The gallery was quiet after hours, the kind of silence that pressed into her ears until she could hear her own pulse. Gigi sat at her desk, chin propped in her hand, eyes fixed on the thing that refused to let her go.
The gift.
It still sat in its polished wooden crate on the pedestal where it had been delivered. A masterpiece. A rare collection piece she had once written about during graduate school, marveling at its history, assuming she would never see it outside of textbooks. And now it was here, in her gallery, under her watch, as though it belonged to her.
Or—worse—as though she belonged to someone.
Her eyes moved again to the neat flourish at the bottom of the note that had been tucked beside it. Just a single letter.
J.
She turned it over in her hands for what felt like the h
