The silence that followed Seraphina's question felt worse than any scream. Elara froze, clutching the heavy manila envelope and Julian's mocking note tightly. The open ancestral safe, smelling of old leather and iron, stood as an unforgiving witness.
"I can explain," Elara started, her voice shaky, but Seraphina took a deliberate step forward. The silk of her expensive outfit rustled like dry leaves.
"Can you, Elara?" Seraphina's face, pale in the moonlight, radiated cold fury. "Or are you finally admitting it? That everything you've done, every warning, every plea to save me from Julian, was a lie? A slow, calculated move to take Father's final asset for your pathetic little foundation."
"This isn't about the Foundation," Elara insisted, her words spilling out in a rush. "It's about Julian. He knew what he was doing. He set us up. I found the combination because I knew you would try to destroy this document tomorrow. If you do, it will erase the Gallery's entire value! I'm here to protect you from your own recklessness!"
Seraphina stopped in front of her, her eyes ablaze with icy certainty. "Recklessness? You call my act of vengeance against the man who stole our family's work 'recklessness,' while I find you rifling through the most sacred place in this house with the key document in your hand. How did you even know the combination?"
"It was Father's code, 1-8-8-8-0-5-1-2. The date of the Tapestry," Elara explained, trying to reach their shared history. "It's something only a Thorne would know, and only someone trying to preserve the legacy would bother to remember."
Seraphina's posture shifted. The sheer audacity of using their father's sentimental code seemed to momentarily calm her fury. But it quickly hardened into something more dangerous: contempt.
"And you think that makes you the hero? The noble sister who saves the day?" Seraphina scoffed, leaning in with a theatrical whisper laced with venom. "The truth, Elara, is that you have always resented me. You resented Mother's focus on me, Father's ambition for me. Julian didn't just trap me; he trapped us. And you, my dear, delicate sister, fell right into the trap he designed just for you: the trap of virtue."
She gestured toward the envelope. "You're holding Julian's insurance policy. He didn't give this transfer to your Foundation out of sentiment. He did it because he knew I would try to stop him. He knew that you, Elara the Good, would be the only one to retrieve the document instead of destroying it. He needed someone he could trust to clean up the mess. Someone he could control."
Elara shoved the crumpled note into Seraphina's hand. "Read it. He expected me."
Seraphina smoothed the note with cold precision, her eyes scanning Julian's elegant script. The cold realization of Julian's ruthless planning—that he had orchestrated every reaction, including Elara's midnight theft—broke through her defenses. Her hand trembled, and a genuine tear traced a path through her makeup.
"He is a monster," Seraphina breathed, her voice raw with hatred. "He planned this from the moment Alistair Chen died. He didn't want a merger; he wanted to destroy us piece by piece, proving how weak we are."
But the moment of sisterly unity was short-lived. Seraphina's eyes snapped back to Elara, rage returning, magnified by humiliation.
"So you came here to hide this, to save the gallery from my 'recklessness.' And what then, Elara? You have the document that proves my attempted theft and failure. You gain control of the Gallery through a transaction that exposes my treachery to the Vance board. You get the art, you get the virtue, and I get the scandal. Is that what Julian promised you?"
"No! I would never—"
"Wouldn't you?" Seraphina interrupted, hysteria rising in her voice. "You were holding the knife, Elara! We worked together for two months to expose him. The first time you get evidence that can save the gallery and ruin me, you hide it! You were prepared to let me walk down that aisle tomorrow, thinking I had a move left, only to find an empty safe or a worthless decoy!"
Seraphina tossed Julian's note to the floor. "I warned you, Elara. We are thorns. If you can't protect me, you are only protecting him."
She snatched the heavy manila envelope from Elara's hand, her grip surprisingly strong. "You say destroying the document voids the asset. But that's a clean slate. That means Julian gets nothing, and we fight the merger on new ground. You planned to transfer control to your foundation and start a new war with Julian for the Gallery's future. I will stop the war before it starts."
"Seraphina, listen! He wrote that there is a second copy!" Elara cried out, pointing to the note on the floor. "He left this one as bait. If you destroy it, he simply produces the second copy, claiming you damaged evidence, and the legal consequences will be disastrous. You will still have destroyed the asset, and you will go to jail!"
Seraphina paused, the envelope pressed to her chest. The mention of a second copy pierced her vengeful fog. Julian always had a backup plan.
"The second copy…" Seraphina murmured, her eyes scanning the cold library. "Where? Julian wouldn't leave it on the grounds."
Elara looked down at the note she just read: "It is in the safest place I know."
"I don't know," Elara whispered, the weight of Julian's manipulation crashing down on her. "But we can't risk it. We have to hide this copy, not destroy it. We hide it, we call off the wedding, and we use the Thorne family lawyers to force Julian's hand with what we already know about Chen."
Seraphina considered the envelope, then the open safe, then back at Elara. Her face was a storm of calculation. She had one last desperate play, a move that would test Elara's loyalty once and for all.
She quickly walked to a massive desk near the window, pulling open a drawer filled with stationery and old correspondence. She grabbed a small, ornate silver lighter, Alistair Chen's personal monogrammed one.
"He's cornered me, but he hasn't won," Seraphina declared, her voice filled with authority. "You said he planned for my theft. He planned for your retrieval. He didn't plan for us to work together, in this moment, against him."
She held the manila envelope above the flame of the lighter, the parchment starting to curve in the heat.
"Here is your final choice, Elara. You want to save the gallery? You want to preserve the legacy? Then you must prove your loyalty is to me, and to the Thorne name, not to Julian's idea of 'virtue' or your feelings for the art," Seraphina's voice became sharp.
"You have five seconds to tell me where the second copy is hidden. If you tell me, we destroy them both and run together. If you don't, I burn this copy, walk back upstairs, and let you explain to the Vance lawyers why you, Elara Thorne, were caught stealing the final asset on the night before the wedding. You will be ruined, and you will watch me ruin Julian tomorrow from a jail cell."
Seraphina held the flame steady, the threat very real. Elara stared at the fire, at the document, and at her sister's desperate, furious eyes. Seraphina was demanding total loyalty, forcing Elara to choose: betray Julian and the gallery's future or betray her sister.
Tick. Tock.
"The safest place he knows," Elara whispered, Julian's note flashing through her mind. He collected art and sentiment. He never trusted banks; he always trusted control. "His private collection vault. The painting—the Regret of Medusa."
Seraphina dropped the lighter, the flame extinguished. Her eyes widened with understanding. The Medusa painting was Julian's most prized possession, a work of immense value that held a crucial element: a hidden false bottom within the frame.
"The Regret of Medusa," Seraphina repeated, the name heavy on her tongue. "He hid the final copy in the one place he knew I would never touch. He knew I wouldn't risk destroying a masterpiece to save a contract."
"We have to get to the Medusa now. We have to destroy them both," Elara said, her choice made. Her loyalty, however conditional, was with her sister. She was in.
But as the sisters locked eyes, forming a momentary alliance, a new sound broke the quiet of the library. Not the gentle hiss of the air conditioning or the distant clatter of a cleaning cart. It was the sharp, metallic click of the library door lock engaging from outside.
A cold, familiar voice echoed from the hall.
"I'm afraid I can't allow that, ladies. The wedding is still scheduled for noon."
Julian Vance had been listening. He was outside the locked door. They were trapped.