He Stole My Masterpiece, So The Ruthless Billionaire Destroyed Him On Stage

Chapter 4 Rest and Rupture

Julian’s face went from smug confidence to stark panic in the space of a heartbeat. Chloe, still clinging to his arm, looked flustered, her perfect porcelain mask cracking.

“What are you talking about, Elara?” Julian blustered, trying to regain his footing. “Premiere? I don’t know what you heard, but you’re clearly upset, you’re not thinking straight—”

“Oh, I’m thinking with perfect clarity,” I interrupted, my voice devoid of the warmth he had taken for granted for five years. “For the first time in a very long time.” I looked past him, at Chloe, whose eyes were now narrowed with venom. “It must be so reassuring to have a man who handles your dirty work. So steady. So reliable.”

I threw her own condescending words back at her. A flush of angry color rose in her cheeks.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” she spat.

“And you,” I said, turning my full attention back to Julian, “are a coward and a thief. We’re done. Don’t speak to me again unless it’s to discuss the weather.”

I turned to walk away, my heart hammering against my ribs, but a strange, liberating calm settled over me. The final cord had been severed.

“Not so fast,” Julian snarled, grabbing my arm again, his grip bruising this time. He dragged me a few steps further down the corridor, away from prying ears. “You’re not going anywhere. The final movement. Where is it?”

Ah. Of course. The grand finale. The explosive, triumphant conclusion to the symphony that existed only in my head and on a stack of manuscript paper hidden in my apartment. I had told him it was nearly finished, a lie to buy myself time. In truth, I had completed it a week ago.

“The final movement is mine,” I said.

“It’s the orchestra’s property! It’s part of the commissioned work!” he hissed, his face contorted with a desperation that was ugly to behold. “Chloe’s father paid for it!”

“He paid for *her* to write a symphony. Not for you to steal mine.” I twisted my arm, but his grip was like iron. “Let go of me, Julian. You’re hurting me.”

“Give me the score, Elara,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You have no idea what you’re up against. Do you really think you can win? Against me? Against the Renaults? I’m offering you a clean break. Hand over the music, and I’ll… I’ll make sure you get a decent severance. A good recommendation.”

It was so pathetic, so transparently false, that I almost laughed. “Your recommendation? What would it say? ‘She’s a brilliant ghostwriter, very compliant until she isn’t’?”

His face darkened with fury. He saw the contempt in my eyes and knew he had lost all control over me. He shoved me back against the wall, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs.

“You stupid b***h,” he seethed, his face inches from mine. “You’ll regret this.”

He released me as abruptly as he had grabbed me, smoothed his jacket, and stalked away, with Chloe trailing in his wake like a pale, expensive shadow. I watched them go, my arm throbbing, my resolve hardening into something sharp and unbreakable.

He was right about one thing. I was up against an army. But I had the one weapon they couldn’t take by force: the music itself.

The rest of the day passed in a surreal haze. I was barred from the afternoon rehearsal. Julian had cited “emotional instability” and “disruptive behavior” to the orchestra manager, a meek man who wouldn’t dare question the concertmaster, especially one backed by their primary benefactor. I was told to go home and “rest.”

I knew it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an exile.

I walked back to the small, subsidized apartment the orchestra provided for its junior members. The gray Vienna sky was heavy with unspoken rain. The rooms that had been my sanctuary for three years—the place where I had poured my heart out onto countless pages of sheet music—now felt like a cage.

I didn’t pack. Not yet. First, I went to the loose floorboard under my bed. I pulled it up and retrieved the thick manila folder. The final movement. I sat on the floor, my violin case beside me, and read through the score. It was all there—the thunder, the lightning, the final, soaring theme of defiance and liberation. It was the best thing I had ever written. It was my soul.

There was a sharp, insistent knock on the door.

My blood went cold. I knew who it was. I shoved the score into the large inner pocket of my violin case and went to the door.

Julian stood there, but he wasn't alone. Beside him was Herr Ziegler, the orchestra’s head of security, a burly man with a perpetually apologetic expression.

“Elara,” Julian said, his tone falsely gentle. “We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.” I tried to close the door, but he blocked it with his foot.

“Herr Ziegler is here to escort you from the premises,” Julian said, dropping the pretense. “Your contract has been terminated. Effective immediately.”

I stared at him, stunned by the sheer speed and brutality of it. “You can’t do that. It requires a board vote.”

“The board voted an hour ago. Unanimously.” He smiled, a thin, cruel s***h. “Chloe’s father is very persuasive. You have fifteen minutes to gather your personal belongings.”

Fifteen minutes to erase three years of my life.

“The music, Elara,” Julian said, his eyes flicking towards the apartment. “I know it’s in here. Just give it to me, and this can all be… civilized.”

“Get out,” I whispered.

His smile vanished. “Fine. Have it your way.” He nodded to Ziegler. “Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t take anything that belongs to the orchestra. That includes intellectual property.”

He meant my score.

I moved like a zombie, throwing clothes into a duffel bag, grabbing my toiletries, my few personal photos. My hands were trembling, but my mind was a block of ice. Ziegler stood awkwardly by the door, watching me with pity. Julian stood in the hallway, tapping his foot impatiently.

I packed my laptop, my phone charger. Then I picked up my violin case.

“I’ll need to check that,” Julian said, stepping forward.

“No,” I said, clutching the case to my chest. It contained my instrument, my soul, and my only weapon.

“It’s standard procedure,” he insisted, his eyes gleaming with avarice. He knew the score was inside. “Orchestra property must be inspected.”

“This is my personal instrument,” I said, my voice rising. “My grandfather gave it to me. You are not touching it.”

We stood locked in a standoff. Ziegler looked deeply uncomfortable. Julian’s frustration was mounting; he couldn’t physically wrestle it from me without causing a scene, but he couldn’t let me leave with it.

Then, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and a slow, triumphant smirk spread across his face. He held the screen up for me to see. It was a text from Chloe.

*Daddy just spoke to the director of the Berlin Phil. And the London Symphony. And the Paris Opéra. Word is out, darling. Your career is over before it even began.*

The air left my lungs. It was one thing to be fired. It was another to be blacklisted across the continent. They weren’t just taking my job; they were taking my life.

Julian lowered the phone. “The music won’t do you any good now, will it? You’ll never have it performed. It will rot in that case with the rest of your pathetic, broken dreams. Give it to me. It’s the only value you have left.”

Something inside me snapped. The ice in my mind shattered, replaced by a white-hot rage.

“If I can’t have it,” I said, my voice trembling with fury, “then no one will.”

Before he could react, I turned and ran for the small balcony. I unlatched the French doors and stepped out into the frigid air. The sky had finally broken, and a cold, miserable drizzle was beginning to fall. Below me was a four-story drop to the cobblestone courtyard.

“Elara, what are you doing?” Julian shouted, panic in his voice now. “Get back inside!”

I didn’t answer. I opened my violin case. I took out the manila folder. The rain began to spot the pages, the ink blurring slightly. I held it out over the railing.

“Stop!” he screamed. He knew I was serious. The symphony, *his* ticket to fame, was seconds away from being a shower of ruined paper.

“Leave,” I commanded. “Get out of my apartment. Now.”

He hesitated, his face a war of greed and fear.

“Now!” I shouted, my hand loosening its grip on the folder.

He swore violently under his breath, then turned and stormed out, dragging Ziegler with him. I heard the apartment door slam shut.

I stood there for a long moment, the rain soaking my hair, my clothes, the precious score. I was alone. I had won the battle, but I had lost everything else. I put the damp score safely back in its case, grabbed my duffel bag, and walked out of the apartment for the last time, not bothering to close the door.

The drizzle turned into a downpour. Within minutes, I was soaked to the bone, huddling under the inadequate awning of a closed bookshop. The city lights of Vienna blurred through the sheets of rain. Trams hissed by, their warm interiors filled with people going home to their lives, their dinners, their loves. I had nowhere to go. My bank account was nearly empty. My phone was a useless brick, filled with contacts in a world that had just slammed its doors in my face.

I was twenty-four years old, and my life was over.

A tear, hot and bitter, mixed with the cold rain on my cheek. I clutched my violin case tighter, the only thing of value I had left in the world. Despair, a heavy, suffocating blanket, settled over me. Julian was right. The music would rot. I would rot.

It was then that a long, black car pulled up to the curb, its motion silent and fluid as a shark gliding through water. It was a Maybach, impossibly sleek and out of place on this quiet, rain-slicked street. It stopped directly in front of me, its engine a low, powerful hum.

I stared, frozen, as the tinted rear window slid down with a faint electronic whisper.

Inside, cocooned in the warm, leather-scented darkness, sat Alistair Sterling. His face was cast in shadow, but I could see the sharp line of his jaw, the severe set of his mouth. He looked at me, taking in my drenched clothes, my shivering frame, the desolation in my eyes. He didn't offer a kind word, no expression of sympathy or pity crossed his face.

He simply looked at me for a long, unreadable moment, and then he spoke, his voice a low command that cut through the sound of the rain.

“Get in.”