Chapter 3 - Inside the Perry Empire
On Nevaeh's first morning at Perry Continental, nobody threw anything at her.
She considered that progress.
Her temporary office sat twenty feet from Leandro's.
Temporary, apparently, meant larger than her apartment.
A woman named Camille Reyes met her at reception.
Chief of Staff.
Forty-two. Severe ponytail. Navy suit. Expression suggesting she had personally fired inefficiency from her vocabulary.
“So you're Nevaeh.”
“That sounds loaded.”
“Everything here is loaded.”
Camille handed her a badge.
“Don't lose it.”
“What happens?”
“You get another.”
Nevaeh blinked.
Camille almost smiled.
“People expect drama in this building. I ration mine.”
Nevaeh liked her immediately.
The first week was paperwork.
The second was politics.
Executives who had spent twenty years navigating Perry Continental didn't know what to do with a twenty-six-year-old former waitress carrying Leandro's authorization.
Some were polite.
Too polite.
Others treated her like a temporary curiosity.
One vice president asked whether she'd ever been inside a distribution center.
Nevaeh asked whether he'd ever unloaded a truck.
He stopped talking.
Her first assignment was intentionally boring.
A Perry-owned hotel near O'Hare had reported declining guest satisfaction despite increased staffing.
Management blamed labor shortages.
Nevaeh arrived unannounced at 5:30 a.m.
By 8:00, she knew management was lying.
The hotel wasn't understaffed.
It was badly scheduled.
Housekeepers started after checkout demand peaked.
Maintenance requests were routed through three supervisors.
Front desk employees couldn't authorize basic compensation without manager approval.
Guests waited forty minutes for decisions that cost the hotel twenty dollars.
The general manager had recently installed a new scheduling platform.
Expensive.
Elegant.
Completely unsuited to actual workflow.
Nevaeh spent two days interviewing employees.
Not managers.
Employees.
A sixty-one-year-old housekeeper named Doris told her the truth.
“Everybody upstairs keeps adding systems to solve problems created by the last system.”
Nevaeh wrote that sentence down.
Her report was fourteen pages.
Leandro read it in nine minutes.
“You recommend removing the software.”
“Yes.”
“It cost us $780,000.”
“That doesn't make it useful.”
“You know who selected it?”
“No.”
“Daniel Roth.”
Nevaeh knew the name.
Chief Operating Officer.
Twenty-three years with the company.
“That's going to be awkward.”
“For you?”
“For Daniel.”
Leandro looked at her.
Then smiled.
The software was removed within a month.
Guest complaints dropped nineteen percent over the following quarter.
Overtime fell.
Nobody publicly credited Nevaeh.
Leandro didn't need to.
People inside Perry Continental noticed.
That created a new problem.
Respect.
And resentment.
By month three, Nevaeh had reviewed five operations.
A hotel.
Two restaurants.
A logistics hub.
A commercial property management division.
She found waste everywhere.
Not criminal waste.
Normal waste.
The expensive kind created by people who didn't ask questions because the answers might offend someone above them.
She loved the work.
That scared her.
For the first time since her mother became ill, mornings didn't feel like something she had to survive.
Her debt fell too.
Slowly.
She refused Leandro's suggestion to use an employee financial hardship fund.
“No.”
“It's available.”
“To employees in hardship.”
“You qualify.”
“I have a salary now.”
“You still have debt.”
“So do millions of people.”
He looked annoyed.
She enjoyed that.
Their arguments became routine.
Sometimes he won.
Sometimes she did.
The first time she told him his proposed consolidation plan was “a beautiful spreadsheet attached to a terrible idea,” Camille nearly choked on coffee.
Leandro simply asked, “Why?”
Nevaeh showed him.
Three hours later, he canceled it.
That was the moment the executive floor stopped treating her like a waitress Leandro had rescued.
Stella noticed.
She appeared one Thursday afternoon wearing cream trousers and sunglasses large enough to conceal half her face.
Nevaeh was leaving a meeting.
Stella blocked the hallway.
“Enjoying my family's money?”
Nevaeh glanced at her watch.
“Directly or indirectly?”
“Cute.”
“I've been told.”
“You think because he gave you a badge, you belong here?”
Nevaeh looked around.
“Security keeps letting me in.”
Stella stepped closer.
“You're temporary.”
“So is everyone.”
For a second, Stella seemed caught off guard.
Then her smile returned.
“My brother gets bored.”
“I'm his employee, Stella.”
“Sure.”
The implication was obvious.
Nevaeh felt anger rise.
She controlled it.
“Whatever story you need to tell yourself.”
“You think you're special.”
“No.”
Nevaeh moved around her.
“I think I'm busy.”
Stella watched her walk away.
That evening, she called Daniel Roth.
The COO answered on the third ring.
“What?”
“You don't like her.”
Daniel sighed.
“I'm not discussing employees with you.”
“You don't like her.”
“She embarrassed me over the O'Hare system.”
“So I was right.”
“Stella—”
“My brother trusts her.”
“That is not my problem.”
“It will be.”
Daniel almost hung up.
Then Stella said, “She'll review Central Hospitality next month.”
Silence.
That interested him.
Central Hospitality managed eleven of Perry's highest-margin restaurant and hotel properties.
Daniel had personally overseen its restructuring.
“What about it?”
“She's already asking for vendor files.”
Daniel sat straighter.
“Who told you?”
Stella smiled.
People always told her things.
That was another form of borrowed power.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She ended the call.
A week later, Nevaeh found the first discrepancy.
It was small.
$18,400.
A consulting invoice.
Then another.
$22,100.
Different vendor name.
Same mailing address.
She checked twelve months.
$437,000.
That was no longer small.
Nevaeh brought it to Camille.
“You seen this?”
Camille studied the pages.
“No.”
“Who approves vendor onboarding?”
“Central Hospitality procurement.”
“And final?”
“Daniel's division.”
Nevaeh sat back.
“Could be sloppy controls.”
“Could be.”
“You don't believe that.”
“I don't believe anything until we can prove it.”
Nevaeh nodded.
Her old training returned.
Trace.
Verify.
Don't accuse.
She requested vendor agreements.
Two were missing.
A third contained an electronic signature belonging to an employee who had left the company four months before the contract date.
Nevaeh stared at the screen.
“That's impossible.”
Camille leaned closer.
“Unless someone reused credentials.”
Nevaeh's stomach tightened.
This wasn't scheduling software anymore.
This was potentially fraud.
“Tell Leandro?”
“Not yet.”
Camille looked surprised.
“We need facts.”
“You're learning.”
“I already knew that.”
Camille smiled.
“Now you're learning it with lawyers nearby.”
For the next ten days, Nevaeh worked late.
She skipped dinners.
Leandro noticed.
“Go home.”
“I'm working.”
“At eleven?”
“You're here.”
“I own stock.”
“That doesn't make insomnia healthy.”
“Neither does hospital debt.”
The words slipped out.
Nevaeh immediately regretted them.
Leandro paused.
“How much?”
She sighed.
“You really don't quit.”
“No.”
“Eighty-four thousand.”
His expression changed.
“Still?”
“Less now.”
“How much less?”
“None of your business.”
“Nevaeh.”
“Leandro.”
He almost smiled.
“Fine.”
She closed her laptop.
Then stopped.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel Roth. Do you trust him?”
Leandro's face became unreadable.
“Why?”
“Do you?”
“He's been with my father since I was seventeen.”
“That's not an answer.”
“Yes.”
Nevaeh absorbed that.
Leandro noticed.
“What did you find?”
“Not enough yet.”
“If you're asking me about my COO, it's enough to mention.”
She considered it.
Then shook her head.
“Give me forty-eight hours.”
“Twenty-four.”
“Thirty-six.”
He smiled.
“You've used that before.”
“It worked.”
“Thirty-six.”
Nevaeh left.
The next morning, someone accessed her investigation folder.
At 3:17 a.m.
Using her credentials.
Camille called her at seven.
“Did you log in overnight?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I was asleep.”
“Can anyone access your laptop?”
“No.”
“Your password?”
“No.”
Camille turned her monitor.
The audit log was clear.
User: NBROWN
Files opened.
Downloaded.
Then deleted.
Nevaeh's pulse quickened.
“What was downloaded?”
“The vendor analysis.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Camille clicked.
A confidential acquisition memo.
Nevaeh stared.
“I've never seen that.”
“I know.”
“Why is it showing under my account?”
Camille didn't answer.
At 7:22, Leandro entered.
His face told Nevaeh he already knew.
“Office.”
She followed him.
Inside, he closed the door.
“Legal received an external inquiry this morning.”
“About what?”
“The acquisition memo accessed under your credentials.”
“I didn't access it.”
“I know what you're saying.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What you're saying?”
Leandro placed a printed email on the desk.
A journalist had received selected details about the confidential acquisition.
The leak contained language copied directly from the document downloaded under Nevaeh's account.
Her stomach dropped.
“This is a setup.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“I don't make decisions based on what I want to believe.”
She stared at him.
Three months.
Three months of building trust.
Gone in one word.
Possibly.
“Then investigate.”
“We are.”
“Good.”
Leandro hesitated.
“Until then, your system access is suspended.”
Nevaeh felt something inside her crack.
Not because it was unreasonable.
Because she understood it.
And understanding didn't make it hurt less.
“So that's it?”
“No.”
“It feels like it.”
“Nevaeh—”
“Don't.”
She removed her badge.
Placed it on his desk.
His eyes dropped to it.
“I didn't ask for that.”
“You suspended my access.”
“Not your employment.”
“Difference feels pretty theoretical right now.”
She walked out.
Camille watched from her office but didn't stop her.
Neither did Leandro.
Nevaeh rode the elevator alone.
Thirty-eight floors.
By the time she reached the lobby, anger had replaced humiliation.
Someone had used her credentials.
Someone had chosen documents carefully.
Someone wanted the leak connected to her.
And whoever it was had made one mistake.
They assumed Nevaeh would spend her time defending herself.
She wouldn't.
May you like
She was going to find out who needed her gone.
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