I stood on the curb, the gravel crunching beneath my feet, and looked down the
desolate stretch of road. There was no husband waiting with a bouquet of
apologetic roses. There was no Marcus. I hadn’t expected him, of course. To
expect Marcus to show up would be to expect a viper to apologize for its venom.
Instead, idling by the curb was a sleek, black sedan. The driver’s side window
hummed down, revealing the sharp, unyielding profile of Celeste Mora. Celeste
was a corporate litigator who wore her tailored suits like medieval armor. She
had been my mentor, my confidante, and the only person who hadn’t looked at me
with thinly veiled disgust during my trial.
I opened the passenger door and slid into the leather seat. The smell of the
car—expensive coffee and crisp parchment paper—hit me with a wave of vertigo.
It was the scent of my old life.
“You look entirely too calm for a woman who just spent twenty-four months in a
cage, Elena,” Celeste said, her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror as she merged
onto the rain-slicked highway.
“Panic is an inefficient use of energy, Celeste,” I replied, keeping my voice
perfectly level. “And I have a lot of work to do.”
My father had built the Vale Auction House from a dusty storefront in Soho into
a global empire of art appraisal and high-stakes trading. It was a cathedral of
culture, a place where multi-million dollar canvases changed hands under the
elegant strike of a mahogany gavel. He had left it to me, trusting my sharp eyes
and my uncompromising integrity.
Before I became Elena Vale, the disgraced heiress, I was Elena Vale, forensic
accountant. I didn’t paint masterpieces; I tracked the invisible, subterranean
rivers of money that flowed behind them. It was a skill my father revered. It
was also the exact reason my husband decided he had to destroy me.
“They are getting married tomorrow, you know,” Celeste murmured, her knuckles
white on the steering wheel. “Marcus and Vivian. They’re hosting a VIP
pre-wedding auction tonight right in the main hall of your father’s building.”
“I know,” I said softly, my fingers tracing the outline of a small, hard object
