Chapter 1 - The Wedding Door
Giulietta stepped over the golf club and pointed at Preston.
“Take his watch. His phone. His cuff links. Anything that can transmit.”
Two Marconi men moved before Warren Hale could object. Preston tried to rise from the sofa, got one foot under him, and immediately found a forearm across his chest.
“Touch me again and this becomes a war,” Preston snapped.
Giulietta wiped a thin line of blood from her lower lip with her thumb.
“You brought a golf club into my bridal suite.”
Her gaze dropped to the weapon on the carpet.
“You started the war early.”
Outside the open door, the corridor was packed shoulder to shoulder with men in black suits. None of them spoke. Several hotel employees had already disappeared behind locked service doors.
Warren lifted both hands.
“My son made a mistake.”
“No.” Giulietta turned toward him. “A mistake is ordering the wrong wine. He locked the door and swung steel at my head.”
Preston laughed once through a split lip.
“You think your soldiers make you untouchable?”
Giulietta looked at Enzo Bellini, her security chief.
“Cameras.”
Enzo pressed two fingers to his earpiece. “Already checking.”
Warren’s mouth twitched.
That was enough.
Giulietta saw it.
“You know what they’ll find?” she asked.
Warren smoothed his jacket. “I know what everyone will find. Preston entering this room. You attacking him. Your people storming a hotel on a wedding morning.”
Giulietta took one step closer.
“And the part where he tried to break my ribs?”
“Cameras don’t record feelings.”
Enzo’s voice cut in.
“Boss.”
Giulietta turned.
He held out a tablet.
The camera timeline outside the bridal suite showed a clean feed, then a twenty-two-minute black gap, then the Marconi men filling the corridor.
“No footage inside the gap?” she asked.
“Not deleted. Replaced with dead signal.”
Preston leaned back against the sofa, breathing harder than he wanted anyone to notice.
Warren smiled.
“Looks unfortunate.”
Giulietta’s eyes moved to the brass hotel master key in his hand.
“Where did you get that?”
Warren closed his fingers around it.
“Front desk.”
“No.” Enzo was already shaking his head. “Every master key issued this morning was logged. That one isn’t on the list.”
Giulietta held out her hand.
Warren did not move.
A Marconi soldier stepped behind him.
Warren dropped the key into Giulietta’s palm.
It was warm from his grip.
A clear plastic sleeve covered the key card. Near the lower corner, written in black marker, was a single letter.
M.
Giulietta rubbed it with her thumb.
Fresh ink did not smear.
“Who gave this to you?”
Warren glanced toward Preston.
Preston’s jaw worked.
Then a phone began vibrating on the floor beneath the vanity.
Everyone froze.
It was not Giulietta’s.
Enzo crouched and pulled out a burner phone.
The screen showed one new message.
ROOM SECURED?
No name. No number.
Giulietta held out her hand.
Enzo gave her the phone.
Preston’s face lost what little color he had left.
Giulietta noticed.
“So somebody expected you to lock me in.”
Preston stared at her.
“Answer me.”
He spat blood onto the carpet.
“You still think this is about marrying me?”
Giulietta grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him halfway off the sofa.
“What is it about?”
Preston’s eyes shifted past her shoulder.
Past Warren.
Past Enzo.
Toward the line of Marconi men outside the door.
Then he smiled.
“One of them already knows.”
Giulietta released him slowly.
No one in the corridor moved.
May you like
But one man stopped breathing.
