Chapter 3 - The Interrogation
The private suite on the thirty-second floor of the Grandeur was less like a hotel room and more like a fortress encased in velvet and smoked glass. The city sprawled below like a blanket of crushed diamonds, but inside, the air was dense with hostility.
Two armed Romano guards stood flanking the mahogany double doors, their hands resting over shoulder holsters. Dr. Ramos, an older man with gray hair and a weathered face, was already bent over the low glass coffee table, applying chemical reagents to a fragment of the broken champagne flute that Dmitri had brought up in an evidence bag.
Lena sat on the edge of a deep leather sofa. She felt intensely out of place. Her cheap canvas shoes were scuffed, her apron was crumpled, and her Gala vest had lost two buttons in the scuffle downstairs.
Clara stood by the bar, holding a tumbler of mineral water with fingers that betrayed a subtle tremor. Leon stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, his arms crossed over his chest, projecting an aura of calm, insulted dignity.
Victor sat behind an imposing desk at the far end of the room, having already changed out of his blood-stained evening coat into a charcoal-gray dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. A thin, neat line of butterfly sutures held the corner of his lip together.
“Well, Ramos?” Victor asked, not looking up from a file on his desk.
Dr. Ramos straightened his back, taking off his reading glasses. His face was grim. “Aconitine mixed with concentrated dimethyl sulfoxide. Fast-acting. The DMSO ensures rapid absorption through mucous membranes or even skin contact. If you had taken a full swallow, Victor, your heart would have begun fibrillating within ninety seconds. You would have been dead before the paramedics reached the lobby.”
A heavy silence settled over the room.
Lena swallowed hard. She had known it was bad, but hearing the clinical reality made the room spin slightly. She had touched the stem of that glass. If she hadn't shoved the tray away by the base…
“And the glass from the kitchen?” Leon asked, stepping forward, his voice measured. “The one Dmitri’s man found near her locker?”
“The exact same cocktail,” Dr. Ramos confirmed. “And the exterior of the glass was covered in distinct, non-smudged prints matching the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. Typical of someone wearing an apron who held it carelessly while prepping the dose.”
Leon turned to Victor, spreading his hands. “There it is. Clear, scientific proof. Victor, I understand you want to be thorough. You’ve always been brilliant because you don't act on impulse. But you have to see the reality here. The girl was hired by the Castiglione family. They’ve been trying to disrupt our shipping union takeover for six months. They promised her enough money to disappear, gave her the poison, and she botched the timing.”
“I don't even know who the Castigliones are!” Lena cried out, standing up.
“Sit down,” Dmitri barked from the door.
Lena didn't sit. The fear that had kept her paralyzed downstairs was burning away into pure, frantic rage. “I work forty hours a week scrubbing toilets on the upper floors, and forty more hours at an industrial dry cleaner on 4th Street! I don't know your families, I don't know your shipping unions, and I don't care about your money!”
Clara let out a cold, delicate laugh. “Oh, please. Spare us the tragic heroine act. Everyone cares about money. Especially girls who look like they’ve never owned a piece of clothing that wasn't bought at a charity bin.”
“Clara,” Victor said.
The tone wasn't loud, but it cut through the room like a razor. Clara closed her mouth instantly, looking away toward the city skyline.
Victor leaned back in his leather chair, his dark eyes focusing entirely on Lena. “You said you heard Leon speak to Clara at table eighteen. What were his exact words?”
“He leaned in close to her,” Lena said, her voice steadying. “He said, ‘During the toast. That’s when it happens.’ And then she saw me holding the pitcher, and she changed the subject to the flower arrangements. She didn't look surprised when I walked up. She looked guilty.”
“That is absurd,” Clara snapped, turning back, her cheeks flushing pink. “Leon was telling me about the timing of the charity donation announcement! We had an oversized novelty check to present to the children’s wing of St. Jude’s after the toast. That was the schedule! Ask the gala coordinator! Ask anyone!”
“The gala coordinator works for your father’s foundation, Clara,” Victor said mildly.
Clara froze. “Victor… are you actually questioning me? We’re getting married in four weeks! My family merged three banking firms with your logistics network to make this empire bulletproof. Why would I want to kill the man I’m marrying?”
“Because under the new prenuptial agreement we signed on Tuesday,” Victor replied softly, “if I die before the wedding ceremony, the entirety of the Romano estate’s non-voting shares reverts to my father’s designated trustee.”
Victor paused, his gray eyes sliding from Clara to Leon.
“And my father’s designated trustee… is Leon Mercer.”
The room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Leon’s breath caught, but he covered it with a wry shake of his head. “Victor, your father made that trust twenty years ago when you were still a reckless teenager running street crews in Queens. You know I’ve repeatedly asked you to update that document.”
“I do know,” Victor said. “And I kept delaying it because I trusted you.”
Suddenly, the harsh, electronic vibration of an incoming emergency alert shattered the stillness.
Every head turned.
The sound was coming from the floor beneath Lena’s feet. Her cheap prepaid phone had slipped from her vest pocket during the struggle downstairs and was now buzzing frantically against the hardwood.
Lena dropped to her knees, scrambling for the device. Dmitri stepped forward to intercept her, but Victor raised a finger.
“Let her take it,” Victor ordered.
Lena swiped the cracked screen with trembling fingers. It wasn't a call. It was a rapid series of automated notifications from the speech app installed on Daniel’s tablet.
*L-E-N-A.*
*MAMA STOP BREATHING.*
*MACHINE BEEPING RED.*
*I CANNOT WAKE HER.*
*LENA COME HOME.*
*LENA PLEASE.*
A harsh, ragged sob tore from Lena’s throat. All the adrenaline, all the terror of the guns, the poison, and the mafia boss vanished, swallowed whole by the suffocating nightmare waiting for her in a cold apartment across town.
She looked up at Victor, tears streaming openly down her face, stripping away any shred of pride or composure.
“Kill me,” she whispered, her voice breaking into pieces. “Shoot me right now. Let your man pull the trigger. But please… God, please, send an ambulance to 412 Elm Street. Apartment 3B. My little brother can’t speak. He’s fifteen. He’s alone with our mother and she’s dying. Please. Just send someone to save them. You can bury me in the river, I don't care. Just help them!”
She collapsed forward, her forehead pressing against the polished floor, her shoulders shaking with violent, uncontrollable weeping.
Clara scoffed under her breath. “A melodramatic distraction. Leon, tell Dmitri to take her away.”
Leon didn't speak. He was watching Victor’s face.
Victor did not look at Clara. He did not look at Leon. He stood up from his desk, walked across the expanse of the Persian rug, and stopped beside the crumpled figure of the maid.
He looked down at the cracked screen of her phone, where the bright red letters continued to pulse: *LENA PLEASE.*
“Dmitri,” Victor said.
“Boss?”
“Take my personal medical transport. Dr. Ramos, you go with him. Go to 412 Elm Street, Apartment 3B.” Victor’s voice was completely devoid of emotion, operating with the terrifying, clockwork efficiency of a general. “Stabilize the mother. Bring her and the boy directly to St. Luke’s Private Pavilion. Put two guards on their door. If anyone who isn't wearing a Romano security badge comes within fifty feet of that room, put a bullet in their spine.”
Dmitri blinked, clearly stunned by the command, but snapped a sharp nod. “Understood, boss. Moving now.”
Dr. Ramos quickly packed his vials and followed Dmitri out the door, the heavy oak clicking shut behind them.
Lena looked up from the floor, her eyes red, disbelieving. “Why… why are you doing that?”
Victor reached down, wrapped his fingers around her upper arm with unexpected gentleness, and pulled her back to her feet. He looked deep into her eyes, searching for deceit and finding only the raw, desperate agony of an older sister fighting for her family.
“Because a woman whose world is ending in an apartment on Elm Street,” Victor said quietly, “does not take money from the Castigliones to poison my champagne.”
He turned his gaze toward Leon and Clara. The coldness in his eyes could have frozen an ocean.
May you like
“Which means,” Victor added, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper, “the snake is still in this room.”
***
