"In the last few weeks, Campbell's been doing some cover-ups from the public eye – one for battery and sexual assault. Campbell has also been getting friendly with a lot of politicians. He's been trying to make more alliances and business deals, so he is attending more events and galas." Erik reported.

Xavier nodded at the information.

"So he's buttering people up and trying to get into their good graces. Probably hoping to make a few deals," Xavier said as he passed John a file.

"I've been keeping an eye on his business transfers and nothing is raising red flags. He's making sure not to leave a trail." John added.

"Have we found anything on Angelo yet?" I asked in exhaustion, rubbing my eyes.

It had been a few weeks since Xavier ordered a search of Angelo's room for a clue to his riddle. We searched through every drawer and found no written notes or flash drive.

"We found nothing besides personal belongings and his fucking collection on CDs." Erik rolled his eyes in annoyance.

Angelo loved collecting CDs. He had all kinds of CDs. Music, movies, pictures, home videos, and instruction manuals– Angelo had them all. There were shelves upon shelves of CDs in his room. It was bad– especially when he started stealing CDs from everyone in the mansion.

"We're missing something." Xavier passed and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "It has to be in there. He never went anywhere else on the property when he came to visit."

I closed my eyes. "If I were Angelo and wanted to keep something private, I'd hide it in plain sight, putting it somewhere that people would easily glance over. We have looked through every nook and cranny except for..." I trailed off and opened my eyes to look at Xavier, who wore a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Clever." Xavier stated simply.

We watched as realization spread over Erik and John's face.

"You're fucking kidding me," Erik protested. "You want us to look through every single one of those? He had thousands of them."

"Then it's a good thing you don't have anything else to do. Cancel all my meetings and meet you in Angelo's CD Shop." Xavier said before we left the office, John right behind us.

~*~

Angelo's room was in another building on the property.

Because of his rank, he didn't have his own wing but shared it with our other officers, including the twins and John. The men lived on the first level and the women on the second level. Of course, not all of our officers lived on the property, mostly families wanting to live in other parts of the city.

Once we got to his room, I took in the sight of the shelves and CDs. Angelo's room was large, like the others in this building. The walls were practically covered in CDs from the floor to the ceiling.

"If he wasn't dead already, I would kill him myself." John muttered, looking as gobsmacked as I was. I'd never gone into Angelo's room but our men told stories about it. This...was worse than I'd anticipated.

"We've let our best men look. Now it's our turn to look personally," Xavier rubbed his hands together before placing them in front of him, examining the room. I smirked.

Xavier, Maria, and Rosaline have been forcing me to binge-watch crime shows whenever we were all available. It's been impossible to pull Xavier away from Maria now that she'd developed a small baby bump. Watching TV shows was a way for me to bond with Flower and Xavier to keep an eye on Maria at the same time.

Xavier and I hadn't gone out on a mission in weeks, wanting to stay with our women. We have been sending orders and running Monroe Protective Services from the property.

Everything had been running smoothly and our employees were efficient enough to do their jobs without us in the building.

"There's more in the walk-in closet!" Erik shouted as he came into the room, his tablet nowhere in sight as he rolled up his sleeves.

I turned a wary eye on Xavier, who seemed too excited about this task. He moved throughout the room, keeping his hands up.

"What is he doing?" John asked, exasperated by Xavier's actions.

"We've been watching Monk." I explained as Xavier paused.

"Did Angelo have a ladder?" Xavier asked and John nodded, pulling one out of the closet. "All right. Erik, you are in charge of the closet. Damon and John, you pick a side of the room. Open each CD case and see if you find anything– check the case and CD. If not, then put it back in its proper place." Xavier ordered as he climbed up the ladder.

Nodding, we all went to different parts of the room. I grabbed a CD, knowing it was going to be a long day.

~*~

I put another damn CD back in its place, my headache growing. It had been over two hours and no one had found anything.

I just finished going through half the CDs on one wall, opening the cases to find a chip or something. Dust had gathered along some of the shelves and my allergies were beginning to kick in.

Angelo was probably laughing from beyond the grave.

My annoyance flared as I heard the ladder being moved. Xavier hadn't done anything but climb up and down the damn ladder, moving it every so often to look at the different shelves. I was about ready to throw him off of it.

I feared that if we didn't find anything, then we would have to play all the CDs for clues. I groaned at the thought.

A small knock interrupted my thoughts. I turned and saw Rosaline with the twins, where she was holding a plate of cookies.

"Hey, partner in crime, I heard you were here and brought some cookies," Flower sang and walked over to me with that sweet smile of hers. I couldn't help but grin at her antics.

Rosaline was determined to learn how to make croissants, but based on her cake-making skills, I started her out simpler. After many attempts and tears, Rosaline was now able to make the perfect batch of chocolate chip cookies.

"John!"

"Erik!"

I looked up and found Julian rushing toward an irritated John, launching himself on the deadly veteran.

"Get off me!"

I heard a crash and Rosaline winced at the sound.

"Damn it, Josh. You scared the shit out of me!" I heard Erik snap, and I rolled my eyes.

I looked at the cookies with a wary look. "Did the twins help you make the cookies again?"

Rosaline shivered at the thought. "No, I learned from my mistake. This was all me! I decided to make brown sugar from that book you gave me."

Another thing I found out about Rosaline was that she loved to learn and read. She would sit in the library for hours and absorb all the information she could, from criminal psychology to federal law books. Sometimes I would find her asleep on top of her pile of books when I came back from work. I thought it was cute seeing all her notes and annotations.

She was coming out of her shell more, her personality shining when she was around me, Xavier, Maria, and the twins. She was still shy around others, but more at ease. She's been learning about our business through Xavier, taking cooking lessons from me, and dancing lessons from Jasmine.

The women refused to let the men stay and watch, saying that they wanted a comfortable atmosphere. Mostly Xavier and I needed convincing– we would've killed the twins if they tried to watch, and they knew it. When I saw the sweet flush on Flower's cheeks when she made the request, I gave in pretty quickly and agreed.

I did notice the small changes to her body from the dancing, the muscles in her legs and arms becoming more prominent. Most nights when she was with Jasmine, my imagination would run wild while I sulked doing paperwork. I hadn't seen her perform since that night in Elysium. I was hoping to convince her to show me some moves in the not too distant future.

I took a bite of Rosaline's cookies and smiled at the sweet flavor coating my tongue.

"These were just what I needed, Flower. Thank you." I gave her a light kiss and she beamed at my praise. I puffed out my chest with pride.

"Cookie break! Thanks, Ro!" Xavier shouted as he glided down the ladder to grab a cookie.

"Josh! Julian! Leave John and Erik alone so they can have a cookie, please! You can have another one as well." Rosaline requested and the twins came scampering back, eager for another treat. John and Erik muttered as they walked toward us but gave Rosaline a grateful smile.

As we had our break, Rosaline looked around the room curiously with a hint of sadness.

"So this is Angelo's room. What are you guys doing, anyway?" Flower asked.

Debating with how much to tell her, I decided to be honest.

"We believe that the information Angelo had is stored in one of these CD cases. Unfortunately, Angelo was known to hoard them for years. This is the aftermath." I explained and gestured to the hundreds of disc covers.

"Oh my," Flower gaped as she walked around the room. She pulled out a couple. "The Art of Racing in the Rain? Archibald and the Great Discovery?"

"You should see the shelf by the closet dedicated to his favorite band. Angelo has every single album, deluxe version, and live performance. He even has the posters, books, and merchandise. Some classical rock shit." Erik said and gestured to the posters of a violin and guitars.

Rosaline let out a squeal. I frantically turned and saw her bouncing in excitement.

"That's the band I've been listening to during my dance lessons!" Rosaline handed Julian the plate and skipped toward the section, forgetting about the rest of us.

"Since you two are here, you can help search through the discs." John said, tossing the twins some CDs.

Julian looked at the disk and snickered. "Aliens Ate my Buick? Amazing!"

Josh eyed his CD in disgust. "I despise Sesame Disco. At least Elmo isn't on the cover."

"Actually, I think I'm on to something," Xavier cut off the twins and finished another cookie. "Everything is in alphabetical order except one CD per shelf. Pull out the CDs that aren't in order."

"That's what you've been doing on the ladder? I thought you were just being fucking lazy." John muttered but began looking through the shelves.

"Oh ye of little faith," Xavier tsked playfully. "The mastermind is at work."

While Rosaline browsed Angelo's shelves, the rest of us looked around and eventually pulled out twelve CDs. We placed them on the floor. None of the CDs seemed significant, ranging from bands to random shit.

Erik looked through the CDs and found no programs or codes in the case.

"Why are only these out of order? Angelo had a specific order as to how they were placed but these twelve don't follow it. Do we need to play them?" I wondered aloud.

Xavier snapped his fingers. He crouched down and pointed at each first letter in the titles.

"I wonder..." Xavier's thoughts were racing, in his own mind space. There was no way to reach him until he found the conclusion, the mastermind at play.

He began to rearrange the CDs until they were in the order he wanted and placed them in a row. I looked at the CDs in confusion.

"They are spelling out a word...Look," He pointed out the first letter on the first case.

"E," he moved to the next one. "N...L..."

He continued and at the end, got one incomplete word. But we all knew what it spelled.

"Holy shit," Erik breathed.

Enlightenment.

But the last "T" was missing.

"Could it be any cover that starts with a 'T'? It doesn't exclude all the 'The's'. There could be hundreds." I said and ran a hand through my hair in frustration.

Xavier examined the covers.

"Place these back where we found them, but put the letters in order, starting from the As," Xavier instructed, pointing at the entrance.

We placed them as Xavier wanted. Once we finished, I noticed how quiet Rosaline had gotten. While we were doing this, I would hear an occasional giggle or hum. I knew she had to have been listening to us.

I turned and saw Rosaline clutching a CD cover, her eyes closed.

I quickly went over to her, grabbing her forearms gently. She flinched and I tried not to be hurt by the action.

"Flower, it's me." I told her softly, examining her. Her breaths were fast, but not enough to indicate she was having a panic attack. Rosaline took deep breaths before opening her eyes and shakily handing me the CD. I read the title: A Thousand Pieces of Glass.

I looked at her skeptically. "Are you sure that this is it? There are others, Flower."

Rosaline gulped as she stepped closer to hug my waist, burying her face in my chest.

"Track 13," she whispered to me. I knew the others were watching us, but I ignored them as I flipped to the back to see the track list. My eyes moved down until they stopped on the title.

I hugged Rosaline closer and gestured to Xavier to come over. I gave him the CD and pointed.

13. Unleash the Truth

Xavier looked at Rosaline in awe.

"I think we found another good luck charm. Ro, you just cracked this wide open." He went to the other men. "We are looking for a slot that can fit this CD. Find it!"

I held Rosaline as they explored the room.

"I think it's finally hitting me. It feels strange and horrible going through a dead man's things." Rosaline spoke softly to me, twisting her hair through her fingers as her distress began to rise.

I slowly pulled her fingers away, running my fingers through the dark strands.

"Do you want me to take you back?" I asked gently and Rosaline shook her head.

"Every part of me wants to run, but I need to know that Angelo's final request has been granted. I need to be here," Rosaline gulped and I kissed the top of her head.

For that moment it was just us. The rest of the world went away. I vaguely heard a shout, but I ignored them. I leaned down so my lips were next to her ear.

"I knew you had thorns. I am so fucking proud of you," I breathed and she shivered in delight.

"I just needed my partner in crime to help me."

A click interrupted our moment, the sound echoing through the room.

Scatena la verità.

Everyone's head turned to the source of the noise and a part of the wall was open. We all rushed over. The opening was at the baseboard. Erik immediately pulled on it, revealing a secret compartment.

Sblocca il cassetto.

Erik took out the only item inside the drawer.

Enlightenment.

A chip.