Chapter 3

The invitation to exhibit in New York had been a shock.

A major Chelsea gallery. "Echoes in Sterling."

The title was a deliberate choice. A quiet reclamation.

Liam was so proud.

"You have to do it, Sarah," he' d said. "It's time."

So here I was.

The private opening was tonight.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird.

Not from excitement. Or not just from excitement.

Fear.

This city. Him.

Liam was by my side, a calm presence in the storm of my anxiety.

The gallery buzzed with art critics, collectors, the New York elite.

My paintings lined the walls. My pain, my resilience, my hope, all laid bare.

Then I saw him.

Across the crowded room.

Ethan Vanderbilt.

Older. Harder. Haunted.

His eyes found mine. Locked.

The air crackled. The noise of the room faded.

He moved towards me, a man possessed.

Liam stiffened beside me, his hand instinctively finding mine.

"Sarah," Ethan' s voice was a raw whisper, desperate.

He pulled me aside, just a few feet away from Liam, who watched, his expression unreadable but firm.

"I never stopped," Ethan said, his gaze burning into me.

He unbuttoned his expensive shirt, just enough.

There it was. "S.M."

Still over his heart. Faded, perhaps, but there.

"I never stopped loving you."

My stomach twisted. This wasn't Leo. This was a performance.

"I made them pay, Sarah," he rushed on, his words tumbling out. "Chad. Tiffany. They' re nothing now. The Harringtons... I' m crippling them. For you. To prove it. To atone."

His eyes were wild, alight with a disturbing fervor.

"I even found the mugger," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. "The one who started it all. Who took my memory. I dealt with him. Permanently. He won' t hurt anyone again."

Horror, cold and sharp, pierced through me.

This wasn't atonement. This was madness. This was about his power, his control.

"That... that isn't justice, Ethan," I managed, my voice trembling. "That's... monstrous."

Liam stepped forward, placing a protective hand on my arm.

"She' s right," Liam said, his voice calm but carrying an undeniable authority. "This isn't about her healing. This is about you."

I found my voice, fueled by a sudden surge of anger, of old pain.

"The locket, Ethan," I said, my voice tight. "Isabelle wore it. She called it a 'trinket' on social media. It wasn't a trinket. It was my grandmother's. My last piece of my family. Losing it, seeing her flaunt it, your betrayal... it almost broke me."

His face crumpled, a flicker of genuine pain crossing his features.

But it was too little, too late.

"You need to leave," Liam said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Leave Sarah alone."

Ethan looked from Liam to me, his haunted eyes pleading.

But there was nothing left in me for him but a cold, hard wall of rejection.

He turned, defeated, and disappeared into the crowd.

The air still thrummed with his toxic energy.

My triumph, my return, felt tainted.

Victoria Vanderbilt did not wait long.

The next day, she appeared at the gallery during a quiet moment.

Still elegant, still cold. But there was a new edge to her, a hint of desperation.

"Mr. Chen is not with you today?" she asked, her eyes sweeping the room, dismissing my art.

"He's busy," I said, my voice even. I wouldn't let her intimidate me. Not anymore.

"Ethan is... unwell," she said, the words carefully chosen. "His obsession with you, it' s become destructive. His actions against the Harringtons... they threaten our entire empire."

She paused, her gaze sharp. "He needs to focus. He needs to move on. You are a distraction he cannot afford."

Then came the implied offer, the veiled threat.

"Perhaps a more substantial arrangement this time? For you to disappear. Completely. For everyone's sake. Liam seems like a nice young man. It would be a shame if his career, or his well-being, were to suffer any... complications."

The audacity. The sheer, unadulterated arrogance.

I met her gaze, my own unflinching.

"I am not for sale, Mrs. Vanderbilt. Not then, not now. And if you threaten Liam, you'll find out just how resilient I can be."

A flicker of surprise in her cold eyes. Then, anger.

"You will regret this, child."

She swept out, leaving a chill in her wake.

But I stood my ground. I had Liam. I had my art. I had myself.

I wouldn't break.

Isabelle Harrington, however, was breaking.

Her family facing ruin. Her engagement to Ethan a bitter, hollow charade.

He had used her, toyed with her, and was now destroying her world, all in his twisted quest for my forgiveness.

She wasn't just a victim, though. She had been cruel, malicious.

But Ethan' s ruthlessness had pushed her too far.

Revenge, it turned out, was a game she could also play.

She started digging.

Ethan, in his obsessive quest to "atone" and dismantle his enemies, had become reckless.

Insider trading. Corporate sabotage.

And the mugger he' d "dealt with"?

Isabelle found whispers, threads of evidence, suggesting something far darker than just financial ruin for the man. Obstruction of justice. Maybe worse.

She gathered her proof.

And anonymously, she delivered it to the federal authorities.

The hunter became the hunted.