Chapter4
1166 Words
The place Matteo took her next was nothing like the first safehouse.
This one had a skyline view, sleek architecture, floor-to-ceiling windows, and black marble countertops that gleamed under recessed lights. It smelled of expensive nothing—clean, cold, clinical. A place built to impress and intimidate at the same time.
Eliya hated it on sight.
She walked through the penthouse slowly, scanning every inch, already clocking weaknesses: no escape ladder, one narrow stairwell, reinforced windows, bulletproof glass. The walls looked soft, but they were cages. Just dressed up in luxury.
“How long do I have to stay here?” she asked, voice flat.
Matteo locked the door behind them.
“You’re not a prisoner.”
“Right.” She turned sharply. “Just locked in a high-rise with one way out and a man with a gun.”
His jaw ticked. “This is the only place they won’t look yet.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know the Luceros. This isn’t on their radar. I keep it off the books.”
She walked past him and opened a door—guest bedroom. Too pristine. Too quiet. A hollow stage for someone else’s nightmare.
“I need a phone,” she said.
“No.”
“Clothes.”
“There’s some in the closet.”
“A weapon.”
He turned to look at her. “Absolutely not.”
“Then it’s a prison.”
“It’s a lifeline,” Matteo snapped. “You go outside right now, you’re dead within the hour. Do you really not get that?”
Eliya’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve lived with worse odds.”
“That’s not bravery. That’s ego.”
“Funny, coming from you.”
Silence crackled like tension wires between them.
Then she muttered, “You’re just another Lucero puppet.”
“I’m the only reason you’re still breathing.”
“No, I’m still breathing because I know how to survive.”
She moved to the window, gaze flicking to the distant street below. Manhattan pulsed under them like a restless animal—alive, watching, waiting.
“You don’t get it,” she said. “They don’t just want me gone. They want to erase me.”
Matteo crossed his arms. “Then why did you stay alive?”
“Because I wasn’t done yet.”
The weight of that sentence hung between them.
He didn’t ask what she meant.
And she didn’t explain.
The first day passed with silence and sideways glances.
She showered in scalding water, scrubbed until the grime of the last few days melted down the drain. Wore plain black clothes he’d stocked—stretch pants, a fitted hoodie, nothing flashy. No jewelry. No scent. Like her past: stripped down, buried.
Matteo stayed in the adjacent room, checking security feeds, wiping down the weapons he'd disassembled and reassembled a hundred times over. He didn’t speak unless necessary. Didn’t pry.
But he watched her.
Not like a captor. Like a tactician. Trying to figure out what she was built to do—and what it might take to break her.
She didn’t eat dinner.
She didn’t need to.
Survival mode didn’t leave room for appetite.
That night, while the city hummed beneath them, she stood at the balcony door. Just staring.
Matteo entered the living room behind her.
“You planning to jump?” he asked.
“If I was, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Then what are you looking for?”
She didn’t turn. “Exit strategies.”
“From a penthouse?”
“Everyone has one. You just have to look harder.”
She turned to face him, arms crossed.
“I can’t stay here.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I always have a choice.”
He stepped closer. Not threatening. Just deliberate.
“You run,” he said, “and they will find you. You don’t have your network anymore. You don’t have clean aliases. You're a ghost that stopped haunting and started bleeding.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Poetic.”
“Realistic.”
She moved fast.
One second, she was still. The next, she swept his leg with trained precision. He stumbled, caught off balance—but didn’t fall.
They grappled for half a heartbeat before he pinned her against the glass wall, forearm against her collarbone.
Her breathing was steady. Not panicked. Not scared.
“You think I’m afraid of death?” she whispered.
“No,” Matteo said, his voice low. “I think you’re tired of running but too proud to admit it.”
They stared at each other.
Close. Too close.
Then he stepped back.
“I won’t stop you,” he said. “Door’s unlocked.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You want to leave? Leave.”
“But you just said—”
“I said you’d die. I didn’t say I’d chain you here.”
Eliya hesitated.
He walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of water like this was any other night in any other life.
She stood frozen.
He was bluffing. Maybe.
But if he wasn’t…
She moved to the door.
Paused.
Her hand hovered over the lock.
Then fell away.
That night, she didn’t sleep either.
Neither did he.
The safehouse was quiet, but their thoughts weren’t.
Matteo sat in the armchair, gun in reach, staring out at the skyline like it might offer answers. But it didn’t.
All it gave him was a reflection of the woman in the next room—half his enemy, half his mirror.
She was chaos in human skin. Smart. Calculated. More disciplined than most of his own men.
And something else too.
Not just cartel-trained.
But elite.
She hadn’t just run away from the past—she’d outplayed it.
He should’ve hated that.
Instead, it pulled at something in him. Something dangerous.
In the morning, she sat at the kitchen island, finally eating—dry toast and black coffee, her kind of breakfast.
He joined her.
“You didn’t run,” he said.
“Neither did you.”
“You had the chance.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t stay for you.”
He smirked faintly. “No, of course not.”
A pause.
Then she added, “I stayed because I know how this ends if I don’t have leverage.”
He nodded once. “Smart.”
“And because something about this whole mission stinks.”
Matteo tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“You said the Luceros wanted me brought in. But now there’s a kill order. Then the safehouse gets hit. But not by them.”
“You’re saying someone’s double-dealing.”
“I’m saying someone inside wants me dead before I talk.”
Matteo sat back, tension tightening across his shoulders.
It made sense.
Too much sense.
He didn’t want to believe it. But instincts didn’t lie.
Someone was playing both sides.
And he was starting to suspect they were being played, too.
- Writer
