CHAPTER 7
ELENA
The Bellandi Grand continued operating as if my brother had not died inside it.
Guests crossed the marble lobby beneath crystal chandeliers. A family posed for photographs beside the central arrangement of white orchids. Two business travelers argued about a delayed car while a toddler pressed both hands against the glass doors and watched the rain.
Hotels had always been good at swallowing private disaster.
A guest could have a marriage end in Suite 1412 while room service delivered champagne next door. Someone could receive a terminal diagnosis in the restaurant and still be asked whether they preferred sparkling water. The elevators opened. Sheets were changed. Bills appeared beneath doors.
Marco had understood that before I did.
Nothing stops because you’re devastated, he once told me after our mother died. It just becomes insulting that everything keeps working.
I stood near the front desk and watched the lobby work.
“Ms. Bellandi.”
The day manager approached with relief and fear competing in his face. Thomas Lee had managed the property for twelve years and had never once called me Elena during working hours.
He wore a charcoal suit, burgundy tie and the same rectangular glasses he had owned since I started in operations.
“I didn’t know you were coming in.”
“That was deliberate.”
His eyes moved to Adrian and the four men stationed discreetly near the entrances.
The security was not discreet.
It was only expensive enough to appear polite.
“How are you?” Thomas asked.
No one had found a good answer to that question in five days.
“Working,” I said.
He understood.
“There are issues.”
“There are always issues.”
“The florist has not been paid. The laundry vendor says two invoices were rejected. We have a pipe leaking above the west conference room, and someone from Mr. Vittorio’s office instructed us to close the service elevators after six.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Who took the call?”
“Janice.”
“Ask her to send me the recording.”
Thomas hesitated. “Mr. Vittorio’s office said all operational decisions are to go through them until the family situation stabilizes.”
“The family situation has a name.”
Hurt crossed his face.
I regretted the sharpness immediately. Thomas had attended the funeral. He had known Marco since my brother was seventeen and trying to impress bartenders in a hotel he would someday inherit.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He lowered his voice. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do when I speak to you like you caused this.”
The honesty seemed to unsettle him more than the irritation had.
“Send every unpaid invoice to me,” I continued. “Keep the west conference room closed until engineering checks the pipe. Do not close any service elevator without a written safety reason.”
“What about Mr. Vittorio?”
“Tell his office the request is under review.”
Thomas’s mouth moved slightly.
“You enjoy that sentence,” I said.
“I have used it in my head many times.”
“Today you may use it aloud.”
A server approached with a tray holding a coffee cup and small porcelain pot.
“From the kitchen, Ms. Bellandi.”
I looked at Adrian.
He raised both hands. “Not me.”
The server placed the tray on a side table. The coffee was exactly the color I preferred.
I touched the cup but did not lift it.
“Did Nico send this?”
Adrian looked offended. “I was specifically told not to answer questions unrelated to security.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I value my position.”
I drank the coffee.
Less milk.
I hated the small warmth that moved through me.
The man had hidden information about my brother, anticipated our marriage and attempted to confine me inside his house. None of those facts should have been complicated by correctly prepared coffee.
“Where is Maria’s office?” Adrian asked.
“Operations floor.”
“You have an operations floor?”
“We have three hundred and eighty-two rooms, six event spaces, two restaurants and enough employees to populate a small town. Did you expect everything to happen behind the front desk?”
“I expected a basement with clipboards.”
“That is because you have never done honest work.”
Thomas made a coughing sound and walked away before his expression betrayed him.
Adrian looked at me. “Nico said your humor gets worse when you’re frightened.”
I stopped.
“When did Nico discuss my humor with you?”
“He didn’t.”
“You just said—”
“I said Nico knows you’re frightened. I made my own assessment of the humor.”
He started toward the staff elevators.
I followed.
It was a clumsy recovery.
Not entirely false.
The operations floor occupied a section above the ballroom level, hidden from guests behind service doors painted the same cream as the walls. The corridor smelled faintly of detergent, printer heat and the lemon cleaner housekeeping bought in enormous quantities.
People stopped speaking when I entered.
Not all at once. That would have been theatrical.
The silence traveled ahead of me one desk at a time.
Some employees looked at the security detail. Others looked at the marks my blouse did not completely hide. Several had attended Marco’s funeral. None knew whether acknowledging his death at work would help or harm me.
I knew all their names.
That was not generosity. It was management.
People told the truth more readily to someone who had remembered them before needing information.
“Good morning,” I said.
A few answered.
I stood where the corridor widened near the scheduling boards.
“Maria Santos’s credentials were used without her authorization yesterday morning. She is safe and cooperating. Until we determine what happened, no one is to discuss her name with press, vendors or anyone outside this department.”
A young coordinator near the printer raised her hand as if we were in school.
“Yes, Andrea?”
“Is she in trouble?”
“No.”
It was a promise I might not control.
I made it anyway.
“If anyone accessed Maria’s desk, saw an unfamiliar person near the security office or noticed changes in the schedule after Wednesday, speak to me directly. No one will be punished for reporting something late.”
An older supervisor crossed his arms. “What if Mr. Bellandi’s office asks?”
“Which Mr. Bellandi?”
Several people exchanged looks.
The question had become useful.
“Mr. Vittorio,” he said.
“You may tell his office that I am conducting the review.”
The supervisor nodded, but his uncertainty remained.
My authority here had once come from Marco, even when I pretended it did not. He would enter a meeting ten minutes late, make a joke and confirm the decision I had spent an hour defending. The room would relax because the future head of the family agreed with his capable sister.
Now there was no brother arriving late.
Only me.
The absence felt like standing too close to the edge of a roof.
I turned toward Maria’s office.
The drawer beneath her desk had no visible damage. Inside were pens, peppermint candies, two phone chargers and a stack of handwritten notes held by a rubber band.
Adrian watched from the doorway.
“You know what you’re looking for?” he asked.
“No.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I am not searching for reassurance.”
The password reminder was taped beneath the top drawer. A small note in Maria’s handwriting read:
M—Rafa’s day.
Not the password. The reminder she had described.
Someone had returned it after using it or photographed it in place.
I checked the desk surface. Maria kept photographs of her children beside the computer. The youngest boy’s school portrait had been taken in front of a board displaying his class year.
His birthday might have been accessible through employee insurance records. The word beginning with M could be guessed by someone who knew Maria well.
Or someone who had watched her type.
“Security office,” I said.
Adrian followed.
The room was smaller than most guests imagined. There were screens, locked cabinets, two desks and none of the cinematic sophistication men liked to claim when discussing surveillance.
The overnight supervisor, Frank Delaney, waited beside the printers.
He was in his fifties, broad through the middle and dressed in a uniform shirt strained slightly at the buttons. He had worked for the hotel for fifteen years.
He would have known Marco as a teenager.
“Ms. Bellandi.”
“Frank.”
His gaze flicked toward Adrian.
“This is Adrian Orsini.”
“I know.”
“Everyone seems to,” Adrian said.
Frank did not smile.
“Show me the card records,” I said.
He opened the system.
Maria’s credentials had created the card at two eighteen. The printer completed it three minutes later. The card was activated for executive service areas, loading docks and mechanical corridors.
Too much access for an ordinary temporary card.
“Who approved the permissions?” I asked.
Frank pointed to the screen. “The system lists Maria.”
“She could not approve executive access.”
“It shows an override.”
“By whom?”
He hesitated.
My stomach tightened.
“Show me.”
He enlarged the record.
The authorization belonged to my office.
Not merely my department.
My individual credentials.
Adrian moved closer. “Were you here at two eighteen yesterday morning?”
“I was at my father’s house.”
“Who can use your login?”
“No one.”
“That answer is becoming unpopular.”
I ignored him.
The record included a location.
The approval had originated from the executive office across the hall—the office Marco and I had shared when we worked late.
“My office was sealed after Marco died,” I said.
Frank nodded. “Mr. Vittorio’s team opened it Wednesday.”
“Why?”
“To remove Mr. Marco’s personal effects.”
“Did they finish?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who entered?”
“I have names.”
He reached for a paper file instead of searching the computer.
That choice told me he did not trust the digital record.
The list contained seven people.
Vittorio’s chief of staff. Two family security officers. A private archivist. One lawyer. A hotel maintenance supervisor.
And Vittorio himself.
“What time did they leave?” I asked.
“Most before midnight. Mr. Vittorio stayed later.”
“How much later?”
“Camera shows him leaving at one twelve.”
The card was created more than an hour after that.
“He could have returned,” Adrian said.
“Or someone remained.”
Frank shifted his weight.
“What?” I asked.
“There was an issue with the service elevators.”
“When?”
“One forty.”
“Which issue?”
“They were placed in inspection mode. Camera feeds in the elevator cars stopped recording.”
“Who did that?”
“The system shows maintenance.”
“Which employee?”
He searched.
The result appeared.
Daniel Cho.
I knew Daniel. Thirty-six years old, married, quiet, technically competent. He had requested two weeks off in October for his sister’s wedding.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Long Island property. Emergency boiler work.”
Something cold passed through me.
“When did he leave?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
Adrian leaned over the desk. “Show us the staffing records.”
Frank opened the central schedule.
Daniel was listed at the Bellandi Grand from midnight to six yesterday morning.
I looked at Frank.
“You said he was in Long Island.”
“He was. The property manager called him Monday night and said the boiler had failed.”
“How long is the drive?”
“About ninety minutes without traffic.”
“Then he could have returned.”
Frank shook his head. “Their logs show him there all night.”
Two locations.
One employee.
One altered schedule.
I took out my phone and called the Long Island property.
The assistant manager answered.
“This is Elena Bellandi. I need to speak with Daniel Cho.”
A pause.
“Ms. Bellandi, Daniel isn’t here.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“When did he leave?”
“He never arrived.”
The office seemed to tilt, very slightly.
“Who handled the boiler?”
“We didn’t have a boiler problem.”
No one spoke after I ended the call.
Frank stared at the schedule as if it might rearrange itself into something harmless.
Adrian’s hand moved toward his phone.
I stopped him. “Not yet.”
“Nico needs to know.”
“He will.”
“Now.”
“After I confirm one thing.”
“You agreed to shared security information.”
“I agreed not to request permission to work.”
“That is not the same issue.”
“No. It is the same argument in a different suit.”
I moved to the camera console.
“Show me the corridor outside my office from midnight until three.”
Frank searched.
The feed played.
At one twelve, Vittorio left with two men.
At one twenty, the maintenance supervisor departed.
At one thirty-eight, the service-elevator camera went dark.
At one forty-one, a man in hotel coveralls entered the corridor with his face turned away.
He carried a toolbox.
At two thirteen, he left without it.
“Can you enlarge the image?” Adrian asked.
Frank did.
The man’s face remained unclear, but his right hand was visible.
A silver ring encircled his smallest finger.
Not enough to identify him.
Enough to know he had wanted the cameras to see an ordinary employee.
My phone vibrated.
Thomas.
I answered.
“Elena, I found the unpaid invoices.”
“Send them to my office.”
“There’s something else. One is for temporary staffing during the funeral week. The agency says we requested six additional maintenance workers.”
“We didn’t.”
“I know.”
“Who approved it?”
“The request came through Mr. Vittorio’s office.”
Adrian heard.
Adrian’s attention hardened.
I ended the call.
“Now,” he said.
I called Nico.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
No greeting.
No question about whether the call was personal.
He had been waiting for the phone to ring.
“Maria’s login was used remotely,” I said. “My credentials authorized the permissions. A man entered my office during an eleven-minute camera interruption. The schedule was altered to place an employee in two locations, and Vittorio’s office requested temporary maintenance staff we did not need.”
Silence.
I could picture Nico becoming still on the other end.
“Do not leave the security office,” he said.
“I am not—”
“Elena.”
The use of my name stopped me.
The authority in his voice did not stop me.
The fear beneath it did.
Fear, perhaps.
He spoke again, more carefully.
“Someone may know you found the alteration. Stay where cameras and guards cover the entrances until I arrive.”
I looked at Adrian.
He was already directing men toward the corridor.
“All right,” I said.
The pause on Nico’s end changed.
He had expected resistance.
The fact that I had agreed seemed to frighten him more.
“I’m ten minutes away,” he said.
“You were tracing the detonator.”
“I finished.”
“What did you find?”
“The component came from the same lot as the weapon found near Marco.”
My eyes moved toward the screens.
The man in coveralls crossed the corridor again and vanished into the service elevator.
The employee had been scheduled in two places.
The weapon had belonged to two times—the attack that killed Nico’s mother and the night someone killed my brother.
Someone was not simply stealing access.
They were manufacturing histories.