Chapter 2 - Someone Inside the Family
Giulietta spun toward the corridor.
“Doors closed. Elevators locked. Nobody leaves this floor.”
Her men moved at once.
A waiter trapped near the linen closet raised both hands. A bridesmaid began crying. Enzo waved them toward a secured conference room while two soldiers blocked the stairwell.
Preston pushed himself upright.
“You’re going to imprison one hundred wedding guests?”
Giulietta did not look at him.
“If I have to.”
She took the burner phone and walked into the hall.
“Every man on my detail gives Enzo his phone. Right now.”
A few eyebrows tightened.
No one refused.
One by one, phones landed on a silver catering tray.
Giulietta watched hands instead of faces.
A trembling thumb told more truth than a steady voice ever could.
At the far end of the corridor, an elevator chimed despite the lockdown.
Three guns appeared from jackets.
The doors opened.
Matteo Marconi stepped out alone.
Gray suit. Black tie. Silver hair brushed back exactly as it had been at every funeral, christening, sit-down, and family war Giulietta could remember.
His eyes went straight to her cheek.
“What happened?”
“Preston happened.”
Matteo looked through the suite door at the Hale men.
His face hardened.
Then he asked, “Did Preston get you to sign anything?”
Giulietta heard the question land.
Not Are you hurt?
Not Where is the doctor?
Not Who let them in?
“Why would he need me to sign something?” she asked.
Matteo’s stare held hers.
“Because men like Warren never walk into a locked room without paperwork waiting somewhere.”
Reasonable.
Too reasonable.
Enzo approached with another tablet.
“We found the lock event.”
He tapped the screen.
“Bridal suite override happened thirty-seven minutes before Preston entered.”
Giulietta read the log.
“Marconi credential?”
“Administrative.”
Matteo stepped closer. “Whose?”
Enzo did not answer immediately.
A champagne cork popped somewhere behind a closed ballroom door, absurdly loud in the silence.
Giulietta looked at him.
“Say it.”
Enzo rotated the tablet.
The authorization line carried a full name.
VINCENT MARCONI.
Giulietta’s fingertips went cold against the glass.
Matteo’s eyes narrowed.
“That account was shut down.”
“It should have been,” Enzo said.
Giulietta stared at her father’s name.
Six years dead.
Six years buried under white marble in Queens.
She had stood beside Matteo when they lowered the coffin.
Enzo scrolled.
“The account didn’t just unlock the suite. It accessed the camera routing system, guest manifest, and service-elevator controls.”
“When?” Giulietta asked.
“Starting three months ago.”
Matteo swore under his breath.
Giulietta looked up.
“Who can reactivate a dead administrator?”
Enzo hesitated.
“Root-level access.”
“How many people?”
“Originally three.”
Giulietta already knew the answer.
She said it anyway.
“My father.”
Enzo nodded.
“You.”
Another nod.
“And Matteo.”
The corridor seemed to shrink.
Matteo’s nostrils flared.
“You think I used Vincent’s name?”
“I think somebody did.”
Matteo stepped closer until only a foot separated them.
“I changed your diapers.”
“You also taught me not to trust sentiment when facts are ugly.”
His mouth tightened.
Then one of the confiscated phones began ringing on the silver tray.
Every head turned.
It belonged to Rocco DeSantis, a captain who had served Vincent for twenty-three years.
Rocco lifted both hands.
“I don’t know who’s calling.”
Enzo checked the screen.
Blocked number.
Giulietta answered on speaker.
Static.
Then a distorted male voice said one sentence.
“The dead man opened the door.”
The call ended.
Giulietta looked at Matteo.
For the first time, her uncle looked genuinely unsettled.
Or he was very good.
Giulietta returned her eyes to the tablet.
Her father’s dead account had not only opened the bridal suite.
It had opened something else at 6:12 that morning.
A secure archive beneath Marconi headquarters.
The archive had one label.
May you like
ARTICLE VII.
