The Billionaire Mafia Boss's Fiancee Made a Broke Delivery Driver Kneel in Birthday Cake - Then She Learned Who Avery Carter Used to Be

Celeste Whitmore arrived at my apartment at seven the next morning carrying groceries.

That was how billionaires apparently did intimidation when they wanted plausible deniability.

She wore a navy coat, pearls, and the kind of polite smile that probably got hospitals named after her.

"Avery. May I come in?"

"No."

She looked past me toward Mom.

"Linda."

Mom's face hardened.

"You have some nerve."

So they knew each other too.

Of course they did.

I laughed quietly.

"I'm going to need a family flowchart."

Celeste ignored me.

"I can fix your treatment coverage permanently."

"You mean the coverage your people froze?"

"Samuel acted independently."

"Keene says otherwise."

Her smile disappeared for half a second.

"Samuel is frightened. Frightened men invent things."

Mom stood.

"Get out."

Celeste placed a grocery bag on the counter.

"You always were emotional, Linda. Thomas liked that about you."

I stepped between them.

"Say my father's name again like you knew him personally and we're going to have a different kind of conversation."

Celeste studied me.

"You really do move like him."

That told me Vanessa had inherited more than money.

"Where is Julian?"

Her eyes did not change.

"My son died years ago."

"We saw hospital footage."

"Then you saw a sick man you wanted to believe was Julian."

"Vanessa recognized him."

"Vanessa is unstable."

The cruelty was so clean it almost impressed me.

Celeste was erasing her living son in real time.

Then she said the thing that changed the conversation.

"Dominic Moretti is using you."

"Probably. People keep doing that."

"His father and Thomas created the Black Ledger together. My family inherited the damage. Dominic wants you angry at us so you never ask why Carlo Moretti paid Thomas Carter six hundred thousand dollars the night before Halcyon burned."

Mom went pale.

I looked at her.

"Did you know?"

"No."

Celeste opened her purse and placed a bank transfer on the table.

CARLO MORETTI -> THOMAS CARTER.

$600,000.

Date: one day before the fire.

Memo: FINAL SERVICES.

My stomach turned.

Dominic arrived five minutes later because Mateo had been monitoring the building.

Celeste smiled when he entered.

"Perfect timing."

I shoved the transfer toward him.

"Explain."

Dominic read it.

"I've never seen this."

Celeste laughed.

"Your father paid Thomas to burn the records wing. Thomas started the fire, Dominic. He was supposed to destroy the Black Ledger after collecting his money."

I felt the room shift.

Dominic looked at Celeste.

"If that's true, why did your family spend eight years trying to find the ledger?"

Her smile disappeared.

Good question.

Then Mom whispered, "Because Thomas didn't take the money for himself."

We all turned.

She was crying.

"He gave it to the families."

"What families?" I asked.

"The people Halcyon made sick."

Celeste's face went white.