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Chapter 14 – A Favor for Matteo
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2025-06-22 11:35:30The envelope was hand-delivered.
No insignia. No wax seal. Just cream paper with her name in sharp black script. Camila passed it to Elise over breakfast like it was an afterthought.
“A courier dropped this for you.”
Elise opened it without comment.
Inside: a note, folded once.
Elise—
I need a quiet favor. No drivers. No questions.
You’ll be met at 7 p.m. sharp, corner of Via Ippolito and Silvestri. Black door.
Use the alley entrance.
— M
She read it twice.
Then folded it back, slipped it into her coat pocket, and finished her tea.
—
The sun dipped behind the Caro estate in a smear of gold. Elise stood in front of the full-length mirror and adjusted her coat. Slate gray. Belted. Simple.
She wore no perfume.
No jewelry.
No trace of softness.
This wasn’t a seduction.
It was a calculation.
Camila passed her in the foyer, paused briefly, and asked nothing.
Smart.
Elise left through the side gate.
No driver. Just silence.
—
The corner of Via Ippolito and Silvestri looked like nothing.
No cameras. No luxury storefronts. Just aging stone, cast iron balconies, and streetlamps flickering against cracked concrete. She arrived at 6:59 p.m.
A black door stood at the end of the alley.
No sign.
No light.
She pressed the buzzer once.
A man opened it without a word. Tall. Dark shirt. No visible weapon, but tension in his posture.
“You’re expected,” he said.
Elise nodded.
He stepped aside.
The space beyond was narrow and dim — not hostile, but deliberate.
A warehouse. Or something close to it.
Inside, a woman waited.
Mid-forties. Sharp eyes. Leather gloves.
“Elise,” she said. “I was told to expect someone less… noticeable.”
“Then Matteo doesn’t know me as well as he thinks.”
The woman smiled faintly. “There’s a parcel. You’ll deliver it to the address inside. That’s all.”
“What is it?”
“Something delicate.”
Elise didn’t blink. “You mean dangerous.”
“Only if opened.”
The box was small, unmarked, and surprisingly light. She slid it into her coat.
The address: An art gallery near the river. Closed for renovation.
A second envelope came with it.
No return information. Just her name, again, in Matteo’s handwriting.
She didn’t open it yet.
She left through the same alley she entered.
—
The drive across the city took thirty minutes. She didn’t take the direct route. Changed cabs twice. Walked six blocks.
The gallery was shuttered, but the rear service entrance stood slightly ajar.
She entered without hesitation.
The interior was cold. Dust in the air. Old canvases still wrapped in plastic leaned against the walls.
She moved toward the far room. The package still secure inside her coat.
A man stood in the shadows.
Not Matteo.
Not expected.
He stepped forward.
She recognized him immediately.
Rafe.
Her pulse stayed steady, but her spine locked.
He didn’t raise a weapon.
Didn’t speak.
Just nodded to the bench near the back wall.
Elise stepped slowly toward it.
“Matteo didn’t say you’d be here,” she said.
Rafe shrugged. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t either.”
The bench held nothing but an old brass box.
She placed the parcel beside it.
Rafe didn’t move.
His eyes dropped once to the envelope still tucked in her coat.
“You planning to open that?”
“Not until I’m told.”
He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“That’s new.”
Elise turned.
“You used to ask more questions.”
“I used to believe the answers mattered.”
Before he could respond, something shifted.
—
A door at the far end slammed open.
Three men entered, fast and quiet.
Not police. Not guards.
Wrong energy.
Wrong timing.
Rafe didn’t move at first.
He stood near the bench, hand inside his jacket, but his posture stayed neutral — observing.
Elise’s spine locked.
She stepped behind the nearest canvas, crouched low, hand already reaching for the blade strapped inside her boot.
She didn’t wait for them to speak. She didn’t give them the chance.
But they weren’t coming for her.
They moved toward the parcel.
Rafe stayed still — for one breath, two — then stepped forward.
Blocked their path.
The scuffle was fast. Ugly. Sharp elbows, short swings. Elise stayed low, watching the angles. Calculating exits.
Then—
Gunfire.
One shot.
Not aimed at her.
One of the men staggered. Fell.
The others backed out just as fast, dragging the injured one with them.
The silence after was louder than the chaos.
Rafe exhaled, rolled his shoulder once, and turned toward her.
Still breathing hard.
“Matteo said you might need backup.”
Elise rose slowly.
“You watched and waited.”
“He told me not to step in unless it got messy.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You waited too long.”
“He said you’d say that too.”
—
Twenty minutes later, Elise stood on the rooftop of the gallery, coat dark with dust. The envelope still in her coat, unopened.
She didn’t ask who the men were.
She didn’t need names.
She only needed facts.
Matteo had known.
He had sent her anyway.
But he had also sent Rafe.
That was the part she couldn’t fit.
—
She returned to the estate through the side entrance. No one saw her.
Camila was reading in the parlor.
She didn’t look up.
Elise passed her without a word.
In her room, she locked the door.
Unbuttoned the coat.
Pulled the envelope out and opened it slowly.
Inside was a single note.
You handled it.
I expected nothing less.
— M
No further explanation.
No apology.
Just that.
She sat on the edge of her bed and removed her boots one at a time.
The knife was clean.
Her hands were not shaking.
But something in her chest tightened.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Doubt.
It settled like ash behind her ribs.
Matteo hadn’t warned her. Not really.
But he had protected her.
That difference mattered more than she wanted to admit.
She opened the black journal and turned to a fresh page.
Rafe: Back. Watching. Not a threat yet — but not neutral either. Loyal to Matteo. Quietly lethal.
Matteo:
Plays long games. Sends risks without blinking.
Also sends protection.
She tapped the pen once.
He doesn’t want me safe.
He wants me sharper.
But I don’t know what he’s shaping me for.
She closed the book.
But didn’t sleep.
Bab terbaru
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 20 – The Girl in the Mirror
Elise didn’t sleep.The estate was quiet past midnight — the kind of silence that hums under walls and in between breath. She sat in her suite with the lights low, the fire down to embers, the ring still on her finger and the taste of too many glances clinging to her skin.She should have been tired.But power had a way of keeping the pulse sharp.And tonight, it burned.She moved to the vanity with slow intent. The mirror caught her in fragments — hair undone, mouth too still, collarbone lit in slices of shadow. Her reflection didn’t soften. It didn’t forgive.It waited.She rose.And the gown moved with her.Black silk — nearly sheer — slid down the planes of her body, brushing against bare skin like it didn’t care who watched. It caught the light in ghostly gleams, enough to trace the deep lines of her waist, the sweep of her thighs, the soft dip at the top of each breast.She hadn’t worn anything beneath it.Not because she meant to be seen.But because she wasn’t hiding anymore.
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 19 – Matteo’s Warning
Camila had invited Matteo to the estate for a late-afternoon strategy session. Something to do with donor placement and the Foundation’s upcoming portfolio. Elise hadn’t been asked to join.She didn’t ask why.But when she passed the library and heard Matteo’s voice — low, deliberate — she didn’t stop.She just walked away.—By dusk, the library was supposed to be empty.It wasn’t.She stepped inside without hesitation.The room smelled of old leather and cedar polish. Low light pooled across the rug, softening the carved furniture into suggestion. A decanter glinted like a forgotten temptation.Matteo was still there.She felt him before she saw him — not as sound, but pressure. The air thickened. Space shifted.He stepped into view between the central shelves, holding a slim leather folder, unopened.“Interesting ring,” he said.“It wasn’t yours to comment on,” Elise replied.He moved forward. “That’s never stopped you from wearing things meant for someone else.”“Cassian offered i
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 18 – The Ring He Never Chose
Cassian handed her the note late in the afternoon, while she was reviewing the Cruz documentation at the drawing room table. He didn’t ask what she was reading. He didn’t interrupt.He just placed the folded card beside her elbow.“Seven o’clock,” he said. “Rooftop.”She looked at the envelope, then at him.“Is this an order?”“No,” he said. “An opportunity.”The card was cream stock. No seal. No flourish.Inside, in his handwriting:Wear something that doesn’t apologize. — C—By sunset, the Caro estate’s rooftop had been cleared of its usual furniture. In its place stood a low table with a bottle of scotch, two heavy crystal glasses, and an old wooden box. Cassian stood at the railing, facing the skyline, sleeves rolled, his jacket slung over the back of a chair.She stepped into the space without slowing.Her dress was black, deep, and glitter-laced. A slip of starlight against her skin. It caught every breath of movement, clung like heat, and shimmered like threat. It dipped low a
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 17 – Elena Cruz is Born
Elena Cruz didn’t exist on paper until Elise decided she did.The apartment came first — a walk-up above a closed florist on Via Danzico. Third floor. No elevator. The kind of place that didn’t ask questions and kept its lights dim even in daylight. She signed the lease in silence, using one of the old cover identities Gerardo Valez had drafted for her family’s “quiet accounts” back when she was still too obedient to know what they were for.This time, she knew.The walls were bare, the windows locked. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, like someone had wiped away something that shouldn’t have been left behind. There were no family portraits here. No ancestral oil paintings. Just blank walls. Clean, unfinished. The way she liked it.Elise set her single suitcase on the narrow table by the window. It held only what she needed: a gray coat, a burner phone, two folders, and a black fountain pen.Then she waited.Gerardo arrived at 9:03 a.m.He had aged better than most men in his bus
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 16 – Unspoken Allegiances
Cassian didn’t mention the scream.Not the next day.Not the day after.But Elise noticed other things.He was still in the house.Camila had arranged it — “for appearances,” she’d said. A show of harmony. Of unity.To Elise, it was surveillance dressed as strategy.But she used it anyway.—He stopped deferring to Camila during meetings. Cancelled an outing arranged by the family council — one Elise was meant to attend for optics. When the guests asked why, he simply said, “Priorities changed.”He didn’t name her.But she felt the weight of it anyway.Not as affection.As strategy.—The morning after, Camila received a private call from the Foundation’s board and left the estate without comment.Elise took the opening.She crossed to the west wing.Knocked once on the study door.Cassian opened it.No tie. No jacket. Just a pressed shirt and quiet wariness.“Elise.”“Are you cancelling the gala appearance because of me?”He hesitated.“Yes.”“Why?”He stepped aside. She entered with
She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy Chapter 15 – Bruises You Can’t See
Elise didn’t speak of the gallery incident.Not to Camila. Not in her journal. She cleaned the blade. Burned the envelope. Acted like it hadn’t touched her.But the quiet that followed settled wrong in her chest.Matteo had sent her into danger, then covered her with protection.Her body pretended it didn’t matter.Her sleep said otherwise.The dream wasn’t new.But it had waited—quiet, patient—for the right moment to return.—Elise ran through the trees.Dark ones. Wet with silence. Not chasing, not fleeing. Just moving. Fast. Her boots caught roots. Her breath scraped. She knew what came next.Gunfire.Not a sound.A sensation.Then nothing.Except—A single voice.Her name.Said not in hate.But regret.—She woke gasping.Sheets tangled. Skin damp. The air in her room felt thinner than it should. She sat up too fast, elbows locked, heart stuttering against bone.The lamp was still on.Soft amber glow.It was past midnight.She stood slowly, moved toward the window. Opened it just
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