felt unreliable, but anger held me upright.
“You put that phone in my apron.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You sent me into his room.”
“Yes.”
“You knew they would think I was an assassin.”
“No.” Her eyes opened quickly.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know that part.
Matteo said the suite would be empty.
He said I only had to get you upstairs and leave the phone where security would find it later.”
“And you believed him?”
“He has my brother.”
The words came out broken.
Sarah explained that her younger brother, Owen, had borrowed money from men connected to one of Matteo’s gambling clubs.
The debt had tripled in six weeks.
When Sarah could not pay, Matteo offered to erase it in exchange for a simple favor.
He told her Luca was using the hotel to conceal financial records.
He said the burner phone would copy information from the suite’s network.
He claimed no one would be harmed.
“Then why get me drunk?” I asked.
Sarah looked down.
“He needed someone who could be blamed if anything went wrong.”
The answer hurt more than an excuse would have.
She had known exactly what part I played.
Maybe not assassin.
Maybe not corpse.
But scapegoat was bad enough.
“You chose me because no one would come looking,” I said.
“No.
Elena, I chose you because—”
“Because I trusted you.”
Sarah had no reply.
Mara placed the red ledger on the table.
“We can discuss motives later.
Matteo controls an unknown number of armed men and at least one secondary security system.”
Luca broke the wax seal.
The ledger contained transaction records, names, dates, and coded references to shipments and bank accounts.
Several pages bore Luca’s signature.
He turned them beneath the light.
“Forged,” he said.
Mara examined one.
“Good enough to survive the first look.”
“He plans to give this to the authorities,” Sarah said.
“After he kills you.”
Luca’s expression remained calm.
“Then I die a criminal who was murdered by one of his own employees.
Matteo becomes the grieving cousin who restores order.”
“And Elena becomes the woman who let the killers into your room,” Mara added.
I looked at the suite map that had been pulled from my apron.
The marked security panel was beside the private elevator.
A handwritten symbol had been drawn next to it: a small triangle inside a circle.
I had seen that symbol before.
“Wait.”
Everyone turned toward me.
I picked up the map.
“This mark was on one of the catering crates downstairs.
A gray case delivered after the gala started.”
Mara stepped closer.
“Where?”
“Behind the service bar.
A man told us it contained replacement glassware, but it was too heavy.
Sarah and I had to use a trolley.”
Sarah’s face went pale.
“Matteo’s man moved it after you left.”
“What was his name?” Mara asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“He wore a waiter’s jacket, but he wasn’t part of our crew.
Gray cuff links.
One had a scratch across it.”
Mara spoke into her radio.
“Search the service bar and storage corridor for an unauthorized gray transport case.
Assume weapons or control equipment.”
Static answered her.
Then a man screamed.
The radio went dead.
Luca crossed to the wall panel and entered a code.
Nothing happened.
