Chapter 10 – Exposure

The sound of velvet tearing was not literal.

But in the corridors of the club’s upper floors, you could feel it.

Laughter had gone hollow. Glasses sat untouched. Eyes darted like birds in a burning aviary.

It had begun.

The broadcast had leaked.

At first, just a whisper on the underground network: Blackthorn betrayed the Board.

Then: A woman exposed the Archive.

Then: names.

Names that weren’t meant to be known. Men and women with net worths that could buy countries, now forced to run like hunted animals.

Isolde moved through the inner corridor of Velvet’s east wing like she belonged to it and in this moment, she did.

Guests passed her with averted gazes. Security froze in their positions. She no longer needed permission.

She was the threat.

Penelope’s voice came through the comm in her ear. “The journalists are here. Four of them. Velvet staff is trying to block the elevators.”

“Cut elevator control,” Isolde said.

“Already done. And Isolde someone’s wiping logs in Server B. They’re trying to delete the Red List.”

Isolde paused.

Then turned left into the chamber hallway once known only to the highest tier.

At the far end stood a man she recognized.

Harlan Vale.

Dorian’s former investor. Rumored board member. One of the original five who funded the first rebuild of Velvet. His salt-and-ink hair was slicked back. His suit impeccable.

But his eyes were bloodshot. And in his hand a burner phone.

He didn’t see her approach until she was close enough to smell his cologne.

She stepped in front of him.

“Harlan.”

He froze.

“Ms. Vale Isolde,” he said, correcting himself, voice thin. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

She didn’t smile.

“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

She plucked the phone from his fingers.

“No backup. No warning.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing ”

“I know everything,” she said, voice low. “I know what you paid for in 2021. I know the code phrase you used when requesting girls under the portrait designation. I know about the clinic in the Bronx. The one Velvet funded to handle complications.”

He paled.

“You think outing me will destroy this place?” he whispered.

She stepped closer. “No, Harlan. I think you will.”

A red light blinked in the corner of the corridor.

Recording.

“Smile for the press,” she said softly.

And walked away.

Behind her, he collapsed into a chair.

The system had started bleeding.

And she had just cut the artery.

The server room hissed as the pressure seal released. Cables snaked like nerves along the floor, and the walls pulsed faintly with emergency power half the lights dead, the others flickering.

Penelope was already inside, kneeling over the terminal stack, her fingers dancing across the keyboard.

“They’re scrubbing it manually,” she muttered. “Whoever’s in the system is bypassing Velvet’s protocols. That means they’re not staff. They’re one of them.”

Isolde stepped beside her. “Then we pull it before they can finish.”

Penelope’s screen flashed red.

Access Granted: The Red List

The file opened like a wound no passwords, no fake firewalls now. Just names. Dozens. Then hundreds.

Politicians. Royal liaisons. Silicon Valley founders. Wealth titans from Dubai, Tokyo, Berlin.

Each with timestamps. Designations. Custom orders.

Some names were redacted but most weren’t.

Penelope scrolled. Her face paled.

“This is everything,” she whispered. “The whole network.”

Isolde leaned in. “Find Vivienne’s code tag.”

Penelope entered a search.

Asset: VAR-0143

Client history: Viewable.

Isolde nodded, but something on the list just above it made her eyes freeze.

A name.

Gareth Wrenleigh.

Her voice left her like a gasp in glass.

“No…”

Penelope followed her gaze. “Isolde ”

“No.”

She scrolled backward. Clicked.

Gareth Wrenleigh

Tier: Executive Patron

Privileges: Elevated

Note: Donor to UK Recovery Program – Internal Selection Rights Confirmed

Her hands trembled.

“He wasn’t just a supporter.”

She blinked.

“He was a selector.”

The air shifted behind her.

Dorian.

She didn’t need to turn to know he was there.

Her voice was a whisper of razorwire. “You knew.”

He didn’t speak.

“You knew my father was on the list,” she said, turning. “And you didn’t tell me.”

Dorian’s face was stone. “You were already inside. If I had told you ”

“You would’ve lost me.”

He nodded once.

“Yes.”

Her breath shattered in her lungs. “And you still let me love you.”

His jaw tensed. “I didn’t let you. I couldn’t stop it.”

The screen beside her scrolled automatically now listing dates of access, client preferences, linked names.

She stared at his reflection in the glass.

And said quietly:

“Then don’t stop me now.”

She reached forward

and opened her father’s full dossier.

The file opened like a scalpel.

Images. Transactions. Notations in clinical shorthand.

Gareth Wrenleigh

UK Patron Tier Internal Allocation Rights Approved

Facility Visitations: 3

Subject VAR-0143 Approved Observation (flagged for psychological compatibility)

Transfer request: Denied. Reason: Shared DNA match. Conflict risk.

Isolde’s knees buckled before she could stop them.

She reached for the edge of the server desk, bracing herself.

He didn’t just fund Velvet.

He watched Vivienne.

Requested her.

Was denied not because it was wrong.

Because it might get messy.

Behind her, Dorian didn’t move.

Penelope whispered, “We can shut this down. No one else has to see it.”

“No,” Isolde said.

She stood, slowly. Her voice tight.

“The world needs to see all of it.”

Penelope hesitated. Then nodded and walked away.

Leaving her alone with him.

The silence between them was a noose.

“You should’ve told me,” she said without turning.

“I didn’t know at first,” Dorian said. “Not when you came to Velvet. Not when you applied. But I knew… soon after.”

Her breath caught. “When?”

He took a step closer.

“Your first night in the Gilded Room. When you saw the mirrored stage and didn’t flinch.”

She turned to him. Her eyes burned, but didn’t break.

“That’s when you knew who I was?”

He nodded once.

“And you didn’t warn me. You didn’t protect me.”

“I watched you,” he said, voice quiet. “I watched you move like you were already onstage. Like someone who had grown up in the shadow of this place without ever stepping inside.”

She swallowed hard. “You saw me drowning and let me perform.”

“I didn’t know how to stop you,” he said. “And part of me God help me didn’t want to.”

She moved toward him. Slowly. Measured.

When she stopped, they were inches apart.

“You’ve controlled everything,” she said. “Everyone. Every deal. Every inch of this place. But not me.”

“No,” he said.

“Then here’s what happens now.”

She looked up at him, and there was no fear left in her voice only clarity.

“You’re going to help me burn Velvet to the ground. Every name. Every file. Every goddamned chandelier.”

He stared at her.

“And in return,” she whispered, “I’ll let you love me… once it’s over.”

A beat.

He reached for her hand.

But she stepped back.

“Not yet.”

The security breach came not through the main doors but underneath them.

Through the maintenance tunnels, once designed for discretion. The very routes Dorian used to escape surveillance now pulsed with the rhythmic footfalls of a strike team.

Black uniforms. Armored vests. No insignias.

“They’re not Velvet’s,” Penelope said, eyes scanning her tablet in the control room. “They’re Court loyalists.”

“They’re here to silence the Archive,” Dorian said.

“No,” Penelope corrected. “They’re here to silence her.”

Isolde’s voice came through the comm, calm but sharp. “What’s their timeline?”

“Fast,” Penelope said. “They’ll hit sublevel in ninety seconds.”

“Then slow them down.”

Penelope didn’t wait for permission. Her fingers moved in a blur.

Back in the upper corridor, Dorian grabbed Isolde’s arm and moved them through the west wing toward the architect’s exit. A steel-reinforced escape built during the early renovations, accessible only through biometric scan and a single handprint code: his.

“We go now,” he said.

“No,” Isolde said, yanking her hand free.

He turned. “They’re armed.”

She didn’t blink. “So are we. Truth is the only weapon they can’t kill.”

Dorian’s jaw tightened. “If you die here, they win.”

“If I run now, I was never here at all.”

Footsteps echoed down the hall behind them.

Penelope’s voice barked through the line: “I’ve locked them in corridor C7. You’ve got sixty seconds before they override it.”

Dorian stepped in front of the biometric scanner. The door slid open.

Behind it: a narrow corridor. One path. One escape.

Isolde looked at it.

Then at him.

“No more masks,” she said. “Not for me. Not for them.”

He hesitated.

Then asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

She nodded.

But she didn’t touch him.

“Not as your shadow,” she said. “Not as your property. Not even as your love.”

Her voice dropped.

“Just… as your equal.”

And for the first time in Velvet’s history

the man who ruled it stepped back…

and let the woman decide how it would end.

The main ballroom of Velvet had never looked like this.

Not during any masked gala, not even on the grandest performance nights.

The lights were on. Full. Unflattering. Real.

No shadows. No curated candle flicker. No music.

Just the sound of shoes on marble, heavy breathing, and murmurs of the press microphones being extended, lenses focusing, news anchors whispering names they didn’t yet understand.

And then

Isolde stepped onto the stage.

No mask. No costume.

She wore the same red silk from the Glass Room, but it didn’t cling to her like seduction anymore. It draped like a banner.

Behind her, Dorian stood at the edge of the curtain. Silent. Still. Watching.

Penelope hovered by the media line, armed with encrypted drives, backups, live relays already streaming.

The Host was gone.

The Court was silent.

Only Isolde remained.

She stepped to the microphone centered. No podium. No defense.

And spoke.

“This place has sold the illusion of choice for years.”

Her voice carried perfectly pitched. Unafraid.

“Velvet was never about consent. It was about masks. About who gets to wear them, and who gets forced to bleed beneath them.”

Reporters leaned forward. Cameras zoomed in.

“I came here for my sister. And I found her. But I also found a truth no one warned me about: that the world doesn’t protect the innocent. It protects the powerful. Until someone stands in the way.”

She looked out not just at the press, but at the remaining guests. The elite. The witnesses.

“I’m not asking for your outrage. Or your sympathy.”

A pause.

“I’m demanding your attention.”

She reached into her pocket.

Pulled out the necklace Vivienne’s.

She held it up.

“This belonged to someone who was meant to disappear.”

Then she dropped it to the stage.

The sound it made was small but final.

“I didn’t come here to perform. I came here to record.”

She looked directly into the lead camera.

And smiled.

“Now let’s see how you look under the lights.”

The press surged forward.

The lights flared.

And for the first time in its history

Velvet didn’t clap.

It listened.