Chapter 2
The drawer was empty.
That was the first real problem.
Rocco knew what belonged there.
A spare set of house keys.
Two old passports.
Copies of insurance policies.
A sealed envelope containing instructions for Mia’s care if anything happened to him.
Nothing secret enough to justify eight nighttime visits.
Nothing valuable enough to explain why Celeste took Mia’s glasses.
Yet when Rocco unlocked it in front of Thomas and outside counsel, all four items were gone.
Celeste stood at the bedroom doorway.
“I haven’t touched that drawer.”
Rocco looked at her.
“Mia says you put her glasses inside it.”
“Mia says a lot of things.”
Rocco’s expression hardened.
“Do not make my daughter defend herself to you again.”
Celeste looked away.
Adrian was brought upstairs separately.
When he saw the empty drawer, his face changed.
Rocco caught it.
“What was supposed to be there?”
Adrian recovered too slowly.
“No idea.”
“Try again.”
“I told you, I came up here because Celeste asked me to.”
“For what?”
“She had questions.”
“About my passports?”
“No.”
“My daughter’s emergency-care documents?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at an empty drawer like somebody just stole your oxygen?”
Adrian said nothing.
Rocco did not hit him.
He ordered him removed from the estate pending review.
Adrian stopped at the doorway.
“Rocco.”
“What?”
“You need to be careful what you accuse her of.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“You’re warning him about me now?”
Adrian looked at her with open hostility.
That mattered.
Whatever connected them did not look affectionate.
Rocco noticed another thing.
On the floor beneath the drawer was a tiny crescent of blue paper.
Thomas picked it up with gloves.
It appeared torn from the corner of a document tab.
Rocco recognized the color.
His legitimate holding company used blue divider tabs in internal board packets.
Celeste noticed his recognition.
“What?”
Rocco said nothing.
He called Elaine Porter, chief financial officer of Moretti Holdings.
“Were any board packets delivered to my home recently?”
“Two this quarter.”
“Which meetings?”
“Port Liberty expansion and the North Shore acquisition.”
“Did either packet go missing?”
Elaine paused.
“One appendix had to be reprinted.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
“Why?”
“Your office said the original copy couldn’t be found.”
Rocco had never been told.
He looked at Celeste.
She looked genuinely confused.
That was the first reaction he believed.
Maybe she knew about the drawer.
Maybe she knew about Adrian.
But she had not expected the blue paper.
May you like
The situation had just divided into pieces.
Rocco was no longer sure Celeste and Adrian were hiding the same secret.
