Chương 10
“I believed Renata,” she said. “Not about the watch. Before that. I believed when she said payroll errors took time. I believed when she said I should be grateful she let Emma sit downstairs. I believed this house was safe because dangerous people protected it.”
Her laugh was barely audible.
“That was stupid.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
“You don’t have to make me feel better.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence. The refrigerator compressor started. Somewhere in the pantry, ice dropped into a machine with a hollow clatter.
Clara looked down at Pino. “Why is he like this with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much tonight.”
“No.”
It was the first answer that seemed to satisfy her.
Mara returned with a preliminary finding at three ten. The flash drive contained payroll records, internal emails, and security documents. Some were authentic. Others had been altered to implicate Dominic and Clara.
One file was a scanned agreement showing Clara accepting payments from an outside investigator. Her signature was forged from a tax form.
Another listed Dominic’s access credentials beside dates when confidential information had leaked. The dates were real. The activity logs were not.
The drive also contained records Arthur had not intended investigators to find: transfers to three shell vendors and copies of messages with someone identified only as R.
“What does R say?” Lorenzo asked.
Mara consulted her notes. “Mostly instructions. Adjust labor. Delay audit. Remove Whitmore. The messages go back eight months.”
“Phone number?”
“Masked through an encrypted service.”
“Payment trail?”
“Still working.”
“Renata?”
“The style doesn’t match her known messages, and some instructions were sent while she was physically with staff. That is not definitive.”
“Arthur’s wife?”
“No evidence.”
“Someone in my businesses?”
“Almost certainly.”
Clara listened from the table.
Lorenzo had not invited her into the conversation, but telling her to leave would have repeated the pattern that created the night.
Mara looked at her. “You may be entitled to recover unpaid wages, statutory penalties, and other damages. My employment colleague will give you independent referrals. Do not use a lawyer selected by Mr. Duca.”
Lorenzo said, “I’m sitting here.”
“That saves time.”
Clara rubbed her eyes. “What happens to my job?”
“No employment decision should be made tonight,” Mara said.
“I don’t want to come back.”
Lorenzo felt something shift in the room.
Clara’s gaze remained on Emma. “I can’t clean rooms upstairs knowing people downstairs were stealing from us. I can’t hide my daughter beside dryers and call it a favor. And I can’t work for someone who locks gates when he’s angry.”
“I opened them,” Lorenzo said.
“After a lawyer told you.”
Mara looked almost pleased. Lorenzo disliked her for it.
Clara continued. “I don’t want revenge. I want what I’m owed. I want the forged paper destroyed. I want a letter that says I didn’t steal. And I want my home address removed from every file Arthur could reach.”
“You’ll have all of that.”
“Put it in writing.”
“I will.”
“No threats against Renata.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“She did this,” Clara said. “Whatever reason she had, she did it. But Emma doesn’t need to grow up hearing that someone disappeared because of us.”
“People do not disappear because of me.”
Mara lowered her eyes to the folder.
Clara did not.
Lorenzo felt anger, embarrassment, and a reluctant respect arrive together. “Renata will face the consequences of what she chose. Through counsel and the authorities.”
Clara watched him for several seconds. “Put that in writing too.”
By dawn, the rain had stopped.
Clara and Emma left for the hotel in a car arranged by Mara’s office. Pino followed them to the east gate and refused to return until the vehicle disappeared down the road. Lorenzo stood beside him in the wet gravel, jacket open, shirt wrinkled, the silver watch on his wrist showing six eighteen.
It was not his mother’s watch. He had worn this one for years and rarely looked at it except to measure other people’s lateness.
Pino sat.
“You’re becoming difficult,” Lorenzo said.
The dog yawned.
Inside, employees had begun sending messages. Some asked whether work was canceled. Some demanded confirmation that the gates would never again be locked during a staff dispute. Three resigned. Six reported missing wages. Nisha sent a photograph of her son eating cereal and wrote: HE THINKS I WORK IN A MURDER CASTLE NOW. PLEASE ISSUE BORING STATEMENT.
Lorenzo read the message twice.
He called Mara.
“I want every employee paid for the full day, including the ones who left.”
“That is sensible.”
“I also want an external payroll audit across every Duca property.”
“That will be expensive.”
“I’m aware.”
“And potentially incriminating.”
“I’m aware.”
“You use that phrase when you have not accepted the consequence.”
“Prepare the audit.”
Mara was silent for a moment. “All properties?”
He understood the question.
The household payroll fraud might be isolated. Arthur, however, had managed vendors and labor systems across hotels, warehouses, offices, and construction sites. An honest audit could uncover theft against Lorenzo. It could also uncover theft committed for him.
His father had built parts of the business through cash labor, false invoices, coercive contracts, and arrangements designed to survive only while nobody examined them together. Lorenzo had modernized much of it, cleaned some divisions, sold others, and preserved certain useful shadows. He knew enough to understand that opening every ledger was not a housekeeping decision.
“All properties,” he said.
Mara exhaled. “I’ll document that instruction.”
“Of course you will.”
“That is why you called me.”
After the line went dead, Lorenzo remained at the gate with Pino.
The white flowers along the path had been battered by rain. A groundskeeper named Emil came out carrying a broom and began gathering broken petals from the drains. He looked at Lorenzo, considered leaving, then continued working.
“Bad night?” Emil asked.
“Yes.”
“My wife says bad houses make good gardens.”
“What does that mean?”
May you like
“No idea. She says things while half asleep.”
Lorenzo looked at the mud on his shoes.
