At 3:00 AM, the penthouse is dead silent. Garrett lies in the master bed, deeply unconscious from his nightly Ambien.
Elliana slides out from under the covers. Wearing dark silk pajamas, she moves through the hallways like a ghost, hugging the walls to avoid the camera blind spots she memorized years ago.
She slips into Garrett's study. The room is pitch black, illuminated only by the faint orange glow of the Manhattan skyline.
She walks straight to the massive abstract painting behind the desk. Using her left hand, she swings the heavy canvas outward.
A military-grade biometric safe is embedded in the steel-reinforced wall.
She steps up to the heavy steel door. For months, she had feigned sleep while watching Garrett access this very safe through the reflection of the glass balcony doors. She knows his routine, his arrogant assumption that she is too drugged to notice. She presses the manual override button at the base of the panel, a bypass he uses when his hands are wet from a drink.
The digital keypad lights up, demanding a six-digit code.
Elliana closes her eyes. She visualizes Garrett standing here, the exact movement of his shoulders, the wear pattern on the keys.
She punches in his birthday. The screen flashes red.
She punches in their wedding anniversary. Red again. One more failed attempt will trigger the silent alarm, alerting Garrett's private security.
Cold sweat drips down her spine. She remembers the airport. The way Garrett's hands lingered on Cristina's waist.
She closes her eyes, her mind flashing back to the night of Cristina's wedding. Garrett had gotten blackout drunk, smashing a champagne flute against the wall while muttering that Colin had stolen what was rightfully his. Garrett's obsession was always tied to the day he lost her. Her left hand shakes. She types in Cristina's birth month and day, followed by the year Cristina married Colin.
A soft click echoes in the dark. The heavy steel door pops open.
Bile rises in her throat. The password is his obsession with his sister.
Inside the safe sit stacks of offshore bank statements, gold bars, and a matte black USB drive.
She grabs the drive, but as her fingers brush the velvet lining at the back of the shelf, she feels a slight unevenness. A false panel. Her heart pounds against her ribs. She presses her fingernail into the seam, popping the panel open. Inside rests a secondary, encrypted micro-hard drive, heavy and cold. She grabs both drives, pushes the safe shut, and swings the painting back into place.
She moves silently down the hall to her private art studio. Her high-performance rendering computer is completely disconnected from the penthouse's Wi-Fi network.
She plugs in the matte black USB first. A password prompt appears. She types in Cristina's birthday again.
The drive opens. Two folders sit on the screen.
She clicks the first one. It is full of Excel spreadsheets. Brenda's daily logs. Exact dosages of hallucinogens and sedatives administered to Elliana over three years.
Ironclad proof of poisoning.
She clicks the second folder. Hundreds of raw PSD files, layered sketches, and timestamped drafts of The Prairie Fire.
Ironclad proof of IP theft.
She unplugs the USB and stares at the secondary micro-hard drive. Garrett was careful with his business, but he was paranoid about whatever was on this drive. She connects it. Another password prompt. This time, Cristina's birthday doesn't work. Panic flares. She thinks of the safe code. She types in the year Cristina married Colin. Access granted.
A single folder appears on the screen, labeled simply "C."
The screen fills with high-resolution photographs.
Cristina in a bikini on a yacht, taken from a hidden angle. Cristina sleeping in a hotel bed. Cristina changing clothes, unaware of the camera.
Elliana's stomach drops.
She scrolls down. The final pictures show Garrett leaning over a sleeping Cristina, his lips pressed firmly against her mouth.
It isn't just control. It is a sick, twisted, incestuous obsession.
Elliana slams her hand over her mouth, sprinting to the studio sink. She dry-heaves violently, her body rejecting the sheer depravity of the man she married.
She splashes freezing water on her face. When she looks up, the fear is gone. Only a cold, mechanical drive to destroy remains.
She copies every file onto a micro-SD card. She pops open the silver locket on her necklace, hides the card inside, and snaps it shut.
She unplugs the drives and sneaks back to the study to return them.
