Chapter 4 - The Service Corridor
By midnight the gala guests were released in groups.
Lena was not.
Detective Ruiz wanted her statement completed.
Victor wanted her protected.
Lena wanted answers.
Dmitri escorted her through the east service corridor.
The hallway looked completely ordinary.
Fluorescent lights.
Gray doors.
Stacks of folded tablecloths.
A dented beverage cart.
Yet every ordinary object now felt like evidence.
“Show me exactly where Mercer stood,” Dmitri said.
Lena stopped beside the linen closet.
“Here.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Dmitri opened the door.
Nothing unusual appeared inside.
Shelves.
Towels.
Uniform jackets.
Industrial detergent.
Victor joined them.
His split lip had stopped bleeding.
“You should see a doctor,” Lena said.
“You hit less effectively than you think.”
“You’re welcome.”
Dmitri made a sound suspiciously close to a cough hiding laughter.
Victor looked at him.
Dmitri became stone-faced.
Lena crouched near the bottom shelf.
“Something’s wrong.”
Dmitri reached for his weapon.
“With the towels?”
“No.”
She pointed at the floor.
“Housekeeping cleans this closet twice a day. There shouldn’t be dust around only one tile.”
Dmitri knelt.
One corner of a floor tile was slightly raised.
He used a pocketknife.
Underneath was a narrow maintenance cavity.
Inside lay a disposable syringe sealed in a plastic sleeve.
Victor’s expression became deadly.
“Don’t touch it.”
Dmitri called Ruiz.
Lena stared.
“This was here the whole time.”
“Possibly,” Victor said.
“Leon hid it?”
“Possibly.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Survival encourages precision.”
She stood.
“My father used to say certainty was expensive.”
Victor looked at her sharply.
“I remember.”
Lena froze.
“You remember him saying that?”
Victor’s eyes lowered.
“He said it to me once.”
“When?”
“Before I fired him.”
Anger rose so quickly she nearly slapped him.
Victor did not move.
“Do it if you need to.”
“I already punched you once.”
“That was medically useful.”
“This wouldn’t be.”
They stared at one another.
Lena forced herself to step back.
“What happened?”
Victor leaned against the wall.
“Eight years ago the hotel’s renovation account was missing six hundred thousand dollars. Leon produced records showing transfers authorized by your father.”
“He said the signatures were forged.”
“He did.”
“And nobody listened.”
“I didn’t.”
At least Victor did not soften it.
Lena hated that honesty made him harder to hate.
“Why?”
“My father had suffered a stroke. Two captains were fighting over territory. The federal government was examining three companies. I wanted the hotel problem gone.”
“So Leon handed you a villain.”
“And I accepted one.”
Dmitri looked away.
Victor continued.
“Your father requested a meeting with me. I gave him six minutes.”
Lena’s eyes burned.
“He talked about that meeting until the day he died.”
Victor’s face tightened.
“What did he say?”
“That Victor Romano looked at him like an inconvenience.”
Victor absorbed the words.
“He was correct.”
Lena did not expect him to admit it.
Before she could respond, Detective Ruiz arrived with a crime-scene technician.
The syringe was photographed, bagged, and labeled.
The technician noticed something.
“There’s writing on the wrapper.”
He turned it beneath the light.
A pharmacy inventory number.
Ruiz photographed it.
“Hospital supply?”
“No,” Lena said.
Everyone looked at her.
“I recognize the format. My mother’s pharmacy uses similar inventory labels.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Your mother?”
“She’s a pharmacy technician.”
Ruiz looked concerned.
“Where does she work?”
Lena told her.
Ruiz immediately made a call.
Five minutes later, her face changed.
“The inventory number belongs to a box reported missing yesterday from Hartwell Community Pharmacy.”
Lena felt the floor shift beneath her.
“That’s my mother’s store.”
Victor straightened.
“Someone is framing her.”
“Or you,” Ruiz said.
Lena shook her head.
“My mother doesn’t have access to anything like poison.”
“Maybe not. But somebody wants the trail to begin at her workplace.”
Dmitri’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“Lena.”
Her blood went cold.
“What?”
“Your mother’s apartment alarm just activated.”
“My mother is home.”
Lena was already running.
Victor caught her arm.
“Let me go.”
“Dmitri, car.”
“My mother—”
“We’re going.”
Lena looked at him.
Victor’s voice dropped.
“If Leon has been watching you for six weeks, he knows where she lives.”
For the first time since she had punched him, Lena wished Victor Romano looked more frightened.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
Instead he looked furious.
That was worse.
