Chapter 5
The second-floor hallway was pitch black, the thick Persian runners absorbing every sound of Koralie’s footsteps as she approached the master suite. The heavy double doors were slightly ajar, a thin sliver of amber light spilling out onto the carpet. Koralie pushed the door open with two fingers, slipping into the opulent bedroom that her father and Eleanor shared. The room smelled of expensive French perfume and cedarwood, a heavy, suffocating scent that reminded Koralie of how thoroughly Eleanor had purged her mother’s presence from the estate.
Moving with practiced stealth, Koralie bypassed the plush velvet armchairs and made her way toward the private dressing alcove behind the massive walk-in closet. The illuminated vanity mirror cast a soft blue glow over Eleanor’s collection of diamond-encrusted jewelry and designer cosmetics. Resting carelessly beside an empty crystal champagne flute was Eleanor’s sleek tablet, its screen dark but active.
Koralie’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her hands remained steady as she tapped the glass screen. It woke instantly, prompting a four-digit passcode. She paused, closing her eyes as she ran through probabilities in her mind. Eleanor was arrogant; she wouldn't use a complex cryptographic sequence. Koralie tried her father’s birth year—incorrect. She tried Eleanor’s anniversary with Richard—incorrect. Then, with a quiet intuition, she entered the numerical code corresponding to the founding date of Eleanor’s former high-society charity league.
The screen flashed, and the master wedding planning app opened instantly.
Koralie scrolled rapidly through the digital ledger, her breath hitching as she read the updated guest manifest. It wasn't just Marcus Vance who had been added to the head table. Entire blocks of her mother’s lifelong friends, colleagues, and community leaders had been uninvited, replaced by corporate executives, political donors, and tabloid journalists. Eleanor wasn't just planning a wedding; she was staging a high-society coronation, using Koralie’s marriage as a springboard for her own social ascension.
Worse still, a sub-file caught Koralie’s eye: a draft of a press release scheduled to drop tomorrow afternoon, announcing that Koralie had voluntarily relinquished her seat on the family foundation’s board of directors in favor of Eleanor.
"You really thought you could steal my life while I stood smiling at the altar," Koralie whispered to the empty room, her voice cold as ice.
With swift movements, Koralie plugged a small flash drive into the tablet’s USB-C port—a tool she had brought from her own architectural office for backing up heavy blueprint files. She initiated an immediate data export, copying the entire planning directory, financial transfers, and email correspondence between Eleanor and the PR firm.
Suddenly, the heavy click of the master suite door echoed from the outer bedroom. Muffled voices drifted down the corridor—Richard sounding apologetic, and Eleanor laughing that sharp, brittle laugh that Koralie had grown to despise.
"Just checking to make sure the lights are off, darling," Eleanor’s voice floated closer.
May you like
Koralie glanced at the progress bar on the tablet screen: ninety-four percent. Ninety-seven percent. Complete.
She ripped the flash drive from the port, locked the screen, and slipped into the shadows of the walk-in closet just as the dressing room lights flickered on.
