Chapter 17 The Take

• The museum hums like a sleeping beast — marble floors echoing under velvet ropes, priceless glass that traps secrets behind reflections no one’s supposed to see.
• Opening night is chaos: champagne flutes, low laughter, a thousand eyes skimming past priceless canvas to the sharp cut of silk and whispers they’ll pretend they didn’t hear.
• Ellerei Vale glides through it like she owns every frame on the walls — hair up, black dress hugging her hips like a blade sheathed tight. Diamond pin at her throat — fake, of course. Everything else about her? Real enough to gut a man twice over.