Chapter 3 - Locked in the Ivory Tower
The elevator didn’t have buttons. Matteo pressed his thumb against a biometric glass panel, followed by a retinal scan that bathed his face in an eerie blue glow. The steel doors slid shut with a pneumatic hiss, and the car rocketed upward so fast my ears popped twice.
“Where are we?” I demanded, hugging my arms tightly around my chest. The chill of the rain had soaked through my thin server blouse, and the adrenaline crash was beginning to set in. My knees felt like wet paper.
“Beacon Hill,” Matteo replied smoothly, watching the digital floor counter blur past the fortieth level. “My private residence. It’s off-grid, self-sustaining, and reinforced with ballistic steel. The FAA considers the airspace above this roof restricted.”
“Must be nice to have paranoia with a view,” I muttered.
“Paranoia keeps the heart beating, Maya.”
The doors opened directly into a sprawling, two-story penthouse that looked less like a home and more like an ultra-modern fortress designed by a minimalist architect with an obsession for dark slate, polished chrome, and glass. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed a panoramic, rain-drenched view of the Boston skyline and the black ribbon of the Charles River below.
Leo strode out ahead of us, already barking orders into a discreet earpiece. Two men in tactical vests emerged from a side corridor, nodded silently at Matteo, and disappeared toward the perimeter monitors.
“Sit,” Matteo ordered, gesturing toward an expansive charcoal-colored leather sofa.
“I don’t take orders from men who throw me over their shoulders,” I shot back, though the moment the words left my mouth, my vision swam slightly. The shock of the night was catching up to me with brutal velocity.
Before I could steady myself against a glass console, Matteo was there. His hand caught my upper arm—firm, warm, and shockingly gentle compared to the violence he had displayed an hour earlier. He guided me down onto the leather before my knees could give out entirely.
“Leo,” Matteo called without looking away from my face. “First aid kit. And call Dr. Chen.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” I protested, trying to pull away from his grip. But the room tilted again, and I ended up slumping back into the cushions. “I need answers. Real ones. Not corporate spy bullshit.”
Matteo didn't answer right away. He dropped to one knee in front of me, bringing himself to eye level. Up close, I could see flecks of amber in his dark irises. There was an exhaustion etched around his eyes that Forbes magazine covers never captured—a grim, perpetual vigilance that made him look older than thirty-two.
“You’re bleeding,” he said quietly.
I frowned, looking down. A jagged shard of cocktail glass had sliced through the meat of my palm, probably when he shoved me into the back of the SUV. Scarlet was dripping onto my denim apron, pooling in the fabric.
I hadn't even felt it.
“Occupational hazard,” I whispered, suddenly feeling ten years younger and completely out of my depth. “Broken glasses happen all the time.”
“Not from rifle rounds, they don't.”
Leo returned, setting a heavy metal medical case on the low marble table between us. Matteo popped the latches, pulled out antiseptic wipes and a roll of sterile gauze, and picked up my hand without asking.
“Ow! Dammit, that burns!” I hissed as the wipe met the laceration.
“Hold still,” he instructed, his voice low and steady. “You were brave enough to poke me in the chest twice in front of twenty witnesses. You can survive a little iodine.”
“I poked you because you were an arrogant prick who ruined my tray.”
“I was an arrogant prick who was trying to shield you from the sightline of a sniper positioned in the VIP mezzanine,” he countered calmly, wrapping the gauze around my palm with practiced, clinical precision. “The shooter’s first angle was obstructed by my shoulder. If I hadn’t stepped into your path, you wouldn’t have made it to the floor.”
The anger died in my throat. I stared at his long fingers deftly securing the medical tape. “You knew he was there? Before the shots?”
“I saw the red dot of an infrared scope sweep past your hair five seconds before I bumped into you,” he said, tying off the bandage. He held my hand for a second longer than strictly necessary, his thumb brushing lightly across my wrist, right over my fluttering pulse. “I didn’t spill your drinks by accident, Maya.”
My breath hitched. The proximity between us felt suddenly, dangerously charged. The rain lashed against the massive glass wall behind him, lightning flashing across the city, casting sharp, cinematic highlights across his sculpted features.
“Why didn’t you just drag me out?” I asked softly.
“Because if they realized I knew their target, they would have triggered the secondary shooter at the front entrance,” he said, releasing my hand and rising to his full, imposing height. “The only way to keep you alive was to cause a scene, break their cadence, and extract you in the chaos.”
I pulled my hand back into my lap, feeling the lingering heat of his skin against mine. “And my mother? You think Julian Sterling is going to go after her now?”
Matteo’s expression hardened into granite. “Sterling isn't stupid. He knows that if he touches Eleanor directly, law enforcement gets involved. St. Jude’s is a high-profile medical facility with federal oversight. He needed you dead first to gain legal conservatorship through a puppet attorney, claiming Eleanor had no remaining kin. Then he could transfer her to a private facility under his control.”
Tears of pure, white-hot fury pricked the corners of my eyes. “Over my dead body.”
“That was literally his plan, yes.” Matteo turned to Leo. “Status on the perimeter?”
“All green, boss. But we picked up a localized ping three miles out. Someone is cycling through encrypted satellite bands, trying to locate the transponder on your car.”
“Disable the primary relay,” Matteo ordered coldly. “Burn the vehicle in the sub-level and rotate the license protocols.”
“On it.” Leo hesitated, his eyes flicking toward me. “Boss… what about the morning meeting? The board is expecting you at eight o'clock for the defense contract vote. Sterling will be there.”
Matteo’s jaw clenched. “Let him wait. If I walk into that boardroom without the Chimera cipher, Sterling has the votes to force me out of Conti Dynamics. He’s already bought three of the senior directors.”
“Wait,” I cut in, standing up despite the throb in my palm. “You don't have this cipher either?”
Matteo looked back at me, his gaze dark and penetrating. “Your father hid it, Maya. Not mine. Before he died, he left a single instruction with my father: *‘When the fire starts, look to the daughter. She holds the key without knowing she wears it.’*”
My blood ran ice cold.
Slowly, involuntarily, my left hand rose to my throat.
Beneath my blouse, resting against my collarbone, was an old, tarnished silver pendant shaped like an hourglass. My mother had placed it around my neck on my twelfth birthday—the day after my father’s funeral.
*Never take it off, Maya,* my mother had whispered, her eyes clear and terrified on that rainy afternoon fourteen years ago. *No matter what happens. No matter who asks. Promise me.*
Matteo followed the movement of my fingers. His eyes locked onto the faint metallic outline pressed against the fabric of my shirt.
A slow, dangerous breath escaped his lips.
May you like
“Maya,” he said, his voice dropping into a razor-thin whisper. “What are you wearing around your neck?”
***
