Chapter 1
“Now you’ve got me curious. What exactly were you so terrified she’d hear?”
Celeste stopped moving beneath the collapsed fabric frame.
Owen was still half-kneeling beside the overturned orchid rack. Maya held Sadie against her chest while my daughter cried into her shoulder.
I looked at my wife.
“What did you hear?”
Maya’s breathing was uneven.
“Victor…”
Celeste immediately said:
“She misunderstood.”
I turned toward her.
“You tied my wife to a chair.”
Silence.
“You used my daughter to threaten her.”
More silence.
“So whatever Maya heard was clear enough to make you desperate.”
Owen wiped blood from his lip.
“This isn’t the place.”
I almost smiled.
“You made it the place.”
Maya finally spoke.
She had left the dinner table twenty minutes earlier because Sadie wanted water. On the way back, she passed the service corridor behind the conservatory.
Celeste and Owen were inside.
Not alone.
A third person was speaking quietly.
Maya heard one sentence.
“The donor money goes through the guards before Victor sees any of it.”
My attention sharpened.
Tonight’s dinner raised money for three family-supported shelters, two medical programs, and an education fund for children of dead associates.
No outside charity.
No public image.
Our people.
Our responsibility.
“What else?”
Maya swallowed.
“Celeste said one guard had started asking questions.”
Owen looked at her.
That told me enough.
“Name?”
“She never said.”
Celeste had been trying to force Maya to identify the guard she had seen leaving the corridor.
I looked at Owen.
“How much?”
His face hardened.
I knew immediately there was money involved.
Then Maya added:
“They mentioned twelve million.”
The conservatory became still.
Not stolen over one night.
Impossible.
A structure.
Years.
I turned toward Celeste.
“Twelve million from programs carrying my family name.”
Her expression changed.
Then Sadie whispered against Maya’s shoulder:
“Mommy said red book.”
Celeste went completely pale.
I looked at Maya.
“What red book?”
She stared at Celeste.
“The one they said has every name.”
That was what terrified them.
May you like
Not what Maya heard.
What she might have seen.
