Chapter 220 No Small Mercies

Chapter 220 No Small Mercies
Ivy’s POV:

Elio didn’t rush.

That was the mistake people made when they imagined him.

They thought unhinged meant loud. Emotional. Sloppy.

It didn’t. It meant patient.

The estate had been quiet for three days. Matteo and Adriano had been running layered checks without making noise. Guards rotated at irregular intervals. Vehicles left and returned without pattern. Luca kept systems clean, stripped of unnecessary signals.

No lockdowns. No panic.

That was how you told a real threat from a performance.

I wasn’t supposed to be alone.

I knew that.

But I also wasn’t supposed to stop living.

That was the line Matteo had been trying to walk, and I let him. I didn’t argue when he assigned escorts. I didn’t push when he wanted updates every hour. I didn’t disappear.

Which was why it worked.

Because Elio didn’t need me isolated.

He needed me predictable.

The morning started normally. Too normally. Coffee tasted like coffee. The courtyard smelled like stone and trimmed hedges. The air felt clean in that expensive, controlled way that pretended nothing bad could touch it.

I had been scheduled to meet Luca mid-morning to review RECON’s secondary architecture. Matteo had been in a call with Adriano. He kissed my temple on his way past me, brief and distracted.

“Don’t wander,” he said.

“I won’t,” I replied.

I meant it.

The walk from the main house to the auxiliary wing was less than a minute. There were cameras. There were guards.

What there wasn’t was expectation.

The service corridor was open because it always was. Staff used it to move between wings without crossing formal spaces. It was narrow, functional, and unremarkable.

I stepped into it thinking about code.

That was when the lights went out.

Not completely. Emergency strips flickered on along the floor, dim and red. Enough to see. Not enough to panic.

I stopped, instinct kicking in.

Two men stepped out of a side alcove I had walked past a hundred times.

They were dressed like maintenance. Neutral colors. Gloves. No visible weapons.

They didn’t rush me or say anything.

The third man was behind me. I knew without turning.

The air changed when Elio was near. Not dramatic. Just wrong. Like the room tilted half a degree off level.

“Irene,” he said calmly.

I closed my eyes for half a second. Not because I was weak. Because I was counting.

This wasn’t a snatch-and-drag. That told me everything.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

Elio smiled like that amused him.

“I should be exactly where I am,” he replied. “You’re the one who forgot where you belong.”

The men moved at the same time.

One grabbed my left arm, high and tight. The other pressed something cold and hard into my lower back.

A gun.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t fight. It was useless at this point. Fighting would get someone killed.

Elio stepped closer, voice low, conversational.

“Don’t make this messy,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

That was the lie. The pressure on my back increased. I nodded once.

“Good,” Elio said. “See? Still smart.”

They moved me forward, fast but controlled. I caught a glimpse of a camera as we passed it.

The lens was dark. That told me this had been planned days earlier.

We turned down a secondary corridor that shouldn’t have been unlocked.

It was. Of course it was.

The door at the end opened into a small loading bay. A van was already there, engine running. No markings. No plates.

The back doors were open. I stepped up when they guided me. I sat when they told me to sit.

Elio watched me like he was taking notes.

“You’re calm,” he said.

“I’d had practice,” I replied.

He chuckled softly.

“That’s my sister.”

The door slammed shut. The van moved immediately.

I felt the shift, the turn, the speed. We weren’t leaving the estate the obvious way. We were cutting through service roads, the ones meant for deliveries and emergencies.

I mapped it automatically.

I also knew it wouldn’t help.

Elio sat across from me, knees relaxed, hands folded. He looked comfortable.

“You know,” he said, “you could have come when I asked.”

“You didn’t ask,” I said.

He tilted his head. “I did. You just pretended you didn’t hear it.”

The van slowed, then stopped.

I heard voices outside. Elio leaned in slightly.

“They’ll notice you’re gone in about ninety seconds,” he said. “Matteo will be very efficient.”

My chest tightened despite myself.

“That’s why we’re already leaving,” he continued. “And why this won’t look like an attack.”

The door opened briefly.

A different man spoke. “Clear.”

The door shut again.

The van moved.

Elio studied my face.

“You’re worried about him,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he replied. “It makes you predictable.”

I didn’t respond. Because he was right.

The van accelerated. The road smoothed out. We were off the estate now.

Which meant Matteo was already running.

I pictured it without meaning to. The moment someone realized I hadn’t reached Luca. The camera feeds. The corridor. The dead lens.

Elio watched something flicker across my face.

“There it is,” he said softly. “That’s the look.”

I stared at him.

“You don’t win this,” I said.

He smiled.

“I already did,” he replied. “I walked into his house and walked out with you.”

The van swerved. Hard. Someone outside shouted.

The engine roared. Elio’s smile widened.

“Ah,” he said. “That’ll be him.”

The van jerked again, then accelerated sharply.

Gunfire cracked outside. I braced myself against the side as the vehicle took a turn too hard.

Elio didn’t move. He was enjoying this.

“You see,” he said calmly, “this is what I wanted him to feel. Almost.”

The van barreled forward.

Then... Impact.

A sideswipe. Metal screamed against metal. The van fishtailed.

For one insane second, I thought that was it...

Then it corrected, and kept moving.

Elio laughed. Quiet. Real.

“Close,” he said. “But not close enough.”

The road opened up. Speed increased. Whatever Matteo had tried, it hadn’t stuck.

The van didn’t slow again.

Minutes passed. Maybe more. Time stretched the way it always did when control left your hands.

Finally, we stopped and the doors opened.

Cold air rushed in. I didn’t recognize the place. Elio stood and offered me his hand.

I didn’t take it, stepping down on my own. He didn’t care.

“Welcome back,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Behind us, somewhere too far away to matter, I knew Matteo had arrived.

I knew because I felt the echo of him: rage, precision, restraint snapping into violence.

But he was late. Just late enough.

Elio’s hand closed around my arm again, firm but not painful.

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I won’t break you.”

I met his eyes.

“I know,” I said. “You want him to come get me.”

His smile turned sharp.

“Exactly.”

And I knew with absolute certainty:

This time, there would be no small mercies.