Chapter 6
Blue Cedar had received $612,000 from Moretti Holdings in seven months.
The payments were not enormous by company standards.
That was probably why nobody noticed them immediately.
They were divided across twelve invoices.
Consulting.
Scheduling.
Compliance review.
Operational planning.
Elaine, the CFO, had approved none personally.
The invoices passed through an exception process.
On paper, Rocco had authorized that exception.
He had not.
Claire placed the documents in front of him.
“We now have possible forged authorization.”
“Possible?”
“Until handwriting and process reviews are complete.”
Rocco nodded.
He had learned not to argue with careful language.
The money from Blue Cedar moved again.
Some went toward legitimate contractors.
Some disappeared through payments labeled consulting fees.
One large transfer went to a company connected to a failed luxury-development project in Florida.
Celeste had invested in that project before meeting Rocco.
He knew she lost money.
He had not known she still had obligations attached to it.
When confronted through attorneys, Celeste admitted Blue Cedar was connected to her.
She denied creating the false Rocco approval.
“I needed temporary liquidity.”
Claire asked, “So you invoiced Moretti Holdings for work that was never performed?”
Celeste’s attorney objected to the wording.
Celeste answered anyway.
“I expected to repay it.”
Rocco looked at her.
“With what?”
She had no answer.
“What did Adrian know?”
Celeste’s eyes hardened.
“More than he’s admitting.”
That afternoon, Adrian gave Claire three emails.
They showed Celeste asking him to “keep Elaine away from Blue Cedar until December.”
In return, Celeste promised she could help Adrian preserve his authority under Rocco’s restructuring.
Rocco felt the shape of the conspiracy becoming visible.
Celeste had financial trouble.
Adrian feared losing power.
Each had something the other wanted.
Yet a question remained.
Why meet in Rocco’s bedroom wing?
Why take Mia’s glasses?
Why not exchange documents somewhere safer?
Thomas found the answer to the first question.
Rocco’s private home cabinet contained the only hard-copy originals of several documents bearing his wet signature.
Celeste could access the bedroom.
Adrian knew which pages mattered.
The second question was uglier.
Mia had apparently walked in on them during one early visit.
Instead of stopping the meetings, Celeste began removing the child’s glasses before Adrian arrived.
That was clue number two.
May you like
The secrecy was not about intimacy.
It was about preventing Mia from clearly seeing what they handled.
