The following morning, Elias placed the file in front of Vance.
Vance glanced at it.
“So?”
“You hired Marisol.”
“I approved hundreds of workers.”
“She didn't apply to work here.”
Vance shrugged.
“We needed staff.”
“Why her?”
“Cheap labor.”
Elias stared at him.
Vance smiled.
“You're becoming suspicious because a maid made your sister laugh.”
“No.”
Elias closed the folder.
“I became suspicious because you're answering questions I haven't asked yet.”
Vance’s smile disappeared.
Only briefly.
“Careful, Elias.”
“About what?”
“Getting emotionally attached to employees.”
Elias leaned back.
“My house. My employees.”
Vance nodded.
“Your house.”
He left.
Elias immediately called his security chief.
“Follow the money.”
“What money?”
“Reyes. Every debt. Every payment. Every account connected to her.”
That evening, Marisol returned home and found another white envelope beneath her door.
This time, she was angry.
She picked it up and walked downstairs.
Her landlady, Mrs. Alvarez, was watching television.
“Who keeps leaving these?”
“I told you, I don't know.”
“You do.”
Mrs. Alvarez avoided her eyes.
“Marisol—”
“Please.”
The older woman sighed.
“A man.”
“What man?”
“I never got his name.”
“What does he look like?”
“Older. Gray hair. Nice coat.”
Marisol’s stomach tightened.
“How long?”
“Maybe a year.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“He said he was helping.”
Marisol went upstairs.
She opened the shoebox.
Twenty-three envelopes.
She finally opened one.
Five hundred dollars.
Another.
Five hundred.
Another.
The same.
Then she found something she had missed.
Tiny numbers printed inside the flap.
Account references.
The next morning, she carried the entire shoebox to work.
She marched into Elias’s office without knocking.
His two men moved instantly.
Elias lifted one hand.
They stopped.
Marisol dropped the box on his desk.
“Are these yours?”
Elias opened an envelope.
“No.”
“Don't lie.”
“I don't.”
“Rich men always say that right before lying.”
He examined the account code.
His expression hardened.
“Where did you get these?”
“My apartment.”
“How long?”
“Almost a year.”
Elias stood.
“Who has access to your building?”
“I don't know.”
“Who knows where you live?”
“My employer.”
Silence.
Marisol stared at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can't yet.”
She stepped closer.
“Somebody put me in this house without me applying. Didn't they?”
Elias’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know that?”
“Mrs. Constance told me my paperwork was strange.”
Elias cursed quietly.
Marisol folded her arms.
“Now talk.”
He looked at the woman standing across from him.
Most people feared his silence.
Marisol became irritated by it.
Finally, he said, “Emmett Vance authorized your placement.”
“Who is he?”
“A man who worked with my father.”
“The gray-haired man?”
Elias became still.
“You've seen him?”
“At dinner.”
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
Then Marisol remembered.
Her expression changed.
“Maybe.”
“Where?”
“The warehouse interview.”
Elias stepped around the desk.
“Think.”
“There was a window in the door. Someone walked past.”
“Vance?”
“I don't know.”
“Marisol.”
“I said I don't know.”
Elias stopped pressing.
Then she said quietly:
“But he wore the same ring.”
“What ring?”
“Black stone. Gold band.”
Elias’s face changed.
Vance always wore one.
“Stay here tonight.”
Marisol laughed in disbelief.
“Absolutely not.”
“This isn't a request.”
“Then my answer is even more no.”
“Someone deliberately placed you inside my house.”
“And somehow locking me inside it makes that better?”
Elias had no answer.
Marisol grabbed the shoebox.
He caught its edge.
Their hands stopped inches apart.
“Leave the envelopes.”
“Why?”
“I'll trace them.”
She slowly released the box.
Then she pointed at him.
“If one dollar disappears—”
“You'll what?”
“I'll tell Giata.”
Elias actually laughed.
It was short.
Unexpected.
Marisol stared.
“You can do that?”
“Apparently.”
Neither noticed Giata in the doorway.
But Giata noticed everything.
And for the first time in three years, she smiled because of her brother—not despite him.
---