Damian blocked the exit. His hand slapped against the doorframe of the VIP lounge, caging me in.
I stepped back, ensuring the silk of my dress never brushed his suit. "Do not touch me."
He dropped his arm to his side. "Sloane, I have the leverage you need."
"Give me the first sentence of this supposed proof," I demanded. "Right now."
"The contract. The raw audio files. Victor's real-time directives." Damian spoke fast, his eyes darting to the glass table where the crushed earpiece lay. "I uploaded everything to a secure cloud server."
"Hand over the access keys."
Damian shifted his weight. "They are locked in my office safe."
I stared at him. The silence stretched for two agonizing seconds. He had nothing to give me but more empty promises.
I scooped the black earpiece off the glass and dropped it into my clutch. I snapped the gold clasp shut.
"You aren't proof, Damian," I said, bypassing him entirely. "You are part of the crime scene."
At exactly one in the morning, Nora Keats unlocked the frosted glass door of her downtown office. The draft separation agreement already sat flat on her mahogany desk, right next to a half-empty pot of black coffee.
I placed the crushed earpiece next to her legal pad.
Nora plugged a tiny diagnostic cable into the device. A garbled, tinny voice played from her laptop speakers. Victor's clipped tone filled the room.
"Delete that," the recording hissed.
Nora tapped her silver pen against the desk. "Illegal inducement. Coerced signature. Asset transfer."
"Is it enough to stop him?" I asked.
"No." Nora pulled up a blank document on her screen. "It is a fragment. One command out of context. A judge will toss it."
I unzipped the side pocket of my leather tote. I pulled out a folded bank statement and slid it across the mahogany surface.
"Eight months ago," I told her. "My grandmother died. She left me three hundred and twenty thousand dollars."
Nora scanned the highlighted row. "You transferred the entire inheritance to V.K. Holdings."
"Victor told me the gallery warehouse needed a total structural overhaul," I explained, pointing to the memo line. "I paid for the roof, the climate control, the new security gates. But look at the property title."
Nora flipped to the second page. Her jaw tightened. "The deed lists V.K. Holdings as the sole proprietor. Your name is nowhere on the asset."
"He planned this," I said.
"This isn't apathy, Sloane. It is premeditated stripping." Nora tossed the paper down. "He built a cage while you bought the steel. But if that six o'clock email goes to the gallery board with those photos, they freeze your position immediately. We need the rest of the audio."
My phone vibrated against the wood. The screen flashed with an incoming video call. Victor.
I swiped the green icon.
Victor's face appeared, illuminated by harsh fluorescent lighting. Behind him, the corrugated steel of a roll-up door filled the frame. My stomach dropped. I knew that dented metal.
"The board hasn't seen the photos yet," Victor said, his breath pluming in the cold night air. "But the warehouse security team just received a very interesting update."
He shifted his phone. The camera panned to the electronic keypad beside the door.
"V.K. Holdings authorized a lock change," Victor continued. "Your access is revoked."
The camera moved again, focusing on the narrow wall beside the keypad. A wooden brush box hung from a steel peg. My mother's restoration brushes. The camera zoomed in on the handle of the largest fan brush. The initials S.H. were etched deep into the wood. I carved those letters when I was seventeen.
Victor ran his thumb over the bristles. He handled the tool like a cheap trinket at a pawn shop.
"Do not go down there alone," Nora warned, reading the rigid line of my shoulders.
"He shouldn't touch my mother's things," I said. I ended the call.
I grabbed the copies of the bank statements and stuffed them into my tote.
"Sloane, wait," Nora stood up.
"Sync the police logs to my phone," I instructed, heading for the door. "If I don't answer in twenty minutes, send a patrol car to the warehouse."
The industrial park was dead quiet. Streetlamps buzzed overhead, casting long, ugly shadows across the cracked pavement. I parked my car two blocks away and walked the rest of the distance.
A new security guard stood by the warehouse entrance. He wore a heavy black jacket without a logo. My brass nameplate, which usually hung above the call button, was gone. A pale rectangle of clean brick marked where it used to be.
I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the missing plate. I aimed the lens at the keypad. A white sticker covered the digital display. Someone had scrawled 4419 across the adhesive in thick black marker. The temporary authorization code.
Across the street, a matte-black Porsche sat idling by the curb. The headlights were off, but the exhaust puffed steady white clouds into the freezing air. Victor's car.
A shadow detached itself from the alleyway next to the building.
I spun around, raising my phone like a weapon.
Damian stepped into the yellow pool of the streetlamp. He wore the same charcoal suit, but he had ditched the tie. In his left hand, he held a black hard drive box.
"I told you to stay away from me," I said, keeping the camera pointed at his chest.
Damian held the box out. "Half the audio is on here. Plus my GPS location logs for the entire night. It proves Victor was feeding me lines."
"Put it on the concrete," I ordered. "Do not step closer."
He lowered the box to the pavement. He straightened up, his eyes fixed on my face. "I am trying to fix this."
"You sold me for a hundred and eighty thousand dollars," I reminded him. "There is no fixing that."
A loud mechanical grinding noise shattered the quiet.
The corrugated steel door behind me rattled. The heavy metal panels began to rise, rolling upward into the ceiling track. Yellow warehouse light spilled out onto the pavement, stretching across Damian's shoes.
I turned around.
Victor stood in the center of the loading bay. He held my mother's wooden brush box in his right hand. The new security guard flanked him, holding a digital tablet.
Victor pointed directly at me.
"Get her in the frame too," Victor said.
