CHAPTER 52: CHAPTER 52: INTRUDER ON THE TERRACE

Elias’s breath shuddered, a ragged sound that betrayed the fury and fear coiling tight in his chest.

"You followed me," he said, low and sharp, each word like a blade drawn across stone.

Matteo’s voice softened further, warm and unsettling, as if Elias’s accusation was a confession of something mutual.

"I watched you, Elias. I watched you walk into the dark, and I wanted to stop you. I wanted to keep you in the car, keep you with me where no one could touch you. Where he couldn’t find you."

Elias took another step back, the corner of the wall pressing into his shoulder now. His eyes darted again to the terrace. The faint reflection of the room stared back at him in the glass, but behind that reflection, movement. A subtle shift, like someone adjusting their stance just out of sight.

"You think that night was about me asking for help?" Elias said, the edge in his voice cracking through the fear. "You think I wanted you to follow me?"

"You didn’t know what you wanted," Matteo whispered, reverent, almost broken. "But I did. I’ve always known. I’ve waited for you to stop pretending. For you to see me."

Elias’s knuckles whitened around the phone. He was pressed tight to the corridor wall, just out of sight of his room, listening as the curtains whispered against the terrace doors.

A shadow cut across the far end of the hall, tall, composed, moving with purpose. Robert. He didn’t speak, didn’t even glance at Elias as he approached. His hand brushed lightly against the concealed holster at his side, then made a subtle gesture, two fingers pointing to the floor, then sweeping outward. Stay low. Stay here.

Robert’s movements were so precise, so controlled, Elias barely registered them at first.

The older alpha moved like water through stone corridors, quiet, lethal, radiating that particular stillness only men accustomed to violence could carry. His eyes flicked once to the open terrace door and narrowed.

Elias stayed frozen against the wall, every nerve screaming to move and yet locked in place by instinct. His phone was still pressed to his ear, Matteo’s voice unspooling into a reverent murmur:

"...I’ve waited for you to stop pretending. For you to see me. For you to understand, it was always meant to be me."

Robert edged closer to the room, his boots soundless against the rug. He paused at the threshold, head tilting a fraction, listening. Elias felt it before he saw it, the subtle prickle of ether unfurling from Robert’s body, a ripple that brushed the air like static and made the fine hairs on Elias’s arms lift.

From beyond the terrace, there came an answering disturbance, a flare of presence, raw and coiled, like someone holding their breath before a strike.

Robert’s hand twitched once near his belt. And then, deliberately, he slipped through the doorway.

Elias barely breathed. He could hear the faint whisper of the curtains again, the soft groan of a floorboard under weight, and then Robert’s voice, low and even:

"You picked the wrong house."

There was a grunt, sharp, startled. A scuffle broke the stillness, the sound of flesh hitting wood, a chair scraping violently. The terrace doors rattled against their frame as someone lunged.

Two more figures surged in through the terrace in the same instant, Victor’s other bodyguards, both alphas, their ether flashing hot and sharp like sparks struck off steel. The air thickened, pressing against Elias’s chest as if the very room held its breath.

The intruder was fast, but not fast enough. Robert caught his arm mid-swing, twisting, driving him down onto the carpet with a crack of knee against floorboard. The intruder, a stranger, not Matteo, a broad‑shouldered alpha with cropped black hair and a jagged scar down his jaw, snarled, ether flaring around him in a flash of dull green.

It wasn’t enough.

The shield-weaver among Victor’s men stepped in, throwing up a dome of force that slammed down over the intruder like a bell jar. The other surged forward, fist glowing faint gold, striking at the intruder’s shoulder with surgical precision. Ether clashed, a low vibration humming through the room as the man’s power guttered under the impact.

Robert’s voice cut through the chaos, calm and cold:

"Restrain him."

Zip ties snapped into place with the kind of efficiency that came from practice. The intruder thrashed once, then went still when Robert’s hand pressed against the back of his neck and a warning pulse of ether rolled through him, sharp enough to make the air taste metallic.

Elias, still pressed to the wall in the corridor, stared at the open doorway, his pulse pounding. Matteo’s voice still bled through the phone, soft and unshaken, unaware of the scene unfolding:

"I’m coming for you, Elias. Just open the door. Let me in."

Robert’s head turned slightly, his gaze finding Elias through the shadowed hall. His voice was low, steady, as the two alphas dragged the intruder toward the door.

"It’s not him," Robert said, his own ether still simmering faintly in the air like the aftermath of lightning. "But he was sent. And he won’t be the last."

Elias’s grip on the phone tightened, Matteo’s obsession whispering in his ear while Victor’s men secured the intruder. For a fleeting second, Elias wondered if Matteo even cared who else was in play, or if he just wanted him, no matter the cost.

The thought made Elias’s stomach twist as Robert nodded once, firm and reassuring, before disappearing into the room to finish clearing it. The heavy hum of ether began to fade, but the dread in Elias’s chest remained, sharp and unrelenting.

—

The city blurred past in long, silvered streaks beyond the tinted glass.

Victor sat back against the leather, one hand resting against his jaw, the other idly drumming two fingers on his knee. The hum of the engine was steady, but his mind wasn’t. Not since he’d left that room, not since the taste of Elias’s mouth and the ghost of his hands on his face had imprinted themselves so deeply that even now, miles away, it felt like memory branded into bone.

He was still thinking of him when his phone lit up.

Adam’s name.

Victor answered before the second vibration could pulse through the cabin.

"Talk."

"My lord," Adam’s voice came tight and clipped, his usual calm edged with urgency, "Elias has just pressed the panic trigger in the west wing."