The Silent Partner Who Rebuilt an Empire from the Ashes of Betrayal
*She packed two suitcases and left the Park Avenue penthouse twenty minutes ago.*
“Celeste,” I said, looking up at Julian. “She is moving.”
“Or she is hiding,” Julian said. “Priya, are you still there?”
“I am here,” Priya’s voice came through the speaker. “But I need one more piece of the puzzle.”
“The metadata shows the Greenwich server created the contract, but the digital signature block is locked with a custom encryption key.”
“Without that key, Bennett’s lawyers will claim the signature was authenticated by you from a remote device,” Priya explained.
“They will argue you authorized it while you were abroad.”
I stood up and walked over to my leather handbag resting on the sideboard.
I unzipped the inner compartment and pulled out Celeste’s small, black leather ledger.
I had taken it from her desk at the Monarch offices before the locks were changed.
I brought it back to the glass table and laid it open.
The pages were filled with Celeste’s neat, slanted handwriting.
“Julian, look at the pages for October,” I said, turning the thin paper.
He adjusted his glasses and leaned over my shoulder.