Chapter Three: The man who Lost Everything
959 Words
Rafael's POV
He couldn't unsee her.
Celeste's face those honey warm eyes, trembling lips and the fire in her stare,
haunted him like a storm without end. Three years of believing she was dead,
buried in some private mausoleum with a marble headstone and fresh white lilies
sent every month on the same damn day.
And now she was alive thriving and taking care of his daughter while he was away.
Rafael closed the gym bag in the SUV's back seat with a slam and collapsed into
the driver's seat with his teeth so tightly clamped together that his jaw ached.
He hadn't slept.
How was he doing it? The moment he entered his penthouse suite, he drew every
security feed from the gala, froze the image on Celeste's face and then told his
team to cross-reference every database, every flight record and every damn
beach town in the country.
It didn't take long.
in Oregon, teaching art lessons and living in a leased cottage. The kind of
existence she'd always dreamed of and the kind he couldn't give her but she stole
his daughter to have it.
Rafael had no interest in revenge. He wasn't even sure he wanted her pardon, he
just wanted answers.
He pulled over a block from the school and looked at his watch. Dismissal would
be soon as he wasn't here to attack Celeste again, he caught on fast to prevent
doing it twice.
This time, he was simply going to observe. Watch, learn and strike when she least
expects it.
Ten minutes passed. Then he saw Amelia.
His chest constricted as the little girl ran out of the school yard laughing with two
other kids. She'd gotten his dark hair and his chin that jutted out her mother's
sunny smile. She was wearing a backpack about as big as she was and her laugh
cut through his ribcage like a blade.
She was smiling, whole and unbroken.
That illusion cut deeper than he expected.
Celeste had protected her not only from Rafael but from the world he had come
up in. The world of takeover offers, ghost investors and vendettas. And now, he
was the threat. The tempest was pounding at their serene world.
His phone buzzed from an unregistered number.
He picked it up.
A woman's voice sounded Cold and impersonal "You offered to pay for
information, I have something"
Rafael's ears perked "Go on."
"Emma Hartwell's name is Celeste Aragon. Once was Celeste Stone but she
wasn't hiding from you, Mr. Stone only"
He stood up "Who is this?"
"One of the school parents I overheard your little reunion yesterday She's not as
the explosion"
The line went dead.
Rafael's blood ran cold.
Six months before the fire?
He was already halfway to the airport when he called his fixer.
"Get me everything you can on Celeste, beginning with the six months leading up
to her disappearance. I want her bank records, phone records, travel history and
research on that explosion. Something doesn't add up"
The man on the other line hesitated "You think she staged it?"
Twenty-four hours after he inquired, he had his response.
He was in the private library room of a Manhattan law firm where all "sealed" files
came to die anonymously.
Except Rafael Stone did not do anonymous.
He opened the folder and there it was.
A sealed bank transfer, $1.5 million wired into a numbered offshore account. The
remitter? An alias with connections to Elias Voss.
Rafael's fists tightened. Elias Voss.
His former head of security. The man he'd left his life in. The man who vanished
the same week Celeste vanished.
She didn't leave by herself, she had help and it wasn't just to flee from Rafael.
Something more was at play here.
A cover-up and something jumped out at him on the page. Project Orchid.
"What the hell is this?" he growled scanning the file.
An illicit R&D folder bearing his company's logo, but it must not have been there.
He never sanctioned it. Illicit tech, encryption programs and secret labs with
Celeste's signature on it as well.
disappearance.
Rafael's world crumbled.
His empire had been compromised from within.
And his wife might have been a part of it.
The world began to spin.
He grabbed his phone and dialled the fixer again "Double Celeste's watch, I want
her followed 24/7 and find Elias now. If he's still alive then I want to be the first
man he sees"
"Yes sir."
Rafael hung up and scowled at the photo of Celeste taped to the file.
"Why, Celeste?" he breathed. "What were you hiding her from?"
It was darkening in Oregon and Rafael didn't return to the hotel.
He returned to the beach, this time parking further in. Stealthily. He had Celeste's
routine by now, she put Amelia to bed at 8:00 and then sat on her porch with tea
or wine while the waves rocked her to sleep.
Tonight wasn't different but tonight, she wasn't alone.
Rafael watched from a distance as a man approached her porch.
Young blonde and familiar.
He forced a small envelope into her palm and her face paled as she tore it open.
Then suddenly, she buried her arms in his.
Too hard Rafael's blood ran cold.
He zoomed in with the long lens of his camera and the man's face surfaced, Elias
the traitor is still breathing and still working with her.
The envelope slipped to the floor as they stepped in and the porch light
disappearing behind them.
Rafael's jaw clenched.
lost twice.
Rafael is walking away from the house and his eyes burning with determination.
Tomorrow, he wouldn't just fight with Celeste.
He'd expose her naked and if she lied again, he'd take everything.
- Writer
