Chapter 131:


    “Go away, witch!” he shouted. He sent the drone straight at Isolde’s head.


    The high-pitched whine of the motors was a gunshot in the quiet room. Isolde’s heart lurched into her throat. Her vision narrowed to a point. For one split second she was not in the penthouse — she was on the pavement, the world spinning, the smell of burnt stic filling her lungs. The nerve endings in her left arm screamed with phantom pain, a searing echo of the real impact. She did not duck out of instinct. She moved with the cold, calcted precision of a survivor.


    The drone smashed into the mirror. ss shattered across the floor.


    “You missed,” Isolde said, her voice a low growl.


    She tied the bag shut and dragged it toward the balcony doors.


    “What are you doing?” Belle’s voice climbed to a shriek.


    Isolde opened the doors. Wind from the river whipped through, catching her hair.


    She lifted the bag. It was heavy — packed with designer dresses and shoes. A sharp, agonizing pain tore through her injured left arm as she used her good shoulder and hip to lever the cumbersome weight up onto the railing, gritting her teeth against the fire radiating through her nerves.


    “This is a no-dumping zone!” Belle cried.


    “Exactly,” Isolde said. “So I’m removing the trash.”


    She drove the bag over the edge with her right hand and shoulder.


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    It fell forty stories.


    Belle screamed and rushed to the railing, watching her wardrobe plummet toward the street below.


    Belle was sobbing, clutching the railing. “My Gi! My Prada!”


    “You can go pick them up,” Isolde said, dusting off her hands. “They’re on the sidewalk.”


    She turned back to the room and walked to the safe. She punched in the code. It opened.


    Empty.


    Her dissertation. The leather-bound thesis containing her grandmother’s sketches. It was gone.


    Isolde turned to Belle. Her voice was chillingly calm. “Where is the book? The leather-bound book that was in here.”


    Belle wiped her nose, her expression turning spiteful. “Oh, that old thing? I threw it out. It smelled like mildew.”


    Isolde did not react. This was not a surprise — it was the final move in a game she was already winning. She drew out her phone, her thumb hovering over the record button before she spoke again.


    “So you’re saying you threw it out?” Isolde asked, her voice level, angling the phone to capture Belle’s face.


    “Yeah. With the recycling. Last week,” Belle said smugly, certain she was scoring a point.


    “To be clear,” Isolde continued, her tone shifting to that of awyer cross-examining a witness, “you are admitting on record to taking a private, proprietary document from a locked safe and willfully disposing of it?”


    “It was junk!”


    Isolde stopped the recording. A small,posed smile touched her lips. She crossed the room toward Belle, who flinched — but Isolde moved with surgical precision. She reached out and ripped the emerald brooch from Belle’s dress. The pin tore the fabric clean through.


    “Ow!” Belle yelped.


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