Part 7
The phone rang at midnight.
The sound cut through the silence of the bedroom like a siren.
Elena sat up instantly, her heart racing.
Enzo was already standing by the window, a laptop open on the table beside him, tracking the signal.
He nodded at her once.
Elena picked up the phone. Her fingers were steady now, hardened by the resolve she had found earlier.
She pressed the button and brought the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” she said, making her voice sound breathless, panicked.
“Elena,” her uncle’s voice boomed through the speaker. It was rough, laced with the scent of stress and alcohol. “You useless little girl. What did your husband do to my warehouse?”
Elena forced a small sob to escape her throat.
“I don't know!” she cried softly, playing the part perfectly. “He doesn't tell me anything. Uncle, please, you have to help me. He’s... he’s insane. He saw my back. He knows everything.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end.
“He knows?” her uncle hissed. “Did you tell him, you little rat?”
“No! He found out himself!” Elena lied seamlessly, her voice trembling with manufactured terror. “He treats me like a prisoner. He leaves tomorrow night for a meeting at the docks downtown. He’s taking almost all his men with him. Please, if you don't get me out of here, he’s going to kill me when he gets back.”
A long pause stretched over the line.
Elena looked at Enzo. He was watching the laptop screen, watching the location data lock onto her uncle's hideout.
Finally, her uncle spoke again, his tone turning greedy, desperate.
“Tomorrow night, you say? What time does he leave?”
“Nine o'clock,” Elena whispered. “The western gate of the estate has a blind spot in the security cameras between nine-fifteen and nine-thirty. The guard there takes his break then. You can get in through the garden.”
“Good,” her uncle grunted. “Be at the garden pavilion at nine-twenty. If you aren't there, or if this is a trap, I will make sure the rest of your life is a living hell, Elena.”
“I’ll be there,” she sobbed. “Please don't leave me.”
The line went dead.
Elena lowered the phone. The room returned to silence.
She looked up at Enzo, her breathing shallow but her eyes completely clear.
Enzo closed the laptop with a soft click.
He walked over to the bed, looking down at her with an expression that was almost like awe.
“You were flawless,” he said quietly.
“He believed me,” she said, a strange numbness settling over her. “He still thinks I'm the same scared girl he used to lock in the basement.”
“That is his fatal mistake,” Enzo said. He sat on the edge of the bed, his presence commanding and solid. “He format-printed you into a victim, so he can't see the threat you actually pose.”
He reached out, his long fingers trailing down her arm, leaving a track of goosebumps in their wake.
“Tomorrow, it ends, Elena. The debt he owed is going to be paid in full.”
May you like
Elena didn't flinch away from his touch this time.
Instead, she leaned into it slightly, finding a strange, dangerous comfort in the warmth of the man who was about to tear her past to pieces.
