Chapter 7

A suffocating silence filled the room. The only sound was Addisyn's quiet, pathetic sniffling.

Augustus shoved the legal document into Isaac's chest. He took a heavy step backward, his face dark with humiliation. He completely abandoned the argument over the room.

But Eleonora wasn't finished.

She took two aggressive steps forward, closing the distance and standing directly in front of Addisyn.

The sheer force of Eleonora's presence made it hard for Addisyn to breathe. Addisyn instinctively tried to back away, but her hips hit the hard edge of the marble vanity. She was trapped.

Eleonora leaned in slightly. Her eyes bypassed Addisyn's crying face and locked onto her long, pale neck.

Resting against Addisyn's collarbone, clashing horribly with the cheap pink fabric of her dress, was a massive, flawless sapphire and diamond necklace.

Eleonora's blood ran ice cold. It was the "Eye of the Deep," her late mother's most cherished piece of jewelry.

She shot her hand forward and grabbed the heavy sapphire pendant. She pulled it sharply toward her. The thick diamond chain dug into the back of Addisyn's neck, leaving a harsh red line on her skin.

Addisyn shrieked in pain. Her hands flew up to grab her throat, her tears flowing freely now. "Sister, what are you doing! You're hurting me!"

Isaac's muscles tensed, ready to intervene again, but Eleonora shot him a glare so lethal it nailed his feet to the floor.

Eleonora ignored Addisyn's screams. "Who gave you permission to touch my mother's things?" she demanded, her voice a deadly whisper.

Addisyn stammered, her chest heaving in panic. "D-Dad! Clyde said it looked pretty with my dress! He let me borrow it for tonight!"

Eleonora let out a harsh scoff. "Clyde? What gives him the right to lend out things he doesn't own?"

She slowly turned her head to look at Augustus and Isaac, her eyes burning with contempt. "Tell me, you two Ivy League scholars. What is the charge in the New York State Penal Code for taking and wearing high-value property without the owner's consent?"

Augustus's face turned an ugly shade of gray. He knew exactly what it was. It was Grand Larceny in the third degree.

Eleonora stepped closer, her voice relentless. "You stood there and defended her. Is this what your elite families taught you? How to harbor and protect a common thief?"

The word "thief" struck like a hammer. It shattered the delicate, innocent socialite persona Addisyn had spent months building.

Isaac's face went pale. He felt physically sick at the thought that the pure, sweet girl he had been protecting was being branded a criminal.

Addisyn realized instantly that if she left this room with the label of a thief, her reputation in high society would be permanently destroyed.

Survival instinct kicked in. She abandoned her victim act and desperately reached behind her neck, her fingers fumbling blindly with the intricate clasp.

She was shaking so hard that her manicured nails scratched her own skin, drawing tiny beads of blood.

The clasp finally gave way. The heavy sapphire necklace slid off her neck and dropped into Eleonora's waiting palm.

Addisyn clutched her bleeding neck, crying hysterically. She looked at Isaac, her eyes begging for sympathy and rescue, desperately trying to salvage her image.

But Isaac wouldn't meet her eyes. He stared at the necklace in Eleonora's hand, a dark seed of doubt finally taking root in his mind.

Eleonora reached into her pocket and pulled out a sterile alcohol wipe. Right in front of their faces, she began to meticulously scrub the sapphire and the diamonds.

She rubbed the metal with intense focus, as if the necklace had been contaminated by a deadly virus. The silent, physical gesture was infinitely more humiliating than a slap to the face.

Addisyn watched her scrub the jewels. The humiliation burned like acid in her chest. She dug her fingernails so hard into her palms that they nearly broke the skin.

Eleonora dropped the clean necklace into her coat pocket. She tossed the dirty wipe perfectly into the small trash can by the vanity.

She looked up, her gaze sweeping over the three of them. "The room. The jewelry. If there is anything else you stole, I suggest you hand it over now."

Augustus took a deep, shaky breath. He realized with absolute clarity that in this room, Eleonora had stripped them of every legal and moral defense they had.