“I see.”
“I doubt that.”
The words were not unkind.
He moved around the desk and stood near the window.
“Mara believed influence was a living thing. Feed it, it grows. Starve it, it turns on you. She wanted the hotel to become more than a hotel.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she saw every guest as leverage. Every secret as currency. Every weakness as a door.”
A shiver passed through me.
“And you disagreed.”
“I disagreed too late.”
For the first time since I had met him, Lorenzo looked not powerful or composed, but burdened.
“What happened?”
“She disappeared with information that could damage people who trusted me.” He turned back. “I have spent three years making sure none of it surfaces.”
“And now she sent me a warning.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Because she thinks I care.”
The words hung between us.
Not I care.
She thinks I care.
A safer sentence. A guarded one.
Still, my heartbeat changed.
I looked down at the photograph again. Lorenzo’s hand at my back. My face turned slightly toward him, caught in an unguarded expression I did not remember making.
“What happens now?”
“You stay away from this.”
A humorless laugh left me.
“That’s not an answer. That’s an instruction.”
“It is both.”
“I’m not one of your employees in this room.”
His eyes sharpened.
“No,” he said. “You are not.”
“Then don’t dismiss me.”
The silence that followed felt dangerous, but not because I thought he would hurt me. Because I had challenged the habit of a man accustomed to control, and some part of him was deciding whether to respect that.
At last, he nodded once.
“You’re right.”
The apology was not elaborate. That made it better.
He picked up the envelope.
“Someone wants you uncertain. Possibly Mara. Possibly someone using her name. Until I know which, be cautious.”
“Could it be Ethan?”
Lorenzo’s gaze stilled.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Chloe tried to tell me something last night. She said there were things I didn’t know about him. Then he came over, and she stopped.”
Lorenzo considered this.
“What does Prescott do?”
“Private equity consulting. That’s what he calls it, anyway. He helps wealthy clients restructure assets, move investments, clean up troubled portfolios.”
Lorenzo’s expression changed so subtly I almost missed it.
But I had spent years reading rooms. Reading brides before they cried, donors before they complained, chefs before they quit.
“You know something,” I said.
“I know the name Prescott.”
“You said last night you didn’t.”
“I said I didn’t know Ethan.”
“That was careful.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“I have had enough careful answers from men who think the truth belongs to them.”
His face closed briefly, then opened again with visible effort.
“My father did business years ago with a man named Warren Prescott.”
“Ethan’s father?”
“I don’t know. But Warren specialized in making ownership difficult to trace. Shell companies. Silent partners. Debt hidden inside debt.”