Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Security Footage
By sunrise, Lena’s employee badge no longer opened the staff entrance.
She stood under the Black Pelican’s striped awning while delivery trucks splashed through puddles. A security officer she had known for three years refused to meet her eyes.
“Management says you’re on administrative leave.”
“For dropping towels?”
“I don’t make the decisions.”
Her phone buzzed. A message from the dialysis clinic reminded her that her father’s balance was overdue. Lena stared at the number until the digits blurred. She had spent all night wondering whether Dante had really moved his foot. Now she wondered whether a single accident had cost her the only job that kept her father alive.
A black sedan pulled up at the curb. Marco climbed out.
“Mr. Vale asked me to bring you upstairs.”
“I’m not allowed inside.”
“Neither is Dr. Soren.”
Marco held the rear door open. Lena did not get in immediately.
“Did Mr. Vale send you, or did someone tell you to say that?”
For the first time, Marco looked impressed. He showed her a brief text on his secured phone. Dante’s message contained two words: Bring Lena.
She climbed in.
Upstairs, the suite had changed. The medical cart was gone, the curtains open, and two unfamiliar guards stood outside. Dante sat at a desk overlooking the river. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and he looked like a man who had slept for only minutes.
“You’ve been suspended,” he said.
“Apparently.”
“I did not authorize it.”
“I figured.”
He studied her. “You’re angry.”
“I’m scared. Anger comes later.”
Dante pushed a folder toward her. Inside was a still image from a hallway camera, taken shortly before the blackout. A woman in a dark coat was entering the private floor with a service key. Her face was hidden beneath a cap, but the distinctive gold clasp on her handbag caught the camera’s light.
Lena recognized the clasp immediately.
“Celeste owns that bag,” she said.
“Are you certain?”
“I polished the brass stand in her dressing room last week. She complained that the clasp scratched it.”
Dante nodded. “The camera feed went dark forty seconds after this frame.”
“Why would she sneak around? She lives here.”
“That is what I intend to learn.”
Marco entered carrying a laptop. “We recovered footage from a maintenance camera. Someone used the service corridor to reach the medical storage room.”
The image showed a slim figure passing a small case to Dr. Soren. The doctor slipped it into his coat. They spoke briefly, then separated.
“Can you hear them?” Dante asked.
“No audio.”
Lena looked at the timestamp. “That’s after Celeste told everyone she was at a charity dinner.”
Dante’s expression hardened. “And two hours before the power failed.”
He reached for a cup of coffee, then paused. “Lena, I need your help identifying what happens on this floor. Not because you owe me anything. Because you see things my people ignore.”
“I’m a housekeeper.”
“Which means you know which doors stick, who lies about being in a room, and what gets thrown away before dawn.”
She almost smiled. “You make cleaning sound like intelligence work.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Then his gaze shifted to the envelope in her hand. She had forgotten she was holding the clinic’s bill.
“Your father?”
Lena tucked it away. “He’s fine.”
“Lena.”
“He’s sick,” she corrected. “That’s different.”
Dante did not offer pity. Instead, he asked if her father was receiving consistent treatment. When she explained the transportation problems, he suggested a hospital liaison who could help arrange appointments. She refused his first offer to cover the costs.
“I’m not something you can buy,” she said.
“I wasn’t trying to buy you.”
“People with money don’t always know the difference.”
Dante was silent for a moment. “Then let me make a different offer. A paid position helping my security team review service-floor procedures. You can refuse. You can leave whenever you want.”
“Why me?”
“Because last night you questioned a doctor everyone else obeyed.”
She looked at the folder again. “And because I noticed a handbag?”
“That too.”
Lena accepted a temporary contract with written duties and pay. She insisted on keeping her own apartment and her own bank account. Dante agreed without negotiation. She had expected a king to be offended by boundaries. Instead, he seemed relieved to hear them spoken clearly.
By afternoon, they found the first break in the story. A storage log showed that Dante’s injections had been delivered not from the hospital pharmacy but from a private supplier linked to a Bellini family foundation. The paperwork described the contents as an experimental nerve-stabilizing treatment. There was no signed independent review.
Marco frowned. “The foundation has supplied it for six years.”
“Six years,” Dante repeated. “The explosion happened seven years ago.”
Lena pointed to a line at the bottom of the page. “What happened during the first year?”
Dante’s jaw tightened. “I was in rehabilitation. I had movement in my toes. Then I got worse.”
Nobody spoke.
A knock interrupted them. The guard outside handed Marco a small package found in Lena’s old locker. Inside lay a cheap burner phone and a note written in block letters.
STOP ASKING ABOUT THE MEDICINE.
Lena felt her stomach drop.
Dante reached for the note, then stopped before touching it. “Bag it. Preserve the fingerprints.”
Marco left with the evidence. Lena stood very still.
“Whoever sent that knows where I work.”
“Yes.”
“And where I keep my things.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the elevator. “Then they may know where my father is.”
Dante’s phone rang before he could answer. He listened for five seconds, and the color drained from his face.
“What happened?” Lena whispered.
He ended the call.
“The clinic’s transport van was forced off the road.”
May you like
Her knees nearly gave way.
“Your father was supposed to be inside.”
