Chapter 132:


    “This is mine,” Isolde said, closing her fingers around the brooch. “And that book — you just confessed to destroying key evidence in a billion-dor intellectual propertywsuit. It’s a federal crime, Belle. It’s called spoliation of evidence.”


    “What?”


    “Grayson!” Belle screamed.


    Grayson came running into the room, alerted by the doorman and still catching his breath. He took in the scene at once — the shattered mirror, the open safe, Belle in tears, Isolde holding the brooch.


    “What is going on?” Grayson demanded.


    “She threw my clothes off the balcony!” Belle wailed. “And she stole the brooch!”


    “I repossessed my property,” Isolde said evenly. “And your girlfriend just confessed, on video, to destroying my dissertation.”


    Grayson looked at Belle. “You threw out the book? The leather one?”


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    “It was ugly!” Belle said.


    Grayson put his head in his hands. “That book — Isolde, please tell me you have a digital copy.”


    “No,” Isolde said. “I don’t. But I have a perfect memory. And now I have a confession.”


    She walked toward the door.


    “Isolde, wait.” Grayson stepped into her path. “We can fix this. I can hire a team to search the dump.”


    “Don’t bother,” Isolde said. “I’m done fixing things, Grayson. I’m done fixing you.”


    She looked at him one final time. He looked small. Defeated.


    “I’m leaving,” she said. “And this time, I’m not looking back.”


    She walked out of the Penthouse, past a confused Kaiden, and into the elevator.


    As the doors slid closed, she pinned the emerald brooch to her whitepel.


    She was Sophia. And she had work to do.


    The silence in the penthouse was heavy. Grayson Lancaster stood in the center of the master bedroom, his Italian leather shoes crunching on shards of the shattered mirror.


    He took a half-step toward the hallway, his hand reaching out unconsciously, as though he might pull her back from the elevator, from the life she was building without him. But the gesture died in the air. She was gone. The finality of the closing elevator doors echoed in his mind, louder than anything Belle was saying.


    He looked at the open balcony doors. The curtains whipped violently in the wind.


    “She’s crazy,” Belle sobbed from the corner. “Gray, she almost killed me. She threw my things — my entire life…”


    Grayson didn’t look at her. His gaze was fixed on the open safe — the dark void where the leather-bound dissertation used to sit. The space where his wife’s intellectual soul had resided, now hollowed out by the woman weeping behind him.


    A cold, oily nausea rose in his gut.


    His phone vibrated in his pocket. Once. Twice. A relentless buzzing that demanded attention. He pulled it out. A message from Daron — no text, only a screenshot.


    Grayson’s eyes narrowed as the image loaded. It was a post from Belle’s Instagram ount.


    Some heirlooms just find their way to the rightful owner. Blessed. #LancasterLegacy #NewBeginnings.


    The photo showed Belle preening in the passenger seat of his car, the Carson family emerald brooch pinned conspicuously to herpel.


    The blood drained from his face. His grip on the phone tightened until the metal bit into his palm.


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