Chapter 8 - Thomas Hart’s Last Audit
Morning came without sleep.
The ballroom reopened for police work, but the Grandeur remained closed to guests.
Lena sat alone at table twenty-seven with her father’s ledger.
She traced the indentation of his handwriting.
Thomas had pressed hard whenever he was angry.
Victor approached carrying two coffees.
“I don’t know how you take it.”
“Black.”
He handed her one.
She tasted it.
“Too expensive.”
“It was free.”
“You own part of the hotel.”
“Exactly.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
Then it disappeared.
“I keep thinking about the night he came home after you fired him.”
Victor sat opposite her.
Lena continued.
“He didn’t yell. That would have been easier. He sat at the kitchen table and removed his watch. He said, ‘They decided what happened before I entered the room.’”
Victor looked at the ledger.
“I remember that meeting.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What was he wearing?”
Victor blinked.
Lena’s anger sharpened.
“You remember the accusation. You remember Leon’s report. Do you remember the man?”
Victor looked down.
“No.”
“That’s what destroyed him.”
Her voice shook.
“He remembered every person who refused to look at him. You barely remembered his face.”
Victor accepted the blow.
“My father taught me that a leader cannot stop for every injury.”
“That sounds efficient.”
“It is.”
“And cruel.”
“Yes.”
Lena stared at him.
He was not behaving the way she expected a mafia boss to behave.
No threats.
No excuses.
That almost made her more uneasy.
Victor said, “I cannot change what I did to Thomas.”
“No.”
“But I can find the complete truth.”
“Why? Because Leon tried to kill you?”
“Partly.”
“At least you admit it.”
“And because Thomas deserved the hearing I denied him.”
Lena closed the ledger.
“My father would have hated you.”
“I know.”
“He also would have helped you.”
Victor looked surprised.
“He believed numbers should tell the truth even when people didn’t.”
Lena slid the ledger toward him.
“Start here.”
They spent three hours reconstructing Thomas’s audit.
The shell companies formed a pattern.
Meridian Consulting paid vendors.
Vendors paid real-estate partnerships.
Those partnerships financed debts belonging to people inside Romano Holdings.
Leon had built a parallel empire using Victor’s own money.
Then Lena noticed a repeated transaction.
$87,500.
Every three months.
For six years.
“To Bellrose Security.”
Dmitri joined them.
“That’s our electronic surveillance contractor.”
Lena looked at him.
“The company that maintains your cameras?”
“Yes.”
“The cameras failed last night.”
Dmitri swore.
Victor said, “Who owns Bellrose?”
“Public records say Adrian Bell.”
Lena flipped pages.
Thomas had drawn an arrow between Bellrose and Meridian.
Beside it he wrote:
SAME MAILBOX.
Dmitri immediately began searching.
Ten minutes later he looked up.
“Bellrose Security’s registered office is a commercial mail suite in Delaware.”
“Meridian?”
“Same suite.”
Victor sat back.
“Leon has controlled our security contractor for six years.”
Lena stared at him.
“So he didn’t break into your system last night.”
“No.”
“He built the system.”
Victor nodded.
The scale of it became horrifying.
Leon had not planned one assassination.
He had spent years constructing a world in which, whenever he finally acted, every camera would look away.
Dmitri’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then his expression turned grim.
“NYPD lab has preliminary results.”
Victor stood.
“The champagne?”
Dmitri nodded.
“A cyanide compound.”
Lena’s stomach twisted.
One swallow would likely have killed Victor before an ambulance arrived.
Dmitri continued.
“The syringe contained the same compound.”
Victor looked toward the ballroom.
“Fingerprints?”
“They found one partial.”
“Leon?”
Dmitri hesitated.
“No.”
Lena’s skin prickled.
“Whose?”
Dmitri looked at her.
“Yours.”
The world went silent.
“That’s impossible.”
Victor’s expression changed.
Dmitri handed him the report.
Lena stared at the paper.
Somebody had placed her fingerprint on the murder weapon.
Leon had not merely been watching her.
He had prepared her.
If the punch had failed, Victor would be dead.
If it succeeded, Lena Hart would become the perfect suspect.
A poor maid.
The daughter of a disgraced employee.
Standing over the poisoned glass.
Victor folded the report.
“Leon expected her to interfere.”
Lena’s blood went cold.
“How?”
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Victor looked at her father’s ledger.
“Because he knew exactly what kind of daughter Thomas Hart raised.”
