Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
Dr. Mercer arrived at 3:41 a.m., carrying a black medical bag and wearing the exhausted expression of a man accustomed to receiving emergency calls from wealthy criminals.
He examined Ivy in the small sitting room beside the kitchen.
The bruising around her throat worried him most. He checked her breathing, her ribs, and the swelling around her eye before asking whether she had lost consciousness.
“Not that I remember,” Ivy said.
“Any dizziness? Trouble swallowing?”
“A little.”
“I want you evaluated at the hospital. Neck injuries can be more serious than they appear.”
Ivy immediately shook her head.
“I can't afford an emergency room.”
Carmine, standing near the window, turned.
“You're not paying.”
“I don't want charity.”
“Good. I don't offer it.”
She looked at him.
He continued, “You're receiving medical care because you're injured. Your salary and your debt are separate matters.”
“I didn't ask you to pay my bills.”
“No. You asked for nothing. That seems to be part of the problem.”
Dr. Mercer interrupted before their argument could grow.
“Mr. Bellandi, I need to speak with my patient privately.”
Carmine looked as though he disliked the word patient being used for someone he employed, but he stepped into the hallway.
For the first time in months, Ivy received care without being asked to justify why she deserved it.
An hour later, she returned to her small room in the staff wing with pain medication, instructions, and a medical appointment scheduled for the morning. Mrs. Bennett stayed beside her until she fell asleep.
She woke to the sound of a fist pounding against her door.
Ivy jerked upright.
For one disoriented second, she was back in the alley.
Then the pounding came again.
“Miss Ivy?”
It was Daniel, one of Carmine's younger security men.
“Mr. Bellandi wants you in the library. He says you can refuse if you're not feeling well.”
The last sentence sounded as though someone had made him memorize it.
Ivy dressed slowly.
Her throat hurt beneath the soft scarf Mrs. Bennett had given her. Her ribs ached whenever she bent forward. Still, she went.
Carmine stood beside a desk covered with financial records. A second man, older and dressed in a charcoal suit, sat opposite him.
“Mr. Bellandi,” the stranger said, standing when Ivy entered. “I'm Victor Hale. I handle the organization's accounts.”
Ivy knew the name. Everyone in the estate did.
Hale was the man who could move money across six companies without leaving a visible trail. He was polite, soft-spoken, and rarely seen outside Carmine's private offices.
Carmine gestured toward a chair.
“You mentioned the payment,” Ivy said.
“Last night,” Carmine replied, “my accountant found a transfer of forty thousand dollars from one of our holding companies to a security contractor. The authorization was entered under my private credentials.”
“Was it yours?”
“No.”
Hale placed a printed ledger on the desk.
“The transfer was made six weeks ago, then repeated twice. Each payment was routed through a different account. The most recent was sent yesterday afternoon.”
Carmine looked at Ivy.
“Rocco knew you were assigned to the kitchen and service corridors. He also knew your shifts, your pay schedule, and when you took the trash outside.”
“I don't understand what that has to do with the money.”
“We're not sure yet.”
Hale tapped the ledger.
“There is something else. Someone accessed the employee records and downloaded your personnel file.”
Ivy felt the room tilt.
“Mine?”
“Your full file. Your address, your emergency contact, and the details of your mother's outstanding medical bills.”
Her fingers tightened around the chair.
“Why would anyone want that?”
Carmine answered before Hale could.
“To find out how much pressure it would take to control you.”
Ivy thought of Rocco's smile in the kitchen.
“He knew I needed the money.”
“Apparently.”
Hale closed the ledger.
“There may be a connection between the unauthorized payments and the attack. If Rocco was trying to intimidate an employee who had access to the service corridors, we need to know why.”
“I don't have access to anything important,” Ivy protested. “I clean rooms. I carry laundry. I wash dishes.”
“Do you ever enter the old east wing?” Carmine asked.
“No.”
“Have you ever seen anyone there?”
She hesitated.
Three weeks earlier, she had carried fresh towels to the second-floor linen closet and noticed light beneath the door at the end of the hall. She had heard two men arguing, one of them using Carmine's name. When she returned later, the door was locked.
She had told herself it was none of her business.
“I heard voices once,” she admitted. “But I couldn't see anyone.”
Hale and Carmine exchanged a look.
“What did they say?” Carmine asked.
“I only heard one sentence clearly. Someone said, 'The transfer has to happen before the old man changes his mind.'”
Carmine's expression hardened.
“Which night?”
Ivy thought carefully.
“The Tuesday before the charity dinner.”
Hale stood abruptly.
“That's the night the warehouse account was altered.”
The silence that followed felt different from the silence in the kitchen.
This time, Ivy understood that she was no longer simply a frightened maid who had been attacked by a violent employee.
She might have become a witness to something dangerous without realizing it.
Carmine dismissed Hale and ordered additional security around the staff quarters. Then he walked Ivy to the library door.
“You'll stay away from the east wing.”
“Am I a prisoner now?”
“No.”
“Then I can walk wherever I want.”
His jaw tightened.
“You can. But someone may be looking for you, and I won't pretend otherwise.”
She studied him.
“You keep saying you're protecting me. How do I know you aren't protecting yourself?”
Carmine said nothing for a moment.
Then he reached into a drawer and removed a small envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Ivy's mother, taken outside a hospital nearly a year earlier.
Ivy recognized the coat she was wearing.
She also recognized the man standing several feet behind her mother.
Rocco.
The photograph slipped from Ivy's fingers.
“Why was he following my mother?”
Carmine's expression changed in a way she had never seen before.
Not rage.
Recognition.
He looked at the photograph, then at Ivy.
“Because your mother wasn't just a patient at that hospital.”
May you like
He took a slow breath.
“She was the last person to see my wife alive.”
