Twenty-seven
Chiara
I badge in before the crowds are too busy, the reader giving a sharp click under my hand as the door releases. The bullpen is half-empty, chairs tucked in, screens dark. I cross to my desk, set my bag down, and smooth my sleeve where it catches at my wrist.
Heels instead of flats. Blazer pressed. My wig is secured and contacts are in.
Movement cuts across the far aisle. Heather comes through fast, her computer under her arm and her phone in one hand, the other already reaching for her badge as she angles toward the elevators.
She doesn’t look up. The elevator doors part before she’s fully there, and she steps through like she’s late to something that matters.
I feel like I dodged a bullet. She wants to meet before we go upstairs this afternoon, and I want to be ready.
I wake my screen and pull up the audit file.
“Since when do we dress for court?” George drags his chair back to face me.
I line my notebook up with my keyboard before I look at him. “Since I’m meeting with a Marino.”
He tips his head, gaze dropping to the blazer, and then back to my face. “Ahhh. That room.”
“It’s a meeting.” I pull the audit file to full screen. “Luca and Heather.”
A chair scrapes behind him. Bethany drops her bag onto her desk and steps around it, coffee still in her hand as she angles toward us.
“Who’s impressing Luca?” she asks, setting the cup down too hard.
“Her.” George flicks his pen toward me. “She’s got a meeting upstairs.”
Bethany’s eyes fall on me and then track down to the blazer before coming back up. “Already?”
“It’s on the calendar,” I say, opening the second report beside the first.
Bethany drags my spare chair out with her foot and sits without asking. “They don’t pull analysts in unless there’s a reason.”
“Or unless Heather’s making a point,” George says.
I widen the columns and line up the dates. “It’s her meeting. She asked me to be there.”
Bethany leans back, crossing one leg over the other as she studies me. “She asked you, or she told you?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, flagging a line.
“It always matters,” George says, dropping his pen onto my desk with a soft clack. “Especially with her.”
“What time?” Bethany asks.
“One,” I say, minimizing one file and opening the deck. “Conference room upstairs.”
George glances toward the elevators Heather just took and then back at me. “Fast track isn’t always up.”
“Sometimes it’s straight out.” Bethany lifts her coffee.
I close the gap between the files and reach for my folder. “Then I’ll make it worth the risk.”
George points his pen toward the clock on the wall. “Don’t let her talk over you.”
Bethany leans forward, forearms on her knees as I stand. “And don’t let her take it from you.”
I pull the files out of my bag, stack them to the left of my keyboard, and slide the audit folder open. The paper edges line up clean under my palm as I press them flat.
I spend the morning going over everything for the meeting. I take a deep breath. I’ve got this. And I’ve seen Luca in casual clothes and taking a verbal beating from his brothers. This is going to be a piece of cake.
I stop at Heather’s door and tap twice against the frame before stepping in, one hand still on the folder tucked under my arm.
“You ready?” I ask.
Heather doesn’t look up right away. She’s standing behind her desk, one palm flat on a stack of papers, the other scrolling through her phone. “Close the door.”
I push it shut and turn back toward her. “It’s twelve-thirty. I can answer any questions you have, but I promise you, I know this.”
She exhales, sets her phone down screen-first, and drags the top sheet of her stack closer. “The meeting’s been postponed. We’ll reschedule.”
I don’t move my hand from the folder. “Postponed to when?”
“Later,” she says, flipping the page. “They needed more time.”
“For what?”
Her eyes lift. Her eyes lift, landing on me briefly before dropping back down. “Walk me through how you found the variance. Start with gold.”
I hold her gaze a beat and then open the folder and turn it toward her. “The invoicing doesn’t match inventory. Same period, same volume—higher totals across every batch.”
She leans in, one hand braced on the desk as she scans the page. “Timing?”
“No.” I slide the sheet down so the pattern lines up clean. “It carries forward. Same gap, same direction.”
Her pen stills. “So what is it?”
“Allocation,” I say. “What we’re buying and what we’re using don’t reconcile.”
She straightens slowly. “Across all of it?”
“Gold and platinum,” I say, closing the folder halfway. “Same pattern.”
She studies me a second longer and then moves around the desk and sits. “Send me your file.”
“It’s on the shared drive.”
“I want your version,” she says, glancing up as she wakes her screen. “Not the cleaned one.”
I hold her gaze and then nod once. “I’ll send it.”
“Good,” she says, already typing. “We’ll regroup when it’s back on.”
I turn toward the door. “I’m going to get some lunch and chocolate you want anything?”
She doesn’t answer. The click of her keyboard follows me out.
I step back into the bullpen and set my folder down a little harder than I need to.
Bethany turns in her chair immediately. “You’re back already?”
“Canceled,” I say, dropping into my chair and waking my screen.
Her brows pull together as she rolls closer. “Canceled how?”
“Postponed. The reschedule time isn’t determined yet.”
George angles himself toward us from across the aisle. “That’s not a thing. Luca doesn’t just cancel.”
“He just did,” I say, dragging the report open again.
Bethany lowers her voice. “What did she say?”
“Just what I said.” I reach into the drawer and pull out my purse. “I’m going to find something decadent for lunch and chocolate to drown my sorrows.”
My phone lights up against the edge of the desk, vibrating hard enough to rattle against the wood.
Bethany’s eyes flick to it first. “That’s not her.”
I flip it over, and the name comes into view. “No.” I push my chair back an inch as I answer. “It’s not.”
I press the phone to my ear and angle my chair away from the desk.
“Chiara,” Luca says, his voice low and even. “Can you please make your way upstairs?”
I turn slightly, my back half to the bullpen. “Now?”
“Yes,” he says. “And don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
My fingers tighten around the edge of the phone. “Ummm. Sure.”
“I didn’t cancel,” he says. “Come up.”
The line clicks before I answer. I lower the phone slowly and then lock the screen.
Bethany leans in immediately. “Who was it?”
I slide my phone into my bag and zip it halfway closed. “My dentist confirming an appointment. I’m going to find lunch. I’ll be back.”
I turn and walk. The bullpen noise thins again as I pass through it. At the elevator bank, I press the button with the side of my finger and adjust the bag strap back into place.
I press the executive floor. The doors slide shut, and the bullpen drops away below me.
I step into Luca’s office as Jasmine pulls the door open, my bag still on my shoulder as I cross the threshold and stop just inside.
Matteo doesn’t stand. He sits behind his desk, one hand resting on a closed folder, the other turning a pen slowly between his fingers. “You missed the meeting this morning.”
“I was told it was this afternoon and then postponed,” I say, sliding my bag off my shoulder and setting it against the leg of the chair without sitting.
“By Heather.”
The door clicks behind me. I turn slightly as Ciro steps in, one hand still on the handle before he pushes it closed with a controlled motion.
I take the chair Luca indicated. He flips the folder open and rotates it toward me.
“Is this your work?” He taps the first slide with the pen.
I glance down, and then back up at him. “Yes.”
Ciro moves to the side of the desk, not sitting, one hand braced on the back of the empty chair as he looks down at the pages.
“Walk me through the variance,” Matteo says.
I slide the folder closer across the desk. “Same conclusion Heather brought you. The numbers don’t reconcile.”
“How?” he asks.
“Consistent overage across multiple batches,” I say. “Not timing. Not noise.”
Ciro’s hand tightens slightly against the leather. “Allocation.”
“That’s where it lands,” I say.
Luca studies me instead of the file, the pen turning once between his fingers before he stills it. “You’re confident.”
“Yes.”
“And Heather walked through this with you?” Ciro asks, his tone neutral.
“She asked how I found it,” I say. “That’s not the same thing.”
Ciro’s fingers press harder into the leather. “She didn’t credit you.”
“I didn’t even want the meeting,” I say, closing the folder again and resting my hands on top of it. “If I’d known she was taking it in, I would’ve structured it differently.”
“How?” Ciro asks.
“I would have built out the allocation assumptions,” I say, opening the folder again and flipping to the margin notes. “Not just flagged them.”
Luca leans forward, his eyes moving over the page as I hold it steady. “So she walked in with flags and no foundation.”
“She walked in with partial context.” I flatten the page with my palm. “I already knew the information so I could speak to it. She didn’t get that.”
Ciro’s gaze moves to Luca, the look brief but deliberate. Luca meets it, and then leans back.
“You’re saying she didn’t understand what she presented,” Luca says.
“I’m saying she didn’t ask enough before she did it.”
Ciro exhales through his nose and steps back a half pace. “That tracks.”
Luca taps the pen twice against the desk, and then stills it. “We’ll follow up. Separately.”
“With her?” I ask, lifting the folder but not pulling it away yet.
“With the situation,” he says, his gaze steady. “Don’t tell Heather we spoke. She didn’t have some answers to our questions this morning, so she’s going to get them back to us.”
I hold his eyes for a second, and then nod once as I tuck the folder under my arm. “I won’t. She’s already asked for my notes.”
Ciro moves toward the door, his hand already reaching for the handle. “We’ll be in touch,” he says, pulling it open just enough to clear the frame.
I step past him and move into the hall.
I take the elevator down to the lobby level, and Jackson is right with me. I walk across the street to a small bakery and order a turkey sandwich and a large chocolate chip cookie. She did exactly what George, Janet, and Bethany warned me about.
By the time I make it back to the bullpen, the anger is cleaner than it was upstairs.
I set the folder down, sit, and pull the audit file back onto my screen.
Bethany turns before I’ve logged in. “Well?”
I tap in my password and drag the report full screen. “I ate.”
George swivels his chair around. “You look like you bit into something bad.”
“I’m good.” I highlight a row and add a note without looking up. “I’m just bummed out that the meeting was canceled.”
I turn back to my desk and close the file with a deliberate tap of my fingertips, leaving it exactly where it is.
Heather may have walked into that meeting and presented the work like it belonged to her, but Luca knows where it came from.
And so do I.