CHAPTER 6
NICO
The bruises around Elena’s throat became darker overnight.
I noticed them when she entered the dining room at seven fourteen wearing a cream blouse buttoned high enough to hide most of the damage. The collar concealed the marks from anyone who did not know to look.
I knew to look.
Her right shoulder moved carefully beneath a navy jacket. She carried a tablet under one arm and a cup of coffee in her uninjured hand. Someone had replaced the mug destroyed in the kitchen with a nearly identical one.
Nearly.
This one was gray.
Elena took a sip, made a small face and set it on the table without comment.
“What is wrong with it?” I asked.
She looked at the cup. “Nothing.”
“You dislike it.”
“I dislike many things. We would need a larger table if I brought all of them to breakfast.”
Adrian lowered his phone to hide a smile.
Maria Santos sat at the far end of the table between two guards.
She was forty-one, according to the employee file Elena had demanded before agreeing to sleep. She had worked for the Bellandi Grand for nine years, seven months and twelve days. She had three children, one mother recovering from hip surgery and no criminal history beyond two parking violations.
None of those facts made her innocent.
The fact that she had spent the previous week in Queens caring for her mother did.
Maria’s dark hair had been pulled into a loose knot. She wore sweatpants, an old hotel cardigan and the expression of someone who had been removed from her apartment before dawn by armed men.
She had cried earlier.
Now she looked too frightened to continue.
Elena crossed the room and took the chair beside her.
Not opposite.
Beside.
Maria turned toward her. “Ms. Bellandi, I didn’t issue that card.”
“I know what you told them.”
“I would never—”
“I know.”
The certainty in Elena’s voice reached Maria before the words themselves did. Her shoulders lowered by less than an inch.
I remained standing near the windows.
Elena looked at me. “Why is she still here?”
“Because someone used her credentials to issue an access card carried by a man who tried to kill you.”
“Someone used her name.”
“Yes.”
“So why is she being questioned like a suspect?”
Adrian answered before I did. “Because sometimes people use their own names while committing crimes.”
Maria flinched.
Elena’s gaze moved to him.
Adrian had faced men holding guns without changing expression. Elena’s silence made him sit straighter.
“I’m explaining the procedure,” he said.
“You’re explaining it as if she isn’t in the room.”
He looked at Maria.
Something uncertain crossed his face. Adrian was not cruel without purpose. He was simply accustomed to rooms where fear was useful and apology was weakness.
“My mistake,” he said.
Maria blinked.
The apology surprised everyone, including Adrian.
Elena placed the tablet on the table. “Maria, when did you last access the employee-card system?”
“Last Thursday. Before I left for my mother’s.”
“What did you do?”
“Renewed two temporary cards for the banquet crew. Disabled one for an employee who quit.”
“Did you approve any remote-access request?”
“No.”
“Share your password?”
“Never.”
“Write it down?”
Maria hesitated.
Elena waited.
The restraint mattered. Most interrogations filled silence until frightened people offered whatever answer would stop it.
Maria looked at the guards, then at me.
“I kept it in my desk,” she said. “Not the whole password. A reminder.”
Elena did not react. “What kind of reminder?”
“My youngest son’s birthday and a word. Not the word. Just the first letter.”
“Who knew?”
“No one. I thought no one.”
Her voice broke on the final word.
Elena reached for the water bottle in front of her, opened it one-handed and passed it over.
“Your desk is in the operations office?”
“Yes.”
“Who entered that area after you left?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” Elena said.
She opened the tablet and turned it toward the center of the table.
A floor plan appeared.
I had seen enough technical diagrams that morning. The simplicity of this one was a relief. Elena had marked three doors in red.
“The operations office is not accessible from the guest elevators,” she said. “There is a staff entrance, an interior passage from accounting and a service corridor from the ballroom level.”
Adrian leaned forward. “Cameras?”
“At the staff entrance and corridor. Not inside accounting.”
“Why?”
“Because accounting complained the camera captured confidential documents whenever the door opened.”
“Convenient.”
“It was annoying, not convenient. There is a difference.”
Elena tapped the screen.
“Maria’s system login was used at two eighteen yesterday morning. She was in Queens. The card was printed at two twenty-one.”
“Which printer?” I asked.
“The one inside the security office.”
“Who had access?”
“Security supervisors. Two operations managers. Marco. Me.”
The room changed around his name.
Elena’s face remained controlled, but her thumb found the scar near the base of her other hand.
Marco had told me she did that before difficult meetings.
He had failed to mention she also did it when grief arrived unexpectedly.
“Your credentials?” I asked.
“I haven’t used them since the funeral.”
“Could they have been copied?”
“Anything can be copied if someone has access.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’m refusing to answer before checking.”
The irritation in her voice contained something healthier than fear.
Maria turned toward Elena. “My desk.”
“What about it?”
“The drawer was open when I came back for my charger Wednesday night.”
Elena frowned. “You came back after leaving for your mother’s?”
“For twenty minutes. Maybe less. I forgot the charger for the medical monitor she uses at night. My desk drawer was open, but nothing looked missing.”
“Who was there?”
“Mr. Bellandi’s people. They were clearing Marco’s office.”
“Which Mr. Bellandi?”
Maria glanced toward me as if the distinction itself might be dangerous.
“Mr. Vittorio Bellandi.”
Elena stopped touching her scar.
A knock sounded at the dining-room door.
One of my guards entered. “Vittorio Bellandi is at the gate.”
Of course he was.
“Alone?” I asked.
“Two vehicles. Six men.”
“Then he is not alone.”
Elena stood.
“Let him in.”
“No.”
Her eyes found mine. “Maria is my employee.”
“She is a witness inside my house after an armed breach.”
“She is also a Bellandi citizen, according to the antiquated language everyone insists on using.”
“She is under my protection.”
Maria looked between us.
The word protection had become so overused that it no longer described anything. Sometimes it meant safety. Sometimes confinement. Sometimes control dressed in softer clothing.
Elena crossed the room until the table no longer separated us.
“What does Vittorio want?” she asked.
“I can guess.”
“So can I. Let him say it.”
“He will not enter this part of the house.”
“Fine.”
I looked at the bruises above her collar.
She saw me looking and lifted her chin.
The movement exposed another dark mark near her jaw.
“No,” I said.
Her expression became dangerously polite. “That word appears to be doing a great deal of work in our marriage.”
“You were attacked six hours ago.”
“And remaining ten rooms away from the front door will prevent a second attack?”
“It will reduce the number of directions I need to watch.”
“I am not a direction.”
The answer came before I could stop it.
“No. You are the reason.”
She went silent.
So did everyone else.
I had meant the reason for the increased risk. The reason for security. The reason I had not slept because every time I closed my eyes I saw fingers closing around her throat.
None of those explanations would improve what I had said.
Elena looked away first.
“Maria stays here,” she said. “I am coming to the meeting.”
She passed me before I answered.
The scent of her shampoo remained after she left the room, clean and faintly floral beneath the smoke still embedded in the house.
Adrian waited until the door closed.
“You continue to handle this well.”
“Speak to Maria again.”
“I thought we were becoming sensitive.”
“Try not to frighten her unnecessarily.”
He glanced at the guards, then back at me. “Was that an instruction from Elena or personal growth?”
“Find out who entered the security office.”
“Personal growth, then.”
I left before he could enjoy himself.
Vittorio waited in the formal sitting room.
He had changed since the wedding. Not physically. His silver hair was still combed precisely, and his charcoal suit appeared untouched by the previous night’s violence. But the warmth had left his expression.
Two Bellandi men stood behind him. Four more remained outside with ours.
Elena entered through the opposite door at the same time I did.
Vittorio looked at her throat.
His control fractured more visibly than mine had.
“Jesus, Elena.”
He crossed toward her.
She allowed him to touch her cheek but stepped away before he could embrace her.
The rejection hurt him. I saw that too.
Real affection did not make a man innocent.
It made him more complicated.
“I heard what happened,” he said.
“How?”
“Carlo received a call before dawn.”
“From whom?”
“Security channels. Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Vittorio looked at me. “You brought her into a compromised house.”
“Someone used plans reviewed by your family.”
“Your contractor built the passage.”
“Your people requested the plans.”
Elena lifted one hand. “Stop.”
We did.
The fact that both of us obeyed appeared to trouble Vittorio.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“For Maria Santos.”
The woman’s name sounded different in his voice. Not a frightened employee. An administrative problem.
“What about her?” Elena asked.
“She needs to be transferred to Bellandi custody.”
“No.”
Vittorio’s eyebrows rose. “Elena.”
“She has not been charged with anything.”
“Her credentials were used during an attack on an Orsini residence. If we do not handle this internally, the families will assume we are protecting a traitor.”
“We are protecting an employee whose identity was stolen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she was in Queens.”
“People can arrange crimes from Queens.”
“She did not print the card.”
“Then someone in her department did.”
“Possibly.”
“You manage that department.”
The words arrived gently.
That made them worse.
Vittorio was warning her that the accusation could expand.
Elena understood.
Her spine straightened.
“Then perhaps you should transfer me as well.”
His face softened. “Don’t be childish.”
A small mistake.
Elena’s expression cooled.
“She stays,” I said.
Vittorio looked at me. “This is a Bellandi matter.”
“Someone entered my house carrying a Bellandi card. It became an Orsini matter when he put his hand around my wife’s throat.”
The final word altered the room.
My wife.
It had been legally true for less than a day. Speaking it felt older.
Vittorio heard the claim in it and disliked it.
Elena heard it too. She did not look at me.
“Maria remains here voluntarily,” she said. “No one questions her without my presence or counsel. I will investigate the credentials myself.”
Vittorio shook his head. “Carlo will not permit you to return to the hotel.”
“My employment is not dependent on his permission.”
“This is not about employment.”
“It always becomes about something else when a woman’s work gives her authority.”
Vittorio’s mouth tightened.
He had underestimated her. Perhaps not often, but enough.
“You nearly died twice in one day,” he said. “You cannot walk back into the building where Marco was murdered and pretend ordinary rules still apply.”
“I do not intend to pretend anything.”
“You are grieving.”
“Yes.”
“You are exhausted.”
“Yes.”
“You are not thinking clearly.”
Elena’s hand became still at her side.
I expected anger.
What appeared was hurt.
Vittorio’s doubt hurt less than the fact that part of her had hoped he would never voice it.
“Then I suppose you will be surprised when I find whoever used Maria’s credentials,” she said.
“Elena—”
“The meeting is over.”
Vittorio looked at me as if I had taught her disobedience in the twelve hours since the wedding.
I opened the door.
He passed close enough to speak quietly.
“If she is harmed in your care again, no agreement will protect you.”
I met his gaze. “If she is harmed again, an agreement will be the least of anyone’s concerns.”
He left.
Elena remained near the window until the gate closed behind his vehicles.
“You threatened my uncle.”
“He threatened me first.”
“That doesn’t improve it.”
“I wasn’t attempting to improve it.”
She turned.
The morning light made the bruises visible through the thin edge of her collar.
“Maria stays,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I review the access records.”
“Yes.”
“I return to the hotel.”
“No.”
Her lips pressed together.
I continued before she could speak.
“You return with Adrian, four guards and access to our security feed. I will join you after I finish tracing the detonator.”
Elena studied me.
“That was almost a negotiation.”
“It was a schedule.”
“Of course.”
She moved toward the door, then stopped.
“The card was printed from the hotel security office,” she said. “If Maria’s login was used remotely, someone still had to collect it.”
“Yes.”
“The person who collected it either belongs there or knew exactly when the room would be empty.”
“Yes.”
“And Vittorio’s people were clearing Marco’s office that night.”
“He is not the only person with access.”
“I know.”
But she had heard the fact.
So had I.
She opened the door.
“Elena.”
She looked back.
“Take the coffee with you.”
Her gaze moved to the gray mug in the dining room.
“It’s wrong.”
“What is wrong with it?”
“Too much milk.”
I had personally made it.
I would correct it tomorrow.
Assuming we were alive long enough to argue about coffee again.