He was thinking like a strategist while Elena was thinking like a woman watching her truth get stolen.
The calm voice from the corridor slid in again. “You can’t keep her.”
Matteo didn’t look back. “Watch me.”
Elena’s breath hitched at the certainty in his tone.
The man near her reached out with two fingers, as if he expected her to offer her arm. Elena recoiled.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.
His response was immediate, quiet. “She’s going to cooperate.”
Matteo’s voice went low, deadly. “She’s not.”
The man’s hand hovered, then shifted toward Elena’s wrist - toward restraint placement, toward a control mechanism. Elena’s body surged with instinct.
She shoved her shoulder into Matteo, trying to break the line of his block. Matteo’s arm caught her, but the contact jolted her - his body was warm and solid, his grip firm, his control absolute.
It made her angrier.
He was controlling her while the men tried to take her.
Elena turned her head toward the corridor lamp and focused on the equipment. The broadcast setup sat behind a tarp, cables running like veins. Someone had already staged it. Someone had made sure she would be visible.
Her mind clicked into place with sick clarity.
They weren’t just going to restrain her. They were going to force her to speak.
Not the truth she wanted. The truth they wrote.
Elena’s voice came out ragged. “Matteo, stop - ”
He cut her off. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Her eyes flashed. “You’re not listening.”
“I am listening.” Matteo’s jaw tightened. “I’m listening to the part where you walk into a trap and get turned into a headline.”
Elena’s laugh was harsh. “A headline is better than silence.”
Matteo stared at her, and for a second she saw something raw behind his discipline - fear, not for himself, but for her. It made her want to cry.
Instead she clenched her teeth. “You’re afraid of what I’ll do.”
“I’m afraid of what they’ll do to you when they realize you can’t be controlled.”
Elena’s throat tightened. “So you decided to control me first.”
His eyes didn’t move. “So you wouldn’t die.”
That word - die - hit like a gunshot in her chest. She didn’t know if he meant it literally, but her body reacted anyway. Her pulse stuttered.
He had always been careful with his language. Careful with the way he chose what to say and what to let her infer.
This time, he’d let her infer betrayal.
Elena’s fingers went to the inside seam of the cloth bag just as one of the corridor men lunged forward. Matteo’s arm slammed outward, blocking the grab.
The impact of Matteo’s shoulder against the man’s chest was heavy. The sound was a dull thud that carried through the church like a drumbeat.
The other man stepped in instantly, hand reaching for Elena again.
Elena moved without thinking. She grabbed the man’s wrist, shoved hard, and felt his skin give under the pressure. His breath puffed against her knuckles. He smelled like cold air and metal.
He grunted. “Bitch - ”
Elena snapped her head up, eyes furious. “Say that again.”
His face tightened - fear flickering under the aggression. He wasn’t used to women fighting back. He wasn’t used to Elena being more than a target.
But the moment of her advantage was short. Another hand came in from behind, grabbing her upper arm.
Elena twisted, trying to break free, but the grip was strong and practiced. Someone had trained for this exact movement.
Matteo’s voice cut through the noise, sharp. “Release her.”
The man holding Elena laughed once, breathy. “We’ll do what we’re ordered.”
Elena’s mind spun. Ordered by who? By the network? By Pietro? By someone inside The Shadows who was feeding Matteo’s phone directives and hiding the truth behind silence?
Her breath came fast. She tried to look for Matteo’s phone in his jacket, tried to see if he was getting coded directives, if he was being commanded to let this happen.
His face was set like stone as he fought off the men. He didn’t look at her like he wanted to save her. He looked at her like he was bracing for something worse.
Elena’s anger fractured into something darker.
If Matteo withheld because it would protect her, then why did it look like he was letting her be taken?
“Matteo,” she rasped. “What did you not tell me?”
His eyes flashed to hers. He was breathing hard now, chest rising and falling, the fight already costing him energy. Sweat slicked his temple. The church’s air was cold, but he looked too alive in it, too real.
He opened his mouth.
Then the calm voice from the corridor spoke again, louder, satisfied. “There she is. Bring her to the equipment.”
Elena’s blood turned to ice.
The equipment. The broadcast.
Her evidence. Her truth. Dante’s name.
All of it