Chapter 33 Eliana
ELIANA
peel·ing: /?pēliNG/: verb
I spend the next two days buried in Frank’s damage assessment like a truffle pig looking for gold. Shockingly, I don’t find anything that glitters. It’s mostly just one issue after another.
Bastian is barely in the building. I assume he’s off bow-hunting endangered species or doing whatever else it is that billionaire culinary magnates do when they’re not making my life complicated, multi-orgasmic, or both.
I do my best to keep my eyes on my own paper, so to speak.
But my eyes keep drifting toward his empty office like I’m some deranged, lovesick idiot.
At a certain point, though, it’s like, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
… then I guess I’m a deranged, lovesick duck.
It’s not like I don’t have enough to handle, though. Things are… well, “strange” might be the best way to put it.
The problem is that, the more I dig into Frank’s report, the less sense it makes. According to the documentation, we’ve got failures across multiple systems—HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire suppression, on and on. It reads like someone took a sledgehammer and a blowtorch to the entire project.
But when I start making calls to verify the issues, I hit a wall of confusion.
“Ma’am, I don’t understand,” says the rep from Midwest Commercial HVAC on Wednesday afternoon. “We delivered those units on time and to spec. Your team signed off on the installation three weeks ago.”
“Right, but the failed inspection report says—”
“Failed? What failed inspection report? We haven’t received any failure notices.”
I frown at my screen. “The one from February twentieth.”
He pauses and shuffles some papers around. “Ma’am, our records show the system passed inspection on February eighteenth. If there’s been a subsequent inspection issue, we weren’t notified.”
I thank him and hang up, then immediately call the fire suppression contractor.
Same story.
Then the plumbing subcontractor.
Same story again.
By Thursday afternoon, I’ve spoken to more than a dozen different vendors and subcontractors, and every single one of them swears their work was completed on time, to specification, and passed inspection. They’re as baffled as I am about Frank’s litany of catastrophic failures.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling tiles, trying to make the pieces fit.
Either Frank is lying about the scope of the problems, or someone else is lying to me about the state of their work. Or—and this is the possibility that continues to make my stomach clench every time I so much as even begin to consider it—someone is actively sabotaging Project Olympus.
But who? And why? And how?
I can feel a pixelated haze creeping in around the edges of my vision, equal parts leber congenital amaurosis and blue screen exhaustion.
I need to touch grass, and maybe I can tackle two things at once if I take a field trip to Frank’s trailer to talk to him in person.
Two functioning pairs of eyes on this disaster might be enough to crack the case.
Well, one and a half pairs, but whatever.
I shrug on my winter jacket and try not to giggle when I think about Bastian calling me a marshmallow. It’s hard to laugh once I get outside, anyway, because it’s cold as the dickens today and the wind is particularly vicious.
My mind goes numb as I walk, along with my fingers and toes. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Cold or not, it’s good to move my body. Being caged in my cubicle all day and turning into couch mush in my few off-hours at home means my brain has had too much time to think.
More concerningly, it’s had too much time to remember.
And it is very, very fixated on remembering one thing and one thing only: how it felt to kiss Bastian and feel his hand slowly slide down the front of my leggings.
The memory has this strange sort of half-dreamlike, half-hyper-real quality to it. The sky was pure Technicolor, almost too beautiful to be believed. But Bastian’s calluses, the rasp of his beard—that’s more sensory than my senses know how to handle.
The more times I turn it over in my head, the fuzzier it gets, though. Was his hand on my neck or my hip when he first kissed me? Did I pull him down or did he lean in first? How long were we actually in the back of that Range Rover before things escalated from innocent to decidedly not?
I can’t pin down the sequence of events, and it’s driving me crazy.
What I can remember with perfect, 1080p clarity is how he looked at me afterward.
And what he said.
Friday night. Eight o’clock.
By the time I arrive at the building site, it’s nearly six o’clock and the winter sun is already starting its descent.
Most of the crew has cleared out for the day, but a few stragglers remain.
Guys in hard hats hauling toolboxes toward the parking lot, a forklift beeping as it reverses into position.
When its driver kills the engine, an eerie silence settles over the whole place.
Frank’s trailer sits at the far end of the lot, a dingy white rectangle with rust stains bleeding down the sides. As I approach, I notice something odd: There are voices coming from within.
Angry voices.
I slow my pace, straining to hear, but I can’t make out words. Just the unmistakable cadence of an argument. Two men, maybe three, their tones sharp and heated.
Then I notice the cigarettes.
Three of them, stubbed out on the metal stairs leading up to the trailer door. They’re still smoldering. Thin wisps of smoke curl up into the gray afternoon air.
Someone was just here. Multiple someones.
I climb the stairs carefully, avoiding the cigarette butts, and raise my fist to knock. Before I can, the voices inside cut off abruptly.
I wait, listening. Nothing but silence now.
After a moment, I knock. “Frank? It’s Eliana Hunter from Hale Hospitality. I need to talk to you about the damage report.”
No response.
I press my ear against the door. I swear I can hear movement inside—the creak of floorboards, the rustle of paper or fabric—but no one comes to answer.
“Frank?” I try again. “I know you’re in there. I just want to ask a few questions about the vendors. It won’t take long.”
More silence.
I stand there for another thirty seconds, feeling increasingly ridiculous. Finally, I give up and go back down the stairs. I pull out my phone to call him instead.
It rings only a couple of times before cutting off and going to voicemail. “Hey, Frank, it’s Eliana. I stopped by your trailer, but you must’ve just stepped out. Give me a call when you get a chance. I’ve got some questions about the inspection reports. Thanks.”
I hang up and stare at the trailer for another moment. Unease prickles at the base of my spine.
Something is very, very wrong here.
But with no other available route to keep inquiring, I decide to hang it up for the time being. I’ll try again tomorrow.
As for what I do now, that’s a better question.
The evening chill and the weirdness of this whole thing is enough to jolt me back to life.
I was dragging ass on my way here, but now, I’m kinda wired.
The thought of going home is unappealing, and the last thing I want to do is repeat my previous trip to my mom’s apartment.
If Rick calls me “darling” or touches my knee again, I might actually vomit on his work boots.
Yasmin lives pretty close to here, though, so I make a spur-of-the-moment decision to veer off to see what she’s up to. I send her a text on my way to let her know I’m coming.
Weirdly enough, I don’t get an instant response. That’s as strange as the whole thing at Frank’s trailer. Yasmin always, always has her phone on her. It’s practically surgically attached to her hands.
Just like that, my heart starts pounding. I can’t help but think of Brandon. What if he did something insane? What if he found her? What if—
No. I can’t think like that. I’m just gonna go by her place, make sure everything is okay, and then my paranoia and I can have a long, hard look in the mirror together.
Honestly, it’s been going absolutely haywire all week long.
I keep thinking I see that stupid black sedan at damn near every street corner.
Now, I’m picturing Brandon doing something drastic and awful to Yas?
No más. Everything is going to be fine and dandy.
I hoof it the four blocks to Yasmin’s apartment, say hi to her doorman, and take the elevator up. When I’m on the fifth floor, I call her. Just like with Frank, the first four rings go unanswered.
And as I get closer and closer to her door…
… I hear the vibrations of the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth.
“Yas?” I call, half into the phone and half into her apartment. “Yas, you here?”
More vibrations.
Then, a click.
Then: “You have reached Yasmin Kaur. I’m out doing hot girl shit. Be a doll and leave a message, kthxbyeee!”
My heartbeat doubles.
I reach into my tote bag and fumble through all my various belongings until I find the spare key she gave me years ago. My hands are shaking so bad I can barely fit it in the lock.
“C’mon, c’mon, you stupid freaking—” I finally manage to turn the key and shove the door open.
The living room is unoccupied. Her laptop sits open on the coffee table, a half-drunk glass of wine beside it.
Jewel-toned throw pillows are scattered across her velvet couch and strewn all around the floor like someone threw them in a fit of rage.
Neon string lights frame her window. The coffee table is its usual disaster: fashion magazines fanned out, a chipped mug that says BOSS BITCH, and her AirPods case covered in sparkly stickers.
Everything is perfectly, quintessentially Yasmin.
… Except Yasmin herself is nowhere to be found.
“Yas?” I call, stepping inside. “Yas, you’re freaking me out here. If you’re napping or something, I’m gonna be pissed.”
Then I hear something else: a cry from the bedroom.
“Oh my God.”
I sprint down the hallway and kick the bedroom door open with enough force to dent the opposite wall. “YASMIN, I’M HERE, I’M—”
The words die in my throat.
Because there, in Yasmin’s bed, is Yasmin.
And Zeke.
A very naked Yasmin.
A very naked Zeke.
Very much in the middle of something that is definitely not a Brandon-related emergency.