Chapter 1
Rocco shut down the reception before anyone finished processing what had happened.
“Guests leave. Family stays.”
Nobody argued.
Capos moved toward the west salon. House staff were sent to the service wing. Bodyguards closed the terrace doors and collected phones from anyone who had been close enough to hear Mia.
Rocco carried his daughter upstairs himself.
Mia kept one arm around his neck and the other pressed over her left eye.
“Does it hurt?”
She nodded.
Rocco’s jaw tightened.
He had spent most of his adult life convincing dangerous men that hurting something belonging to him was a mistake they would only make once.
Yet someone living under his roof had struck his four-year-old daughter.
That failure belonged partly to him.
Mrs. Ellis, Mia’s nanny, hurried into the nursery.
Rocco handed Mia to her only after the child agreed.
“Stay with her. Dr. Harris is coming.”
Mia touched Rocco’s lapel.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t let Celeste take my glasses.”
He looked at the broken frames in his hand.
“She won’t.”
Mia nodded as though that solved something much larger than damaged plastic.
Downstairs, Celeste was waiting in the library with her attorney already on speakerphone.
Adrian sat across the room with an ice pack against his ribs.
Rocco entered with his security chief, Thomas Hale.
He placed the broken glasses on the desk.
Celeste spoke first.
“You attacked me.”
“You hit Mia.”
“She was saying something inappropriate in front of the entire family.”
“She’s four.”
“She repeats things she doesn’t understand.”
Rocco looked at Adrian.
“What doesn’t she understand?”
Adrian said nothing.
Rocco repeated Mia’s words.
“She takes my glasses during Adrian’s night visits.”
Celeste’s expression tightened.
Adrian looked toward the window.
Rocco noticed.
“Were you in my residential wing at night?”
Adrian finally answered.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer was acceptable before security cameras were invented.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Several.”
“For what?”
“Family business.”
Rocco almost laughed.
“In my bedroom wing?”
“Not your bedroom.”
Celeste interrupted.
“Stop.”
Rocco slowly turned toward her.
That single word told him more than any denial would have.
Adrian knew something.
Celeste knew he knew it.
And neither trusted the other to speak.
Thomas entered twenty minutes later with estate-access logs.
Adrian had entered the private residential floor eight times in three months.
Always after 10:00 p.m.
Always when Rocco was either away or hosting meetings in another section of the estate.
The visits lasted between fifteen and forty minutes.
Rocco looked at Adrian.
“Eight.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Rocco then looked at Celeste.
“What happened upstairs eight times?”
She folded her arms.
“Nothing involving Mia.”
From the doorway came a small voice.
“Yes.”
Everyone turned.
Mia stood beside Mrs. Ellis wearing an old backup pair of glasses that no longer fit properly.
Rocco immediately crossed to her.
“You should be upstairs.”
“I remembered.”
He crouched.
“Remembered what?”
Mia pointed toward Celeste.
“She puts my glasses in the drawer.”
Celeste went completely still.
“What drawer?” Rocco asked.
Mia pointed down the hallway.
“Daddy’s drawer.”
Rocco rose slowly.
May you like
There was only one locked drawer in his bedroom that Mia called Daddy’s drawer.
The one built into the cabinet beside his private document safe.
