The Frozen Cellar

Chapter 3 Delete Before Leaving

Blood reached my fingertips. Julian brushed glass from Chloe’s hair and spoke to her until her sobbing eased.

“Check the security footage,” I said.

He finally looked over. His gaze followed the drops on the marble, then returned to my face. His lips tightened at the stain spreading across the floor.

“A medic can deal with that later. Apologize to Chloe.”

I laughed once. There was so little feeling in it that the room went quiet.

“No.”

His jaw tightened. “You’ve tried my patience for the last time, Seraphina. I told you I would break that defiant spirit. You need a lesson.”

He signaled his security team. “Take her to the cellar.”

My father shifted in his chair and stayed there. Chloe’s tears stopped as soon as Julian turned away.

The guards glanced at my arm.

“She can see a doctor when she is ready to beg Chloe’s forgiveness,” Julian said. “Lock her in.”

They caught me above the elbows, pressing their fingers into bruises left by the server room. I saved my strength and walked between them, down the grand staircase and past the family portraits.

Each painted Vance watched from a gilt frame. At the end of the stone corridor stood an iron-banded door.

The antique cellar held delicate artifacts and old tapestries. Its temperature stayed at zero degrees Celsius.

Cold, stale air rolled out when a guard opened the door. Shelves and covered furniture disappeared into the dark beyond him. They pushed me inside and shot the bolt behind me.

The sound carried along the stone corridor after their footsteps faded.

The wound in my arm burned first. Cold worked into the open cut with every beat of my pulse. Then my fingers lost feeling, and the blood on my dress stiffened against my skin.

I sat on the stone floor and tucked my injured arm against my body. Shivering pulled at the wound until even that reaction began to slow.

In the dark, every excuse I had made for Julian sounded absurd. He called himself my curator because partner would have required him to treat me as an equal.

My father called theft a family duty. Chloe called my work inspiration.

I had spent years waiting for one of them to admit what they were doing. I had turned every stolen design and public slight into a test I could pass if I worked harder.

The cellar gave me my answer. They had no final test, only another demand waiting behind the last one.

I would leave them exactly what they had asked for: a Vance future built around Chloe, without one sketch or signature from me to hold it up.

Hours passed. Eventually the cold stopped hurting. I could no longer tell whether my hand was pressed against the floor.

The bolt scraped back.

Light cut across the cellar. Julian stepped through the doorway, his leather shoes clicking on the stone. He found me sitting in the corner with my injured arm folded against me.

He studied my stillness for concern, fear, or apology. Satisfaction came first.

Then he smiled.

He mistook silence for surrender. I let him.