🐰 The Stuffed Rabbit and the Mafia Boss’s Secret Ledger

Chapter 03 - Daniel Carter’s Widow

Jasper Knox found the service stair door unlocked.

That alone was enough to sour Sebastian’s mood. His house could forgive dust behind a painting. It could not forgive unlocked doors after midnight.

By the time Jasper entered the study, two guards had already taken positions in the hallway, and Mrs. Alvarez stood outside with both hands clasped at her chest, praying softly in Spanish. Nori slept through all of it, which Sebastian found either merciful or deeply unnerving.

Jasper looked at the child, then the ledger, then Hannah.

His face did not change. That was why Sebastian paid him well.

“West wing is sealed,” Jasper said. “Kitchen staff accounted for. Two drivers in the garage. Owen Pierce left twenty minutes ago.”

Hannah flinched at Owen’s name.

Sebastian saw it.

So did Jasper.

“Mrs. Carter,” Sebastian said.

She held Nori’s rabbit tighter than Nori did. “I don’t know Mr. Pierce personally.”

“That was not a denial of knowing him at all.”

“I know his name.”

“Everyone in my companies knows his name.”

“My husband knew it before he died.”

The room settled.

Sebastian did not move.

Hannah looked as if she regretted speaking and had also waited three years to say it.

“Daniel came home worried for weeks,” she said. “He said numbers were being moved through payroll. Not stolen in an obvious way. Smoothed. Reclassified. Buried under contractor codes no one reviewed twice.”

“Vendor 814,” Sebastian said.

Her eyes sharpened. “You know.”

“I know what was written.”

“He tried to report it up the chain.”

“To Pierce.”

“Yes.”

Sebastian looked down at the ledger. He remembered Owen Pierce standing in his office, hands folded, explaining that a junior accountant had misunderstood a routine payroll transition. He remembered the rain against the glass that day. He remembered his own impatience.

He did not remember Daniel Carter’s face.

That sat badly with him.

“What happened next?” he asked.

“Daniel told me if anything happened to him, I should look for a red file.”

Jasper’s gaze moved slightly.

Sebastian said, “Did you find it?”

“No. His office was cleaned out before I got there. The company told me it was standard procedure.”

“It was not.”

Her lips pressed together.

“There was one thing,” she said.

“What thing?”

“Daniel kept a toy rabbit in his desk.”

Sebastian glanced at Nori’s rabbit.

Hannah nodded.

“He bought it for Nori before she was born. I thought it was sentimental. After the funeral, someone mailed it to me with no return address.”

Jasper stepped closer. “That rabbit?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian looked at the worn gray toy. One ear sagged at an odd angle. The seams near the belly had been repaired with thread lighter than the original fabric. A thing loved hard and mended badly.

“May I?” he asked.

Hannah’s expression tightened. “It’s hers.”

“I understand.”

“No, Mr. Vale. You don’t. It is the only thing of her father’s she carries every day.”

Sebastian heard the anger under her politeness. It had a clean edge. Not dramatic. Not reckless. A mother placing her body between a child and the kind of world Sebastian represented.

He respected it enough to soften his voice.

“I will not damage it.”

Nori stirred then, as if summoned by the word damage. Her eyes opened halfway, glossy with sleep. She looked at Sebastian first, not her mother.

That unsettled him.

“Did Bunny find the red book?” she whispered.

Hannah went still.

Sebastian crouched beside the chair again.

“Who told Bunny about the red book?”

Nori blinked slowly.

“The man with the shiny shoes.”

Jasper looked toward Sebastian.

Hannah’s face lost color.