Chapter 8
I found Diane.
Not because she was hiding.
Because nobody had asked the right people where she went.
She was staying with her sister forty minutes away.
When she returned to the estate, she looked terrified of Vanessa.
That told me enough to keep Vanessa in another room.
Diane sat across from me with both hands wrapped around untouched coffee.
“You fired me.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“Mrs. Bellandi said you did.”
Of course.
“Why?”
“Because I told her I was going to speak to you.”
“About Luca?”
She nodded.
“And?”
Diane swallowed.
“About the hotel.”
There it was.
She had followed Vanessa once after an argument.
Not far.
Just long enough to see her enter the Marlowe with Grant and Carlo.
Two other capos arrived later.
Diane did not know what they discussed.
She did hear Vanessa say one thing outside the elevator.
“Once Massimo starts choosing the baby over command in public, the rest gets easier.”
My jaw tightened.
Diane continued.
“She saw me.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing that night.”
That was almost worse.
“The next morning she said you thought I was stealing.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Diane looked at me.
“I believed her because you never spoke to me directly.”
There it was.
The easiest weakness in the house.
People could use my name because I had built a system where most staff rarely heard my decisions from me.
Grant exploited command.
Vanessa exploited distance.
I looked at Diane.
“I did not fire you.”
Her eyes filled.
That mattered to her.
Then she added something none of us expected.
“Grant said the baby wasn’t the end of the plan.”
I stared.
“What was?”
May you like
She looked toward the family photograph from the hotel drawer.
“He said once the house learned to function around Vanessa, it wouldn’t need you either.”
