Chapter 273:
“I was invited,” Aurora said, holding up her phone with the digital invite. “By the guest of honor.”
“Leave,” Eleanor threatened. “Or I’ll have security drag you out.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Aurora said calmly. “You’re going to want to see the main event.”
“What main event?”
“Enjoy the show, Aunt Eleanor,” Aurora whispered.
She stepped around Eleanor and took her position.
The lights dimmed. A spotlight hit the stage.
Vivian stepped up to the microphone. She looked beautiful and fragile.
“Thank you all for coming,” Vivian said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Tonight is about art. It’s about truth. For a long time, I hid my talent. I let others take from me.”
She looked pointedly at Aurora in the back of the room. The crowd turned to glare at Aurora.
“But tonight,” Vivian continued, “I am reclaiming my voice. I want to share with you the process of my latest work, The Solitude.”
She gestured to the massive screen behind her.
“This is a time-lapse of me painting it,” Vivian lied.
She signaled the tech guy.
Aurora, standing in the shadows, pulled out her phone. She opened an app that Victor had installed. It was a direct line to the venue’s projector system.
A single button on the screen: EXECUTE.
Vivian smiled at the crowd. “Watch closely.”
Aurora’s thumb hovered over the button.
“Burn,” she whispered.
Read the rest on g𝒶l nov els.𝓬𝓶
She pressed it.
The massive screen behind Vivian flickered violently, a jagged streak of static tearing through the elegant Kensington logo. For a heartbeat, the air in the ballroom vanished. The first frame of the “destruction” video—the raw, unedited footage of Vivian screaming at a maid while Aurora quietly sketched in the background—began to render, a ghostly blur of reality threatening to overwrite the lie.
Vivian’s breath hitched. She saw the glitch, saw the unfamiliar pixels, and her soul seemed to wither on stage. Eleanor gripped the back of a chair, her knuckles turning white.
But then, Aurora’s thumb slid across the screen of her phone.
She didn’t let the video play. Not yet.
With a micro-adjustment of the code, she hit “Pause” and “Restore.” The screen stabilized, returning to the pristine white background and the gold Kensington crest. To the audience, it looked like nothing more than a momentary electrical surge, a minor technical hiccup in an otherwise perfect evening.
“Patience,” Aurora whispered to the shadows, her eyes locked on Vivian’s trembling form. “The higher you climb, the more beautiful the crash.”
She wanted Vivian to feel the victory. She wanted her to hear the applause, to believe she had survived the glitch, to bask in the stolen glory until the very moment the floor dropped away. A quick execution was mercy; Aurora was looking for justice.
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