That was the third payoff.
The woman they had dismissed as “cleaning staff” was about to become the only map that mattered.
PART 5
The basement of the Grand Regent did not look like the hotel above it.
No chandeliers.
No marble.
No piano.
Only concrete walls, humming pipes, old paint, and fluorescent lights that buzzed like trapped insects.
Lupita led Ethan, Aaron, and Naomi through a service corridor behind the laundry room. Steam rolled under one door. Somewhere, machines thumped towels in slow heavy rhythms.
“This way,” Lupita whispered.
Aaron had two security officers behind them.
Not lobby guards.
Former police.
Ethan had chosen carefully.
They passed wine storage.
Maintenance.
A locked cage of holiday decorations.
Then Lupita stopped in front of a gray metal door with a keypad.
“Archive,” she said.
Aaron entered an override code.
The keypad blinked red.
Denied.
He tried another.
Denied.
Naomi frowned. “Corporate master should work.”
