Chapter 6 - Room 1708
We entered the hotel through the employee service door.
For once, being invisible worked in my favor.
Nobody looked twice at cleaning staff.
Nobody noticed another woman pushing a linen cart.
And nobody paid attention to the tall man wearing a maintenance jacket beside me.
Adrian hated the jacket.
“You look fine,” I whispered.
“I look like I repair boilers.”
“You own six construction companies.”
“Seven.”
“Then consider it professional development.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, my hands were trembling.
Mia remained at the mansion with Lucia and eight guards Adrian now trusted personally.
I hated leaving her.
But Room 1708 connected my world to theirs.
And I knew the hotel better than Adrian's people ever could.
There were service corridors not shown on guest maps.
Old dumbwaiter shafts.
Staircases opened only during fire inspections.
Places where someone could live quietly without crossing the main lobby often.
We took the freight elevator.
When the doors opened on seventeen, Adrian became completely focused.
Room 1708 was at the end of the hall.
A Do Not Disturb sign hung on the handle.
I used my master housekeeping card.
The light turned green.
Adrian touched my arm.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost argued.
Then I remembered that people in his family apparently poisoned tea and faked deaths.
I stayed behind him.
The room was empty.
But someone had been there recently.
Coffee was still warm.
A laptop sat open.
A newspaper from that morning lay across the desk.
Then Adrian saw the photograph beside the bed.
Two young men.
Adrian and Matteo.
Teenagers.
Laughing beside a fishing boat.
Adrian touched the frame.
For the first time, the powerful man beside me looked like someone's older brother.
“Matteo?”
A bathroom door opened.
Adrian spun.
A man stepped out.
He had a beard and gray streaks in his hair.
But the eyes were unmistakable.
Same as Adrian's.
The brothers stared at each other.
Fifteen years collapsed into silence.
Adrian spoke first.
“You're alive.”
Matteo's eyes filled.
“So are you.”
Adrian crossed the room.
For half a second, I thought he would embrace him.
Instead, he punched him.
Matteo hit the wall.
I jumped.
“Adrian!”
Matteo straightened slowly, wiped blood from his lip, and nodded.
“I deserved that.”
“You let us bury you.”
“I know.”
“Mother mourned you every day.”
“I know.”
“I carried your coffin.”
“I know.”
Adrian hit him again.
This time Matteo did not fall.
He simply stood there.
Then Adrian's fist stopped halfway to a third blow.
His hand opened.
He grabbed his brother's coat.
And pulled him into an embrace.
Neither man spoke.
I looked away.
Some grief belonged to family.
When they separated, Matteo saw me.
“Elena?”
I stiffened.
“How do you know my name?”
“Camille told me.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
Adrian's expression changed.
“You're protecting her?”
“She isn't working for Silvio.”
“Mia saw her drug Mother.”
“No. Mia saw Camille put something in Mother's tea.”
“That distinction isn't helping.”
“It was an antidote.”
We stared.
Matteo continued.
“Camille discovered what Silvio and Vale were doing six weeks ago. She couldn't stop the poisoning without exposing herself. She started replacing some doses with a neutralizing compound.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Why not tell me?”
“Because she didn't know who on your staff worked for Silvio.”
“She could have told me directly.”
“You would have confronted Silvio.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
Matteo almost smiled.
“You haven't changed.”
Adrian looked ready to punch him again.
I stepped between them.
“Can we please focus on the part where somebody is poisoning an elderly woman?”
They both looked at me.
“Thank you.”
Matteo explained everything.
Silvio controlled Dr. Vale.
Vale had deliberately adjusted Lucia's prescriptions to make a second substance far more dangerous.
Tiny doses were added to her drinks.
Confusion.
Weakness.
Blackouts.
A perfect medical record for incompetence.
Camille discovered it when Lucia collapsed during a private luncheon.
She contacted Matteo, who had secretly returned to New York after years overseas because he'd learned Silvio was using Moretti shipping containers for counterfeit medication.
“Why the black sedan?” I asked.
Matteo looked ashamed.
“Mine.”
Adrian's head snapped toward him.
“You were following Mother?”
“Protecting her.”
“From across the street?”
“I couldn't walk up and say hello after fifteen years.”
“You could have stopped when she collapsed.”
“I had men watching. When Mia reached her, I thought intervention would draw attention.”
My anger rose.
“So you watched my five-year-old help your mother while grown men sat in a car?”
Matteo looked at the floor.
“Yes.”
I pointed at him.
“You deserved the punches.”
Adrian almost smiled again.
Then Matteo opened his laptop.
“Silvio moves the final shipment tonight.”
“What shipment?”
“Counterfeit cardiac medication worth sixty million dollars. Some batches are contaminated.”
My stomach turned.
“People could die.”
“They already have.”
Adrian's expression became stone.
“Where?”
“Red Hook.”
Matteo clicked a map.
“Warehouse twelve.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You were at the original warehouse fire fifteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And now Silvio uses another warehouse.”
“He likes symbolism.”
“What does this have to do with Mother?”
“If the shipment disappears tonight, Silvio loses leverage and money. Tomorrow morning, he planned to file an emergency petition declaring Mother incompetent.”
Adrian looked at the clock.
“We stop the shipment.”
“No,” Matteo said.
“We expose it.”
Adrian frowned.
“If you seize it, Silvio tells police you ordered everything. The paperwork points to you.”
“So?”
“So we need him on record admitting the operation is his.”
A knock sounded.
Three times.
Matteo went pale.
“Nobody knows I'm here.”
Adrian moved toward the door.
The hallway was empty.
On the carpet sat a small cardboard box.
Inside was a phone.
It began ringing.
Matteo answered on speaker.
Silvio's voice filled the room.
“Hello, nephews.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
Silvio laughed.
“I've waited fifteen years to say that.”
“Where are you?” Adrian asked.
“Close enough.”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Control?”
“Respect.”
“No. You lost that.”
Silvio's voice became colder.
“At midnight, Adrian signs his voting shares to me. Matteo brings every copy of those shipping records.”
“And if we don't?”
Silence.
Then a child's voice played through the phone.
Mia.
“Mommy?”
I stopped breathing.
But Adrian looked at me instantly.
“Recording.”
Of course.
Mia was safe at the mansion.
Silvio continued.
“I can reach the child whenever I choose.”
My hands curled into fists.
That was the moment fear disappeared.
All week, I had been reacting.
Running.
Hiding.
Protecting Mia from powerful people.
Now Silvio had used my daughter's voice to terrorize me.
I leaned toward the phone.
“Mr. Silvio?”
Silence.
“Who is this?”
“Elena Reyes.”
A small laugh.
“The cleaning woman.”
“Yes.”
I stared at Adrian.
Then Matteo.
“You made one mistake.”
“And what would that be?”
“You keep treating people you don't respect as if they can't hurt you.”
Silvio chuckled.
“What exactly are you going to do, Elena?”
I looked at the housekeeping cart beside me.
At the hotel where powerful guests barely noticed the workers entering their rooms.
And suddenly I knew.
“Clean up your mess.”
Then I disconnected the call.
Adrian stared at me.
“What?”
May you like
I smiled for the first time in two days.
“I know how we get Silvio to confess.”
