Chapter 211

• GUSTAVO
• I sat at the desk in the study with the morning sun coming through the window and stretching shadows across the reports. The security logs for the ball lay open in front of me. I flipped through the pages slow, checking guest entry times, guard rotations, camera angles. Everything looked tight. Then I stopped on the note about the private east gate. Valentina had suggested yesterday that we add one more man there, just in case someone tried to slip in early. She said it calm, like it was obvious.
• I remembered how she looked when she said it. Eyes straight on mine. No hesitation. “One extra body at the gate means no surprises,” she told me. “Ricci likes to test edges. Let him see the line before he crosses it.”