Chapter 28 - The Gilded Blackmail
The heavy lid of the trunk groaned as Julian and I hauled it open, sending up a cloud of dried lavender and powdered cedar. Resting inside, wrapped in oiled parchment, was a garment that seemed to absorb the very light around it: a tailored floor-length mourning gown crafted from midnight-black damask, its hem embroidered with intricate weeping willows woven from the exact same golden spider-silk as my corset.
"Eleanor called it *The Retribution*," Madame Laurent whispered, her voice trembling with reverence. "She spent the last six months of her life weaving it while hiding in the attic of this very mill. She knew she would never live to wear it to David’s trial. She left it for you."
As I touched the heavy silk, a folded, wax-sealed envelope slipped from the folds of the skirt. My mother’s unmistakable handwriting—sharp, elegant, unapologetic—adorned the parchment:
*To my daughter Clara: If you are reading this, David Vance has stepped out of his grave, and Julian has chosen truth over his father’s bloodline. Forgive your sister if you can, but do not let her vanity blind you to the final strike. The loom never forgets a broken thread.*
"Clara," Julian said, his hand resting gently against the small of my back. "We have less than three hours before the doors of the Palais close to outside guests. We can't walk in through the front. The guest list is vetted by my father’s personal intelligence firm."
"We don't need to walk in through the front," I said, a cold, unyielding resolve hardening inside me. "We’re going to use Evelyn."
Twenty minutes later, Julian patched our encrypted signal through Madame Laurent’s radio transmitter into the private landline of Room 402 at the Grand Hôtel.
The phone rang twice before Evelyn picked up, her voice a ragged, terrified sob. "David? Please—they’re in the hallway, they’re breaking the lock—"
"Evelyn. It’s Clara," I spoke into the brass horn of the transmitter.
A sharp intake of breath rattled over the speaker. "Clara? Oh God... Clara, help me! There are men outside with guns! They cut the power to the floor—"
"Listen to me carefully, Evelyn," I interrupted, my tone stripped of all pity. "You took my wedding day. You took my gown. You conspired with the man who murdered our mother’s colleagues and ruined our family name. You wanted the Vance name? You have it. But if you want to walk out of that hotel alive, you will do exactly what I tell you."
"Anything! Clara, please, I swear I didn't know he was going to kill anyone! He told me Julian loved me—"
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"Shut up," I commanded. "Under the bed in your suite, there is an antique laundry chute disguised as a service panel behind the headboard. It drops straight into the old basement wine cellar, which connects to the Saint-Georges sewer line. Julian has already unlocked the grate from below. Crawl through it now, or let David’s hitmen explain to you what happens to disposable pawns."
The line fell silent for a heartbeat, followed by the violent crash of wood splintering as the door of Room 402 gave way. Evelyn screamed, dropped the receiver, and the sound of frantic scuffling was instantly swallowed by the roar of gunfire before the line went dead.
