Chapter 3
Julian’s authority turned out to be mostly imaginary.
That made it more dangerous.
He had no employment agreement with the charity.
No club-management contract.
No board seat.
No written power to discipline workers.
What he had was something easier.
Permission.
Staff members said Adrian regularly brought Julian into planning meetings and introduced him as “family.”
That single word did most of the work.
Julian reviewed seating charts.
Approved contractor passes.
Moved workers between shifts.
Removed one bartender after she refused to serve an obviously intoxicated donor.
When the bartender complained, Julian told her:
“You want to keep working Moretti events, learn who matters.”
Eleanor read the statement twice.
“Did Adrian know?”
The investigator answered carefully.
“We don’t know yet.”
The next witness was Rosa Alvarez.
She was thirty-one and had worked banquet service across Chicago for more than a decade.
She recognized Eleanor immediately when she arrived for the interview.
Not as a server.
As the woman from the ballroom.
“I’m sorry about your daughter.”
“Thank you.”
Rosa looked uncomfortable.
Eleanor noticed.
“You don’t need to apologize to me for anything else.”
“I knew you weren’t staff.”
That surprised Eleanor.
“How?”
“Your shoes.”
Eleanor looked down.
Rosa almost smiled.
“No banquet worker wears shoes that expensive on marble for seven hours.”
Despite herself, Eleanor laughed.
It broke the tension.
Then Rosa became serious.
“Julian takes money.”
“What kind?”
“Cash from temporary workers who want preferred shifts.”
“Directly?”
“Sometimes through crew leads.”
“How much?”
“Fifty. A hundred. Depends on the event.”
“Who receives it?”
Rosa shook her head.
“I don’t know where it goes after that.”
“Did you complain?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“Mr. Moretti’s office.”
“Adrian?”
“His assistant.”
“What happened?”
“I stopped getting good shifts.”
There was the first financial connection to Adrian’s chain.
Still not proof of Adrian himself.
Rosa also remembered Genevieve visiting service areas.
“She treated workers like furniture.”
“Did she ever hit anyone?”
“No.”
“Threaten them?”
“She’d say things.”
“What things?”
“That once she married Adrian, half the people in those rooms would work for her.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed.
Genevieve apparently believed Adrian would become significantly more powerful after their marriage.
Why?
Adrian already held one of the highest public executive positions in the organization.
Marriage should not have changed his authority.
May you like
Unless somebody had told Genevieve it would.
The distinction stayed with Eleanor.
