Chapter 6

The invitation arrived by courier, a heavy, cream-colored cardstock that felt like a summons. Liam, in a grand gesture of artistic patronage, had sponsored a solo photography exhibition for Seraphina at the city's most prestigious and influential art museum, The Vanguard. My attendance, the note from his assistant read, was "strongly encouraged to present a united front."

I went. I dressed in a stark, simple black dress that absorbed the light, a deliberate contrast to the glittering, celebratory atmosphere. I was a mourner at a party, an observer at my own public execution.

The gallery was a sea of the art world's most powerful and influential figures-critics, collectors, gallery owners, and fellow artists. Liam stood by Seraphina's side, playing the part of the proud, supportive patron to perfection. Her photographs, moody and self-indulgent, were hung on pristine white walls.

At the height of the evening, during her artist's speech, Seraphina stepped up to the podium. She began by thanking Liam, her voice trembling with emotion. Then, her tear-filled eyes found me in the crowd.

"For years," she sobbed, her voice amplified by the microphone, echoing through the cavernous space, "I suffered from a debilitating creative block. A darkness I couldn't seem to overcome. Because my soul, my vision, my very ideas, were being... borrowed. By someone very close to me, someone I trusted."

On the large projector screen behind her, a professionally designed slideshow began to play. On one side of the screen, her supposed early-concept sketches and diary entries appeared. On the other, high-resolution photos of my finished paintings. The dates on her sketches, I knew with a sickening certainty, were digitally forged. The thematic similarities were vague, but they had been expertly curated and manipulated to create a damning narrative of artistic theft.

"She took my trauma, my pain," Seraphina whispered, her voice a masterpiece of manufactured vulnerability, "and she called it her art. She used her position as my friend, as his wife, to steal my voice."

A collective, horrified gasp went through the room. The whispers started immediately, spreading like a virus. In the hallowed, unforgiving halls of the art world, plagiarism was the ultimate sin, a crime punishable by immediate and permanent excommunication. My career, my passion, my very identity as an artist, was being systematically, publicly, and brilliantly murdered. And my husband was the one who had paid for the executioner.