CHAPTER 8
NICO
Elena had turned the hotel security office into a command room by the time I arrived.
Three employees worked at separate screens. Frank Delaney stood near the door with the expression of a man who had discovered the building he guarded contained rooms he had never seen. Adrian had placed two of our men in the corridor and another near the service elevators.
Elena stood at the center of it all.
She had removed her jacket. The cream blouse made the bruises at her throat more visible than before. Her injured hand rested on the back of a chair while she studied footage from the night Marco died.
She did not look like someone recovering from an attack.
That did not mean she had recovered.
“Elena.”
She turned.
Her gaze went first to my hands, checking for documents or evidence. Then to my face.
Not my weapon.
Me.
The observation stayed with me longer than it should have.
“What did you find?” she asked.
I placed a folder on the desk.
“The detonator contact and the gun recovered near Marco were registered in the same destroyed inventory.”
“Registered to whom?”
“My father’s organization.”
“And physically controlled by?”
“That is what I am tracing.”
“You said you finished.”
“I finished confirming the connection.”
Her mouth tightened. “Language is very useful to you.”
“It keeps people alive.”
“It also keeps them ignorant.”
The employees at the screens became intensely focused on their work.
Adrian handed me a printed schedule. “Daniel Cho was placed here and at Long Island simultaneously. Long Island says he never arrived. No one has seen him since Monday.”
“Family?”
“Wife says he left for an overnight repair.”
“Vehicle?”
“Found in employee parking.”
“Phone?”
“Off.”
I looked at the camera still displayed on the central screen. A man in maintenance coveralls entered the corridor outside Elena and Marco’s office.
“Face?”
“Never visible,” Elena said. “He knew camera placement.”
“Could be Daniel.”
“Could be anyone wearing Daniel’s uniform.”
The correction was fair.
I opened the folder and handed her the first page.
“The inventory was supposed to be destroyed eleven years ago. The contractor certified the destruction.”
“Who owned the contractor?”
“A holding company that dissolved six months later.”
“Who signed for the Orsinis?”
“My father.”
Elena looked up.
She knew enough about the attack that killed my mother to understand the date. Everyone in our world did. Details had been turned into legend by men who preferred tragedy when it belonged to someone else.
“Did you see the weapons destroyed?” she asked.
“Some of them.”
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember.”
Her certainty irritated me because it was deserved.
“Forty-seven crates entered the yard,” I said. “Thirty-two were opened before destruction. I left before the process ended.”
“Why?”
I looked at the damaged skin of my palm.
Elena followed my gaze.
The burn had healed years ago. My body still remembered heat whenever I smelled melted metal.
“My mother’s car had burned two days earlier,” I said. “The yard smelled the same.”
No one in the room moved.
I had not intended to share the detail.
Elena’s expression changed. The anger did not disappear. It made room for something else.
“Who remained?” she asked.
“My father. Teresa. Four senior men. The contractor’s staff.”
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Teresa?”
“Alive.”
“And the senior men?”
“Two alive. One missing. One killed six years ago.”
“Missing like Daniel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked at the page again.
The sympathy had lasted perhaps three seconds. I respected her for not making it a performance.
“Can someone from the contractor be linked to the Bellandi renovations?” she asked.
“We’re checking.”
“We?”
“My people.”
Her eyebrow lifted.
“Our people,” I corrected.
Adrian turned away, but not before I saw satisfaction cross his face.
Elena moved to the main console.
“We found another gap.”
The recording displayed the hotel’s executive corridor on the night Marco died.
The timestamp read 10:52 p.m.
I knew what came next.
My body did as well. The muscles across my shoulders tightened before thought caught up.
Elena noticed.
Of course she did.
“Marco entered the suite at ten thirty-eight,” she said. “You arrived at ten forty-nine.”
The screen showed me stepping from the service elevator.
I wore a dark coat and carried no visible weapon. My face was turned toward Marco’s suite.
Elena watched the footage instead of me.
“You told me you were at the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“You did not say you went to his room.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the reason would expose what we were doing.”
“What were you doing?”
“I cannot answer that yet.”
Her hand became still on the console.
The disappointment was quieter than anger.
It was also worse.
“You keep saying yet as if time itself will forgive you.”
“No.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“Proof that telling you will not put you in greater danger.”
“Someone bombed my car and entered your house.”
“I know.”
“Do I need to be shot before I meet your definition?”
The image of Marco bleeding in the corridor appeared with such force that I almost answered too sharply.
Instead, I looked at Frank.
“Clear the room.”
Elena said, “No.”
Frank stopped.
“The employees stay,” she continued. “We are reviewing footage relevant to their workplace.”
“This conversation is not relevant to them.”
“It becomes relevant when you use secrecy to remove information from the people responsible for preserving it.”
“I am not discussing Marco’s investigation in front of hotel staff.”
“Then don’t discuss it.”
We looked at each other.
Adrian shifted near the door. “Perhaps we could continue with the footage.”
Neither of us thanked him.
Elena pressed play.
I entered Marco’s suite at ten forty-nine.
At eleven oh-two, I stepped into the corridor again.
The recording skipped.
The timestamp changed from 11:02 to 11:13.
Eleven minutes gone.
The younger technician at the side monitor leaned closer. “That was not a camera failure.”
“How can you tell?” Elena asked.
“The image resumes in the same frame. If power failed, the system would reboot. This section was removed.”
“By whom?” I asked.
He swallowed. “The deletion record should show.”
It would.
I already knew the name.
The technician opened the system history.
My security credential appeared on the screen.
Frank stared at it.
Elena did not.
She looked at me.
“Did you delete the footage?”
“Yes.”
The word settled into every corner of the room.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
The technician removed his hands from the keyboard.
“Why?” Elena asked.
“Because the recording showed something that could not become public.”
“What?”
“I cannot tell you here.”
Her face emptied.
A person might have mistaken the absence for calm.
I did not.
“Elena.”
She stepped away from the console.
“Continue the footage.”
“No one else entered during the missing minutes,” I said.
“You removed eleven minutes.”
“Yes.”
“Then I have no reason to believe that.”
The accusation was fair.
I had created it.
She addressed the technician. “Are there cameras in the service elevator?”
“Yes.”
“Were those recordings altered?”
He searched.
The elevator feed opened.
At eleven oh-three, I entered alone and descended to the loading level.
At eleven oh-seven, the elevator returned empty.
At eleven twelve, a shadow crossed the open doors.
A person stood outside the elevator, beyond the strongest angle of the camera. Only part of a coat and one gloved hand appeared.
The doors closed without anyone entering.
“Which floor?” Elena asked.
“Service level three,” the technician said.
“What is there?”
“Laundry access, storage and the private corridor connecting the executive suites to the loading dock.”
Marco had been found in that corridor at one fifteen in the morning.
Elena replayed the shadow.
The person had arrived after I left.
Uncertainty entered her face once she understood the person had arrived after I left.
Not convinced of my innocence.
Forced to consider it.
“You left before eleven ten,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Marco’s estimated death was after midnight.”
“Yes.”
“Then why delete the footage?”
I could tell her the truth.
Marco had met me because someone was diverting weapons through Bellandi properties. He believed the theft involved both families. He had shown me documents, then panicked when he received a message naming Elena’s hotel credentials.
The recording showed Marco handing me a drive.
It also showed him saying her name.
If whoever killed him learned that Elena could identify the altered records, she would become the target she had already become.
The logic had protected no one.
Still, Marco had asked for time.
“You need to trust me,” I said.
The mistake was immediate.
Elena’s laugh held no humor.
“On what material?”
I had no answer she would accept.
Perhaps none she should.
She turned back to the screen.
“Whoever appeared at eleven twelve knew the elevator would be empty.”
“Yes.”
“They may have watched you leave.”
“Yes.”
“Or you told them.”
Adrian took a step forward.
I lifted one hand without looking at him.
Elena saw.
“I am allowed to suspect your cousin?” she asked.
“You are allowed to suspect everyone.”
“Except you.”
“Especially me.”
The answer stopped her.
I continued before caution returned.
“You should suspect me. You should verify everything I say. But while you do that, you need to remain alive.”
“And the best way to do that is to obey you.”
“No.”
The word surprised both of us.
I forced myself to continue.
“The best way is to understand that someone knows how we operate. They know your hotel, my weapons, our habits and the points where both families will refuse to communicate. Every argument between us gives them space.”
“Then stop withholding information.”
“I will give you what I can.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
We had reached the honest part of the disagreement.
It offered no solution.
Frank cleared his throat. “Ms. Bellandi.”
She turned.
“We found something in the service-elevator archive.”
He enlarged another frame.
At eleven fourteen, a cart entered the private corridor. The person pushing it remained hidden behind stacked linens.
At eleven nineteen, the cart returned.
The linens had shifted.
A pair of shoes was visible beneath the lower shelf.
Men’s shoes.
Black leather.
One sole marked with blood.
Elena moved closer to the screen.
“Was Marco moved on that cart?”
“We cannot confirm,” Frank said.
Her breathing changed.
The physical reaction appeared before she could organize it. One hand closed around the edge of the desk. Her face lost color.
I started toward her.
She lifted a hand.
Not now.
I stopped.
The restraint felt unnatural enough to be pain.
Elena watched the frame again.
“Where did the cart go?”
“Toward the loading dock.”
“Camera coverage?”
“Those files were damaged.”
“Deleted?”
“We don’t know.”
She looked at me. “Did you delete those too?”
“No.”
The answer contained everything I could give it.
She believed me enough to look away.
Not trust.
A fraction of possibility.
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
He read the message and came toward me.
“The man in the footage may have used Daniel Cho’s maintenance access.”
“Find Daniel.”
“We’re trying.”
Elena returned to the central system.
“Seal copies of every recording before anyone can alter them.”
Frank nodded.
“No cloud transfer,” I said. “Use physical drives.”
She glanced at me. “We agree on something.”
“Do not make it sentimental.”
Her mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
The moment was small and badly timed.
It mattered anyway.
The technician inserted two drives.
As the files copied, Elena pulled up the floor plan of the executive corridor.
“The cart passed Marco’s suite,” she said. “If someone moved him, they would have needed a place to wait until the loading dock was clear.”
“What rooms connect to the corridor?” I asked.
“Storage, housekeeping and the private suite.”
“Which private suite?”
“Marco’s.”
Her gaze became distant.
“The police searched it,” Adrian said.
“The police searched the visible rooms.”
“How many invisible rooms does a hotel need?”
“More than guests should know.”
Elena closed the footage.
“We’re going upstairs.”
“No,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed.
I corrected before she could.
“We’re going together.”
The correction did not erase her suspicion.
It did, however, keep her from leaving without me.