Chapter 2 - The Waitress in the Owner's Chair
Arthur Harrison arrived at the Grand Imperior at 8:58 the next morning believing he still owned it.
Bella almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
She sat behind his enormous walnut desk with both hands folded because Dante had told her trembling was less obvious when her fingers were interlocked.
Bella had immediately informed him she didn't take posture advice from criminals.
Then she'd followed it.
A silver-haired attorney named Eleanor Walsh stood near the window. Two accountants occupied the conference table. Marco waited near the door wearing his usual expression of professional disappointment with humanity.
Dante wasn't there.
Bella had insisted.
If she was going to walk into Harrison's office as the new owner, she wasn't doing it while Dante stood behind her like a puppeteer.
Harrison entered.
Stopped.
His gaze traveled from Bella to the attorney to Marco.
"What is this?"
Bella counted silently.
One.
Two.
Three.
"Good morning, Mr. Harrison."
His face darkened.
"Get out of my chair."
Eleanor handed him a document.
"Mr. Harrison, yesterday Castello Capital transferred its controlling position in Imperior Hospitality Holdings to Isabella Rossi."
Harrison didn't take the paper.
"Impossible."
"It has been registered."
He stared at Bella.
"You have no idea what you're doing."
"Finally, something we agree on."
Marco's mouth twitched.
Harrison crossed toward her.
Marco moved half a step.
Harrison stopped.
"You're his puppet."
"No."
"You expect me to believe Dante Castello handed a hotel to a waitress because he's generous?"
"I don't think anyone has ever accused Dante of being generous."
"Then why?"
Bella's fear tried to rise.
She crushed it.
"Maybe because you fired the wrong waitress."
Harrison's expression shifted.
There.
Bella saw it.
Fear.
Tiny.
But real.
She slid termination paperwork toward him.
"As the controlling owner, I'm ending your employment with the Grand Imperior."
His eyes widened.
"You cannot be serious."
"That's exactly what you told me when I begged you to reconsider."
"You are making an enemy you don't understand."
Bella leaned back.
"Get in line."
For several seconds, Harrison said nothing.
Then he smiled.
"Castello gave you a palace, Isabella."
His voice dropped.
"But ask yourself why a man like him gives away castles."
He walked toward the door.
Before leaving, he turned.
"Sometimes the prettiest gifts are coffins."
The door closed.
Bella waited five seconds.
Then ran to Harrison's private bathroom and threw up.
Marco politely pretended not to notice.
By afternoon, Bella had discovered two things.
First, owning a luxury hotel was mostly meetings about numbers she'd never imagined existed.
Second, Arthur Harrison had been a terrible employer.
Housekeeping workers made barely enough to survive while senior executives collected bonuses large enough to purchase apartments.
Complaints against Reynolds had repeatedly vanished.
Staff raises had been delayed for three years.
Bella stared at the payroll report.
"Increase the lowest wages."
Eleanor removed her glasses.
"Immediately?"
"Yes."
"By how much?"
Bella gave her a number.
Eleanor inhaled.
"That will affect annual operating costs."
Bella pointed toward a bronze sculpture in Harrison's office.
"How much is that ugly thing worth?"
"About eighty thousand."
"Great. Sell it."
Marco laughed aloud.
By evening, Bella reinstated two workers Harrison had dismissed after they complained about supervisors. She placed Reynolds under investigation. Then she moved her desk out of Harrison's office because the room made her feel like she should be plotting someone's bankruptcy.
Dante arrived after sunset.
He found Bella barefoot at a conference table surrounded by financial statements.
He glanced at her shoes on the floor.
"Very executive."
"My feet hurt."
"You own the building."
"My feet remain unimpressed."
He sat across from her.
Bella studied him.
He was sober now.
Completely controlled.
The man she'd helped that first night seemed almost fictional.
"What did you find?"
Dante placed a folder on the table.
"Harrison transferred money through six shell companies."
"To whom?"
"Finian Doyle."
Bella remembered the name on the laptop.
"Someone from your list."
"Yes."
"Who is he?"
Dante met her eyes.
"A man who has spent several years trying to dismantle everything my family controls."
Bella sat back.
"Rival Mafia?"
Dante looked mildly annoyed.
"You enjoy that word."
"It's efficient."
"He's a criminal."
"And you?"
His silence answered enough.
Bella pushed the folder away.
"Why would Harrison help him?"
"Debt. Leverage. Fear. Maybe all three."
"What kind of information did Harrison give him?"
Dante's expression changed.
"Routes. Financial accounts. Names."
"What kind of names?"
"Families."
Bella thought of Leo.
Her stomach tightened.
"Where is my brother?"
"Safe."
"I asked where."
Dante hesitated.
"A protected apartment."
Bella stood.
"You moved him?"
"He agreed."
"He's nineteen."
"Which means legally he can agree."
"Do not quote adulthood at me after putting bodyguards around my little brother."
Dante rose too.
"Someone photographed him."
"I know."
"So I removed the opportunity."
"You don't make decisions about my family."
"Keeping him alive isn't a decision I intend to debate."
Bella stared at him.
The room went quiet.
"That right there," she said. "That's the problem."
"What?"
"You think protecting somebody gives you authority over them."
Dante's jaw tightened.
Bella continued.
"I appreciate what you're doing. I do. But Leo isn't yours. I'm not yours. This hotel isn't yours anymore either."
For a moment, she wondered whether she'd gone too far.
Then Dante nodded once.
"Fair."
Bella blinked.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Could you say it again? I'd like to record it."
"No."
She smiled despite herself.
They searched Harrison's office that night.
Near midnight, Bella noticed worn leather on one decorative book.
Behind it she found a hidden switch.
A wall panel opened.
Safe.
Six-digit code.
Dante tried birthdays and business anniversaries.
Nothing.
Bella studied Harrison's portrait.
"He loves himself."
Dante glanced at her.
"That's your professional assessment?"
"He had four photographs of himself in his own office."
She searched his biography.
The date his first company opened unlocked the safe.
Inside were black notebooks, photographs and a flash drive.
Bella opened one ledger.
Numbers.
Initials.
Transfers.
Dante grew increasingly silent.
Then Bella found an old envelope.
Her name was written on it.
The paper was yellowed.
"This can't be mine."
Dante opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Bella recognized herself immediately.
Eleven years old.
Leo was little, probably four.
Their mother Maria stood behind them.
And beside Maria was Arthur Harrison.
Bella stared.
"My mother knew him."
Dante flipped the photograph over.
A note had been written there.
Maria Rossi knows where the original ledger is.
Find it before Castello does.
Bella's throat tightened.
"My mother died eight years ago."
Dante said nothing.
"Car accident."
Still nothing.
She looked at him.
"Why are you making that face?"
"What face?"
"The one where you know something terrible and don't want to say it."
"I don't know anything yet."
"Yet?"
Dante remained silent.
Bella's chest tightened.
"No."
She shook her head.
"No, don't do this."
"Bella—"
"It was an accident."
"I said I don't know."
"Then find out."
"I will."
"We."
He looked at her.
"We will find out."
Something shifted in his expression.
"All right."
They continued through the books.
Then Bella saw it.
Giovanni Rossi.
Her father's name.
Next to it:
CASTELLO ACCOUNTING.
Bella looked at Dante.
"My father worked for your family?"
"Apparently."
"You knew?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me."
"I was sixteen when he died."
"Your father knew him."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Bella's anger rose.
"You always don't know."
"Would you prefer I invent answers?"
"No. I'd prefer my dead parents stop appearing in Mafia bookkeeping."
Dante took the words without flinching.
A crash sounded somewhere below.
Marco entered immediately.
"Something's wrong."
The lights died.
Complete darkness swallowed Harrison's office.
Then came another sound.
Breaking glass.
Dante caught Bella's wrist.
"Down."
Smoke curled beneath the office door.
Marco checked his phone.
"Fire system isn't responding."
Bella stared at the gray ribbon thickening beneath the door.
"That's impossible. The backup alarm should've activated."
"It didn't."
Dante grabbed the ledgers.
A distant explosion shook the hallway.
Smoke rushed faster.
Bella suddenly understood.
The records archive was below them.
Harrison's office contained the hidden documents.
Someone wasn't setting fire to the Grand Imperior randomly.
They were burning evidence.
Evidence connected to Dante.
To Harrison.
To her father.
Maybe even to her mother's death.
Dante pulled Bella toward the exit.
She grabbed the old photograph before leaving.
Flames reflected against the corridor windows.
The Grand Imperior was burning.
May you like
And somewhere inside that smoke lay the first proof that Bella Rossi's life had been connected to Dante Castello long before the night she found him bleeding at Table Four.
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