The electronic lock beeped at exactly nine-o-three.
I pushed through the glass doors of the Midtown Manhattan gallery. The plastic cup of my iced Americano sweated against my palm. My navy blazer hung over my opposite arm, the sleeves freshly tailored three inches short.
The silver metal of my bracelet caught the morning light.
I sat at my assigned desk and woke up the monitor.
A prompt demanded the password for the encrypted PDF.
My fingers tapped the keys. Zero. Eight. Two. Two.
August 22. The day I fell down the stairs at the bottom of the estate three years ago.
The file loaded instantly, displaying the Alexander family's asset flow. I scrolled past the offshore accounts and shell companies, stopping at the final page.
*Beneficiary change: Original beneficiary Evelyn Morrow deregistered on August 22, 2020. All shares transferred to Bella Ross.*
My fingertips hovered over the plastic keys.
Fluorescent tubes buzzed a relentless drone above my head. The air conditioning vent blew a steady stream of cold air against the back of my neck.
It felt exactly like the temperature in the operating room.
A massive shadow eclipsed my screen.
Three towering stacks of folders slammed onto my desk. The impact rattled my coffee cup, sending a brown drop sliding down the plastic.
"Sort them by year," Bella commanded.
She loomed over my workspace, crossing her arms tight against her chest.
"Every single page needs to be in the system by Friday."
I leaned back in my chair. "That is a half-human-tall stack of files, Miss Ross."
"Then you better start typing," she snapped.
I didn't look up.
I leaned back, sipping my coffee. "Miss Ross, perhaps you forgot. I am not your assistant. I am the auditor sent by the fund that holds your mortgage. If these files aren't organized by the time I finish my drink, I’ll mark this gallery as 'high risk' and pull our funding. Do you want to be homeless by Friday?"
Bella’s jaw dropped. "You... you can't—"
"I can," I interrupted, spinning my monitor to show her the liquidation clause.
"Now, pick up those folders and bring me the real ledgers. The ones you’ve been hiding."
Bella stood frozen, her face turning a vivid shade of purple.
She had to pick up her own folders, her hands shaking with humiliated rage.
"See that you do."
She snatched the folder from my grip to emphasize her authority.
A piece of glossy paper slipped from between the thick pages.
It fluttered down and landed face up on my keyboard.
An old photograph.
A woman wrapped in a thick gray cashmere scarf stood on the ice rink in Central Park. She was laughing brightly at the camera. Behind her, the blurred figure of Alexander skated closer.
"What is this?" I asked.
Bella lunged forward and grabbed the photo.
"None of your business," she hissed.
"It looks like a memory."
"It is a reminder," Bella corrected, clutching the picture to her chest. "Of what I built."
I watched her knuckles turn white. "Did you build the woman in the gray scarf, too?"
"She is dead," Bella stated, her voice dropping into a harsh rasp. "She doesn't matter anymore."
"Then why keep her picture hidden in your design files?"
"Because it proves I won."
Bella flipped the photo over. The words *First winter* were scrawled in blue ink across the back.
"Alexander wrote that," Bella bragged. "He gave it to me."
"He gave you a picture of his dead wife?"
"He gave me control of her legacy."
Bella shoved the photo back into my hand, the sharp edge scraping my palm.
"Put it in the shredder with the rest of the trash."
She spun around and marched toward her private office. The heavy glass door slammed shut behind her, rattling the frames on the wall.
I placed the photograph flat on the desk.
I stared at the smiling face. The woman in the gray scarf looked so happy. So painfully naive.
My expression did not change. Not a single muscle twitched.
I opened my bottom drawer, slid the picture underneath a stack of blank printer paper, and pushed the wood shut.
My task was incredibly simple.
I dragged the first heavy folder toward me.
I needed to find every document Bella had handled over the past three years. The design plans with forged signatures. The altered employee work records. The tampered contract attachments.
I pulled out my phone and opened the encrypted camera app.
Three thousand pages hid the truth. I just had to extract it.
Snap.
I turned the page.
Snap.
Every shutter click uploaded a piece of stolen history to the Elysian server.
I sorted through the papers with a steady, unbroken rhythm. The process felt exactly like peeling a stale onion.
The pungent smell of rot dispersed into the air with every layer I removed. The sharp scent of stolen money and erased lives filled the small cubicle.
It should have burned my eyes. It should have made me cry.
But they surgically removed my tear ducts three years ago.
My phone buzzed against the wood, interrupting the quiet rhythm of my work.
A new encrypted message flashed across the screen.
*Phase one complete. Alexander is waiting for you in the lobby.*
