Chapter 104
Dorothea sat hunched over the surveillance footage, watching every detail, zeroing in on the man in black who’d swiped a card and slipped into the room. She kept zooming in, pulling back, over and over. “Don’t you think this guy’s build looks a lot like that one guest?” she asked.
The duty manager’s eyes widened. “Dorothea, are you saying someone’s trying to set us up p>
Dorothea thought about the smug little smile Carola wore, the way she seemed almost delighted by trouble. If Carola wanted to make things messy for her, she wouldn’t exactly hold back. And now, the only lead was that one guest.
She pulled up his info at the front desk. Larry, thirty-eight, senior member of the Violin Association, founding member of the orchestra. Three years ago, Carola had passed Larry’s audition to join the group. Clearly, they were close.
But would Larry really risk everything to help Carola frame her? If the truth came out, he’d be ruined. Destroying his own instrument was the kind of dirty trick that could get him blacklisted. Even if he wasn’t, how could he ever show his face on stage again?
Larry was staying on the ninth floor. Half an hour after that mysterious woman dumped the broken violin in the storage closet, Larry came up from the restaurant on the third floor. He took the elevator, went back to his room, and found the violin missing.
One moment the mystery woman vanished, and right after, Larry appeared. But Dorothea had no proof. There were no cameras in the stairwell, and the plan to install them had gotten delayed until this month. She hadn’t expected something like this to go down first.
The headache was real. She called Walton, demanding to know why the stairwells still had no cameras. He just made excuses. Now, after all this, Walton still had the nerve to show up at the office every day like nothing happened, never once coming to the hotel. Dorothea knew she was done trusting him.
While she sat in the security room, lost in thought, the duty manager picked up the phone. His face changed instantly. “Dorothea, those guests are back! They want to see you p>
Of course. They were here to make a scene, maybe even humiliate her.
She took her time walking to the lobby. The second she stepped in, she spotted them by the front desk-a couple, picture-perfect, like something out of a magazine.
They looked so matched, so peaceful, it was almost annoying.
Typical Carola, always needing Albert to back her up. No originality at all.
Dorothea put on her best professional smile. “I heard you wanted to see me p>
Albert looked down at her, eyes cold,
his mood unreadable. This was the same man she’d once tiptoed around, speaking soft and sweet. Now be just looked angry, like Ker moving on was some King of betrayal.
Well, if he wanted a fight, he’d picked the wrong woman.
“Dorothea, I know you’re upset about our breakup, but that’s no reason to pull clumsy tricks on Carola. Do you have any idea how important
tonight’s show was for her? If..n &
something had gone wrong, the loss wouldn’t just be a five millian dollär. violin. I want you to apologize to Carola, right now p>
Dorothea almost wanted to laugh. How had she ever liked a man this clueless? A CEO, and yet he was so easy to manipulate with just a few words from Carola.
Her tone was sharp. “Albert, so you’re saying I broke the violin on purpose? Just to mess with your fiancée p>
Albert raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you p>
She let out a short, cold laugh. “You’re really flattering yourself. You think you’re worth all that effort p>
Dorothea shook her head, not
bothering to hide her contempt. “This is a police matter now. They
havent said who’s responsible Why
Should I apologize?
Albert narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure about that? Are you really going to stand against me p>
The duty manager and the front desk clerk just stared, too shocked to speak. Was this whole thing really just about some messy love triangle?
Dorothea didn’t even look at Albert again. She turned to Carola, who was still pretending to know nothing. “Carola, you know the truth. So do I p>