PART 2.
The cameras were already waiting when Celeste Vane decided to destroy me.
“Did you get dressed in the dark, darling?”
Her voice sliced through the grand entrance of the Metropolitan Museum.
Every photographer turned.
I wore a simple black gown my late mother had designed thirty-two years ago.
Celeste wore the celebrated ivory masterpiece she claimed was made from one hundred percent authentic Italian silk.
Then I touched a glowing fleck of cigar ash to her train.
The fabric curled like melting plastic.
And the federal textile investigator stepped forward.
“Because your gown,” I whispered to Celeste, “was never the real counterfeit.”
For several seconds, the entrance hall seemed to forget how to breathe.
Celeste stared at me.
Not at the investigator.
Not at the ruined hem.
At me.
It was the look of someone who had spent years believing a locked door could never be opened, only to hear the key turning behind her.
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
I smiled.
“You’ll find out.”
The elderly investigator unfolded his credentials.
“Ms.
Vane, my name is Arthur Bell.
Federal Textile Fraud Division.”
Celeste recovered faster than I expected.
That was one of her gifts.
Most people needed time to become cruel.
Celeste could become cruel between heartbeats.
She straightened her shoulders, glanced at the dozens of cameras surrounding us, and laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Oh, how theatrical.”
Arthur Bell did not blink.
“Your company has represented garments containing synthetic acetate blends as protected-origin Italian silk.”
Celeste lifted one hand dismissively.
“This is absurd.”
“Customs records say otherwise.”
“My suppliers handle imports.”
“Your signature appears on seventeen declarations.”
“My attorneys will explain.”
“They’ll have the opportunity.”
Her husband appeared then.
Gideon Vane.
Silver-haired, broad-shouldered, sixty-four years old, and powerful enough that senators returned his calls before their own mothers’.
He owned newspapers, television stations, investment firms, and, according to everyone who feared him, half the secrets in Manhattan.
He moved through the guests like Moses through water.
“What happened?”
Celeste immediately became a different woman.
Her voice softened.
Her eyes shone.
“Gideon, she attacked me.”
Every camera pivoted toward me.
Of course.
There it was.
The first move.
Not fraud.
Not evidence.
Not the synthetic fabric curling around her shoes.
Assault.
I expected it.
Arthur Bell did too.
“Security footage shows Ms.
Vale dropped a trace quantity of ash onto the exterior train after museum fire personnel were positioned nearby,” he said.
Gideon looked at him.
“And you are?”
“Federal investigator.”
That changed the temperature.
Gideon’s expression barely moved, but I saw the muscle twitch beneath his left eye.
Celeste saw it too.
For the first time, genuine fear entered her face.
“Federal?”
Arthur nodded.
“We’ve been examining Vane Atelier’s import declarations for eleven weeks.”
Celeste turned on me.
“You did this.”
“No.”
“You sent them.”
“I sent nobody.”
“Liar.”
“You sent them yourself.”
Her face went blank.
I reached into my handbag and removed a folded sheet of paper.
Not the invoices.
Something older.
Much older.
I held it where only Celeste could see.
Her mouth opened.
Across the yellowing paper was a sketched emblem: a crescent moon threaded through a silver needle.
My mother’s first trademark.
The insignia of Vale House.
A fashion label Celeste had purchased for pennies after my mother died.
A label she claimed had contained nothing of value.
Except that identical crescent-and-needle symbol had been stitched inside every supposedly new Vane Atelier couture gown released during the previous three years.
Hidden beneath the lining.
Too small for buyers to notice.
Too consistent to be accidental.
Celeste’s whisper was barely audible.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother kept copies.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you bought her company six days after the funeral.”
Her jaw tightened.
“That was a legitimate acquisition.”
“For eighty-seven thousand dollars.”
“No one else wanted it.”
“You told the bankruptcy court there was no usable intellectual property.”
“There wasn’t.”
I moved closer.
“Then why are my mother’s construction codes inside your dresses?”
That did it.
The confidence vanished.
Only for a second.
But cameras are cruel things.
They preserve seconds.
Celeste looked toward Gideon.
He was no longer looking at me.
He was staring at his wife.
Arthur Bell motioned to two officials carrying evidence cases.
“Ms.
Vane, we require access to the garment.”
Celeste stepped backward.
“You cannot possibly expect me to undress in the Metropolitan Museum.”
“We’ve arranged a private room.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You are not under arrest.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
Arthur’s expression remained polite.
“You may.”
Celeste blinked.
She clearly had not expected that.
Arthur continued.
“But the dress may not.”
There was a murmur from the journalists.
Gideon stepped forward.
“My wife is wearing the dress.”
“For the moment.”
Celeste’s eyes widened.
It was almost funny.
Almost.
Then someone behind us laughed.
A low male laugh.
I turned.
Victor Saye stood near the marble staircase.
He was Celeste’s creative director, the man who had spent a decade standing beside her in interviews while critics called them the most visionary design partnership in America.
Victor was forty-five, beautiful in the brittle way expensive men sometimes are, dressed in a black tuxedo with a white gardenia in his lapel.
He raised his champagne glass.
“To authenticity.”
Celeste stared at him.
“Victor.”
Something in her voice made me look again.
That wasn’t anger.
It was betrayal.
Victor smiled.
“Trouble, Celeste?”
“You knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Don’t.”
Victor took a sip.
Arthur Bell’s attention sharpened.
Celeste pushed through the officials and reached Victor.
“You knew they were investigating.”
“Did I?”
“You changed the Como invoices.”
The room erupted.
Reporters surged forward.
Celeste froze.
She had said too much.
Victor’s smile disappeared.
Gideon closed his eyes for half a second.
And I realized something important.
This was not unfolding according to anyone’s plan.
Not mine.
Not Arthur’s.
And certainly not Celeste’s.
Victor placed his glass on a passing tray.
“You should stop talking.”
Celeste grabbed his arm.
“You told me everything was clean.”
Camera shutters sounded like machine-gun fire.
Arthur Bell quietly said, “Ms.
Vane, I strongly recommend that you wait for counsel.”
But panic had finally found Celeste.
Years of discipline were cracking open.
“You said the laboratory certificates would match.”
Victor pulled his arm free.
“Celeste.”
“You said nobody could trace the polymer blend.”
“Stop.”
“You said—”
Victor slapped her.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Celeste slowly turned her head back toward him.
A red mark appeared across her cheek.
Victor seemed more shocked than anyone.
Then Gideon hit him.
Not slapped.
Hit.
Victor crashed into a floral arrangement, sending white roses across the marble floor.
Guests screamed.
Security rushed forward.
And five hundred wealthy people suddenly remembered they owned phones.
Within seconds, the grand entrance of the Metropolitan Museum had become the most expensive street fight in New York.
I stepped backward.
Arthur Bell caught my arm.
“Stay close.”
“Why?”
His eyes remained on Victor.
“Because this is worse than we thought.”
I looked at him.
“What did you find?”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“The polymer blend wasn’t my biggest concern.”
My stomach tightened.
“What was?”
He glanced toward my black gown.
Then toward Celeste.
“Your mother.”
I stopped breathing.
“My mother has been dead for twelve years.”
“I know.”
“What does she have to do with synthetic fabric?”
Arthur hesitated.
Federal investigators are trained not to hesitate.
That frightened me more than anything he could have said.
“Three months ago,” he told me, “we intercepted a shipment at Newark labeled theatrical textiles.”
“I know.”
“You know about the Italian production code.”
“Yes.”
“What you don’t know is what we found underneath the false labels.”
I waited.
Arthur spoke quietly.
“Original Vale House fabric.”
The museum disappeared around me.
“What?”
“Bolts of it.
Hundreds of yards.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what we thought.”
“My mother’s suppliers shut down decades ago.”
“Some did.”
“She stopped producing that weave before I was born.”
Arthur nodded.
“And yet someone has been manufacturing it continuously.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
“That’s the problem.”
Before he could continue, one of his colleagues approached.
“Bell.”
Arthur turned.
The younger investigator whispered something into his ear.
Arthur’s face changed.
“What happened?”
I asked.
He ignored me.
“Seal the service exits.”
The investigator hurried away.
Arthur looked toward where Victor had fallen.
Victor was gone.
Security officers searched the crowd.
Celeste was standing beside Gideon, one hand against her bruised cheek.
Victor Saye had vanished.
Arthur cursed under his breath.
The museum gala was shut down within twenty minutes.
No official announcement called it a shutdown, naturally.
The Met was too elegant for that.
Instead, guests were “invited to conclude arrivals while an administrative matter was resolved.”
Which meant billionaires, diplomats, celebrities, and editors were politely pushed back onto Fifth Avenue while federal agents photographed Celeste’s dress.
I stayed.
So did Gideon.
Celeste eventually changed into a museum emergency robe and surrendered the ivory gown.
Without it, she looked strangely small.
Human, almost.
She sat in a private conservation room, wrapped in gray cotton, while attorneys began arriving.
Three for her.
Four for Gideon.
One for Vane Atelier.
And then another man entered.
He carried no briefcase.
He wore an old navy suit.
He was perhaps seventy.
When Celeste saw him, all the blood drained from her face.
“Get out.”
The man stopped.
Gideon looked between them.
“Who is this?”
Celeste stood.
“I said get out.”
The stranger looked at me.
Not Celeste.
Me.
His eyes softened.
“Isabella.”
No one had called me that way since my mother died.
I stepped back.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Luca Moretti.”
I knew the name.
I had seen it written hundreds of times in my mother’s archives.
L.
Moretti.
The textile engineer who had developed Vale House’s signature silk blend.
According to my mother’s records, Luca Moretti had died in Milan in 1997.
I stared at him.
“You’re dead.”
A sad smile touched his face.
“So I’ve been told.”
Celeste lunged forward.
“Do not speak to her.”
Arthur Bell stepped between them.
“Sit down, Ms.
Vane.”
Celeste ignored him.
Her eyes were fixed on Luca.
“You signed an agreement.”
“So did you.”
“I paid you.”
“To disappear.
Not to lie forever.”
Gideon turned toward his wife.
“Celeste.”
She said nothing.
“Who is he?”
Silence.
Gideon took one step closer.
“Who is he?”
Luca answered.
“I worked for Isabella’s mother.”
Gideon frowned.
“What does that have to do with my wife?”
Luca looked directly at Celeste.
“Ask her what her name was in 1993.”
That sentence broke something.
Celeste closed her eyes.
Gideon looked at her.
“What is he talking about?”
She whispered, “Nothing.”
Luca laughed.
“There it is.”
He turned to me.
“Your mother hired me in 1988.
At Vale House.
We created seventeen experimental fabrics.
One of them was called Nocturne.”
My hand moved unconsciously toward my black gown.
Luca noticed.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“This dress?”
“The first finished garment ever made from it.”
I looked down.
The black silk had always felt unusual.
Soft, but heavier than modern silk.
It caught light strangely, absorbing brightness rather than reflecting it.
My mother had told me it was special.
I assumed she meant sentimental.
Luca continued.
“Nocturne wasn’t traditional silk.
It was a composite weave.
Silk protein reinforced with a microscopic cellulose lattice.”
Arthur Bell stared.
“In 1988?”
“We were ahead of our time.”
“What made it valuable?”
Luca looked at my gown.
“It barely burned.”
Everyone fell silent.
I remembered the cigar.
The ember.
The synthetic ivory curling instantly.
Then I imagined touching that same ember to the black fabric I was wearing.
Nothing.
Perhaps a tiny scorch.
Nothing more.
Luca continued.
“It was lighter than protective fabric, stronger than luxury silk, extremely resistant to flame, and almost impossible to reproduce without the original chemical treatment.”
Gideon said, “How valuable?”
Luca shrugged.
“In fashion?
Millions.”
He paused.
“In aerospace, defense, industrial protection?”
His eyes hardened.
“Billions.”
Celeste sat down.
Gideon slowly turned toward her.
“You knew.”
She stared at the floor.
“You knew what her mother had.”
Still Celeste said nothing.
And suddenly I understood the bankrupt fashion house.
The mysterious debts.
The cancelled suppliers.
The investors who vanished.
My mother crying over legal papers at the kitchen table.
Her insisting, near the end, that she had been “stupid about people.”
I had always assumed she meant business.
Luca reached inside his jacket and removed an old photograph.
He gave it to me.
Four people stood inside my mother’s Queens studio.
My mother, smiling.
Luca, thirty years younger.
A textile chemist I recognized from company records.
And a young woman with dark hair tied behind her neck.
She was perhaps twenty-two.
But I knew the eyes.
Celeste.
On the back of the photograph, my mother had written four names.
My finger stopped beneath the last.
CELIA VARGAS — ASSISTANT.
I looked at Celeste.
“Celia?”
She flinched.
Luca said, “Before she became Celeste Vane.”
Gideon sank into a chair.
His face had gone gray.
Celeste finally looked up.
“You think this proves something?”
“It proves you knew my mother,” I said.
“I worked for her.”
“You told me you met her once.”
“I was embarrassed.”
“Of what?”
Her laugh was bitter.
“Being poor.”
The words surprised me.
Perhaps because they were the first honest words I had ever heard her speak.
She looked at the room.
“At twenty-two I ironed dresses, cleaned toilets, fetched coffee.
Your mother was brilliant, Isabella.
Everyone loved her.
Everyone praised her.
She walked into a room and people saw genius.”
Celeste’s eyes turned hard.
“When I walked into a room, people saw the girl carrying her garment bags.”
“So you destroyed her?”
“I learned from her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
She stood.
“You think your mother was some saint?”
“I never said she was.”
“She used people.”
Luca frowned.
“That’s not true.”
Celeste pointed at him.
“You loved her.
Of course you’d say that.”
My stomach turned.
I looked at Luca.
His silence told me Celeste had struck something real.
“You loved my mother?”
He looked away.
“Very much.”
“Did she love you?”
“I don’t know.”
Celeste laughed.
“Everyone loved Evelyn Vale.
That was her real talent.”
“Enough,” Luca said.
“No.
She deserves the truth.”
Celeste faced me.
“Your mother didn’t lose her company because I stole it.”
I waited.
“She lost it because she refused to sell Nocturne.”
“To whom?”
Celeste hesitated.
Then Gideon spoke.
“To me.”
Every person in the room turned.
I stared at him.
Gideon removed his glasses.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked old.
“I was building a materials investment fund in the nineties,” he said.
“We heard rumors about Evelyn Vale’s textile patents.”
“You knew my mother too?”
“I met her twice.”
Celeste laughed again.
“Liar.”
Gideon’s expression sharpened.
She smiled.
“He met her more than twice.”
I felt cold.
“What happened?”
Gideon ignored Celeste.
“I offered Evelyn twelve million dollars for the patent portfolio.”
“That was a fortune then.”
“Yes.”
“She refused?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Luca answered.
“Because the technology had flaws.”
“What flaws?”
He hesitated.
“Nocturne was durable under heat.
But the chemical treatment used in early production created toxic waste.”
Arthur Bell leaned forward.
“How toxic?”
“Very.”
My mother had not merely rejected money.
She had buried the technology.
Luca explained that Evelyn had ordered production destroyed and all remaining chemical compounds neutralized.
But someone copied the formulas first.
Someone inside Vale House.
Someone who disappeared six months later.
I looked toward Celeste.
She smiled without humor.
“Go ahead.
Accuse me.”
“Was it you?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Celeste looked at Luca.
His face tightened.
And suddenly I understood.
I turned toward him.
“You?”
“No.”
But his answer came too quickly.
Arthur Bell noticed too.
“Mr.
Moretti.”
Luca stepped backward.
“I preserved research.
I did not sell it.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Celeste whispered, “Tell her.”
“Be quiet.”
“Tell her who copied the formula.”
Luca’s hands trembled.
“Celeste.”
“Tell her.”
“Stop.”
“Tell her who destroyed her mother.”
Luca moved so suddenly that Arthur’s hand went beneath his jacket.
But Luca wasn’t reaching for a weapon.
He was reaching into his inner pocket.
He pulled out a small envelope.
And threw it onto the table.
It slid toward me.
My name was written across the front.
Not Isabella.
Izzy.
Only one person had ever called me that.
My mother.
I stopped breathing.
The handwriting was hers.
“What is this?”
Luca’s voice cracked.
“She gave it to me three weeks before she died.”
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Izzy,
If you are reading this, then Luca has finally stopped being a coward.
I almost laughed.
Even dead, my mother could insult a man accurately.
The letter continued.
Nocturne was never stolen from me.
I gave it away.
My eyes stopped.
I read the sentence again.
I gave it away.
Celeste was watching me.
So was Gideon.
My mother’s handwriting continued.
I gave the research to the one person I believed would protect you if anything happened to me.
That was my greatest mistake.
I looked at Luca.
“Who?”
He shook his head.
“Read.”
I continued.
You will want to believe Celia betrayed me.
She did, in many ways.
But she was never the person I feared.
The person you must fear is the one who convinced you Celia was your enemy.
A pulse began hammering behind my eyes.
There was only one final paragraph.
And if that person is standing beside you when you read this, do not react.
Do not accuse them.
Do not let them know you understand.
Because if they realize you have this letter, they will kill you exactly as they killed me.
The room tilted.
I looked up.
My mother had died twelve years earlier after collapsing behind the wheel of her car.
Heart failure, according to the autopsy.
No accident.
No foul play.
Heart failure.
Celeste’s expression changed when she saw my face.
“What does it say?”
I folded the paper carefully.
“Nothing.”
Arthur Bell stared at me.
“Isabella?”
“My mother was sentimental.”
Luca understood immediately.
His face went pale.
Someone in that room.
Someone standing near me.
My mother’s killer.
Gideon.
Celeste.
Luca.
Arthur?
I hated myself for thinking it.
But my mother’s warning had been precise.
The person who made me believe Celeste was the enemy.
Who had done that?
Celeste herself, obviously.
Years of insults.
Years of public rivalry.
The purchase of Vale House.
The theft of designs.
But hatred can be cultivated.
Sometimes the easiest mask for a murderer is someone else’s cruelty.
Arthur’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression became grave.
“What?”
He walked toward the door.
“When?”
A pause.
“Lock the building.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
Gideon asked.
Arthur looked at us.
“They found Victor.”
Celeste went white.
“Where?”
“Service stairwell.”
“Is he alive?”
Arthur said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Two officers entered.
One whispered to Arthur.
He turned slowly toward me.
“Isabella.”
“What?”
“Victor had something in his hand.”
The officer opened an evidence bag.
Inside was a small black button.
Mother-of-pearl.
Custom engraved.
A crescent moon crossed by a needle.
The buttons on my dress.
Everyone looked down.
At my gown.
One button was missing.
Celeste stepped away from me.
Gideon stared.
Arthur’s voice became careful.
“Did you see Mr.
Saye after he left the entrance hall?”
“No.”
“Can anyone confirm where you were for the last twelve minutes?”
“I was with you.”
“For some of them.”
I felt the trap closing.
Then Celeste whispered something.
“What?”
She stared at the button.
“That isn’t from her dress.”
Arthur looked at her.
“It matches.”
“No.”
Celeste stepped closer.
Her fingers trembled as she pointed toward my waist.
“Evelyn never engraved the back.”
Arthur turned the evidence bag around.
There were letters carved behind the crescent insignia.
C.V.
Celeste Vane.
Or Celia Vargas.
Celeste closed her eyes.
“That button came from my old uniform.”
“Your what?”
“At Vale House.”
She sat slowly.
“Evelyn gave every assistant a black studio jacket.
Silver crescent buttons.
Initials engraved on the back.”
Arthur looked at the evidence.
“Why would Victor have one?”
Celeste began to cry.
Not elegantly.
Not for cameras.
Her shoulders shook.
“Because I gave it to him.”
“When?”
“Thirty-two years ago.”
Silence.
“He knew you then?”
I asked.
Celeste nodded.
Everything rearranged itself.
Victor had not entered Celeste’s life as a celebrated creative director fifteen years earlier.
He had been there from the beginning.
“He wasn’t called Victor Saye,” she whispered.
“What was his name?”
Celeste looked at Luca.
Luca would not meet her eyes.
“Tell her,” she said.
Luca closed his eyes.
Celeste answered for him.
“Vittorio Moretti.”
I turned toward Luca.
“Your son?”
Luca whispered, “Yes.”
The room seemed to contract.
Celeste wiped her face.
“Victor copied the formula.”
Luca said, “He was nineteen.”
“He sold it.”
“He didn’t understand.”
“He understood money.”
Luca slammed his fist on the table.
“He was a child!”
“He was a thief!”
“And you protected him!”
Celeste screamed back, “Because I loved him!”
Silence swallowed the room.
Gideon stared at his wife.
“You what?”
Celeste looked as if she wished the floor would open.
Luca looked suddenly exhausted.
I understood before anyone explained.
Celia Vargas.
Young studio assistant.
Vittorio Moretti.
The textile engineer’s son.
Secret lovers inside Vale House.
Victor had stolen the formula.
Celeste had helped conceal it.
My mother discovered them.
And somehow, over three decades, the lie had grown into an empire.
Gideon’s face hardened.
“How long?”
Celeste whispered, “It ended before I met you.”
“Was that why you hired him?”
“No.”
“Was that why you made him creative director?”
“He knew the designs.”
“Was he blackmailing you?”
Celeste said nothing.
That silence was worse than yes.
Arthur Bell’s phone rang again.
He listened.
Then looked at Luca.
“We have a problem.”
“What now?”
“Victor Saye isn’t dead.”
Celeste stood.
Arthur continued.
“The body in the service stairwell isn’t him.”
My skin prickled.
“Then who is it?”
Arthur looked directly at me.
“We don’t know.”
An alarm sounded somewhere below us.
Not a fire alarm.
A security alarm.
The museum lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then went out.
Someone screamed.
In darkness, a hand closed around mine.
Strong fingers.
A familiar scent.
Cedarwood and tobacco.
A voice whispered beside my ear.
“Your mother always knew you’d wear the black dress.”
I tried to pull away.
The hand tightened.
I could hear Arthur shouting for emergency lights.
Celeste crying out.
Security moving.
Then the voice whispered again.
“Check the hem.”
The hand disappeared.
Lights flooded back.
Everyone was still there.
Arthur.
Gideon.
Celeste.
Luca.
But the door stood open.
I looked down at my mother’s dress.
At the hem.
For thirty-two years, no one had noticed the stitching was doubled along the left side.
I knelt and tore it open.
Something metallic fell into my palm.
A tiny key.
And attached to it was a paper tag yellowed with age.
Three words were written in my mother’s handwriting.
CENTRAL STATION.
Luca stared at it.
“No.”
Celeste whispered, “What?”
Luca backed away.
“That locker was emptied.”
“How do you know?”
I asked.
He stopped.
Too late.
Arthur looked at him.
My blood turned cold.
“Luca,” I whispered, “how do you know there was a locker?”
His face collapsed.
Then the window behind him exploded.
Glass burst inward.
People dropped.
Security officers drew weapons.
Arthur pulled me behind the table.
When I looked up again, Luca Moretti was lying on the floor.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
Celeste screamed.
Arthur crawled toward him.
Luca’s eyes found mine.
His mouth moved.
I leaned closer.
“What?”
He coughed.
Then whispered two words.
“Not…
Victor.”
His head fell sideways.
Outside, somewhere across Fifth Avenue, a motorcycle engine roared.
And vanished.
In my hand, the tiny brass key felt suddenly heavier than a weapon.
Because if Victor wasn’t the person my mother had feared…
then whoever killed her had just spent twelve years waiting for me to find Locker 317.
And they had finally decided I was ready.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
