Page 139 of Mario
We continue down the hall.
I should feel irritated by his amusement, but I do not. Lorenzo is easier than Mario in some ways. Safer, though that is probably an illusion. He notices things, but he does not press every bruise just to see if it hurts.
At least, not as openly.
“I’ll send you the payroll questions too,” I say, returning us firmly to work. “There are three department-level permissions that may be justified, but I need written clarification before I leave them in place.”
“Send them over. I’ll push if they stall.”
We reach my office door. I stop outside it and turn to him.
“Also, there’s an employee who has emailed me multiple times since last week. It’s not your department. I believe he’s in Ricardo’s, but he has emailed me several times about the access changes.”
Lorenzo’s expression sharpens slightly. “Who?”
“Peter Hanley. He’s a compliance manager who oversees domestic transport, I believe.”
“What kind of emails?” he asks.
“Persistent ones,” I say. “Not inappropriate exactly. But increasingly argumentative. He keeps insisting certainpermissions are necessary for his role, but so far, he has not provided a business justification for keeping them.”
“What permissions?” Lorenzo asks.
“Executive travel calendar visibility, leadership compensation summaries, and the security incident archive.”
“Those aren’t necessary for his position.”
“Exactly,” I say. “I believe he used to be in Executive Operations. Or Executive Support. Something like that. His old role appears to have involved coordinating travel logistics for senior leadership and preparing internal reports for the previous CEO’s office.”
“That would explain the travel calendar,” he says.
“And possibly limited access to incident summaries if he was coordinating executive movement,” I add. “Maybe even compensation summaries if he was preparing board materials. But he’s no longer in that role. He transferred to domestic transport compliance under the previous ownership, and as far as I can tell, his permissions were never revoked.”
“Legacy access,” Lorenzo says.
“Yes. He kept the old keys when he moved into a different room. Or rather, they never took them away.”
His mouth curves faintly. “That is a very polite way of skirting around the word ‘incompetence.’”
“It is Monday morning. I start off on a positive note and leave the snarling and insults for later in the week.”
"A wise tactic." He smiles.
I gauge his reaction to see if it's anything other than friendly.
It's not.
Lorenzo Conti is a very handsome man. Not in the same way as Mario. They both have the same sharp features and strong bone structure, but Mario doesn't have the polish Lorenzo does.
He could, but he doesn't bother.
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” I say, going back to Peter. “But he does not need visibility into executive travel, leadership compensation, or security incident archives to review warehouse certifications and transport documentation.”
“No,” Lorenzo says. “He does not.”
“And the fact that he’s this angry about losing it is…” I pause, choosing the word carefully. “Interesting.”
Lorenzo’s eyes sharpen again.
