Chapter 7: The Gallery

I didn’t sleep after that email.

Someone up there had sent me a warning.

Stop looking. Leave now.

Though, it didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like someone who knew what was coming and didn’t want me in the middle of it.

The next day at seven in the evening, Adrian left the estate for dinner in the city. He had mentioned it briefly earlier that day at breakfast, he didn’t give details, I nodded and we left it there.

Ten minutes after he drove out, I sat at my desk weighing whether what I was about to do was smart. But I needed to know the full layout of the estate, every room and corner. That was part of the job, I wasn’t just curious.

Then, I crossed into the west wing, It was calmer than the rest of the house. I checked a sitting room, then a study room with its door half open. Nothing useful on the desk. At the end of the corridor, I found a door I had missed earlier.

I opened it and stopped. The room was long and narrow, lit by soft fixtures that pushed the lights upward along the wall. It had no windows.

Every surface held art. Paintings of different styles. I spotted a rough sculpture in the corner and a small abstract piece near the door, hung at the perfect height.

I moved slowly along the walls until one painting at the far end caught my attention specifically. A figure frozen in one moment, with no sign of what happened before and after.

“What are you doing here”

The voice was flat. I turned.

Adrian stood in the doorway, still wearing his coat, keys in hand. His face looked raw, unguarded in a way I had never seen before.

“I was mapping the house,” I said. “Then I found this room.”

“This wing is mine.” He said.

“The door wasn’t locked.”

He exhaled sharply but didn’t tell me to leave. I turned back to the painting.

“Who made this?” I asked.

“Someone I knew at school.”

We stood there for a while. Then he told me what the complex art meant to him.

“The exact second before a decision becomes final, when everything still hangs in the balance.

“She got it right,” I said.

“Most people find it depressing.”

“Most people don’t like that moment,” I replied. “So they call it something else.”

He didn’t answer right away.

“My father calls it impatience,” he said. “He thinks hesitation is weakness.” He looked at the painting for a moment longer. “I think it’s the only honest part of the whole process. I’ve spent a long time watching how he makes decisions. He never stops. He never looks back.” A pause. “I used to think that was strength.”

“What do you think now?” I asked.

He looked at the painting. “I think it’s how you build something no one can see the bottom of.”

Then he stepped beside me, showed me two more pieces, and spoke about them. We stayed longer than either of us expected.

When I finally returned to my room, my mind kept returning to that painting. The exact second before a decision becomes final.

I opened my laptop, but I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts kept drifting between the 41st floor, the signatures on those old documents, my father’s collapsed company, and the man who had shown me his private art gallery.

My phone rang. Unknown number with Silverton prefix.

I answered.

“Harper Bennett.” The voice was calm, “My name is Nathaniel Cross.”

Adrian’s lawyer, and older friend.

“I’ve been looking into your background,” he said. “There’s a four-month gap that doesn’t add up.”

I kept my grip loose on the phone.

“I wanted you to know I’d found it,” he continued. “Before I decide what to do with it. I haven’t told Adrian yet.”

The line stayed open. I looked out at the dark garden and thought about that painting again. I was standing in that exact moment right now.

“What do you want, Mr. Cross?” I asked.

He paused. “I want to know if what you’re doing in that house is going to hurt him.”

The question hung there, he asked directly. I was about to answer when every light in the east wing suddenly cut out at once. The whole estate plunged into darkness and silence.

“Mr. Cross,” I said quietly, “I’ll have to call you back.”

I ended the call and sat completely still. Somewhere in the west wing, I heard the sound of a door opening.

Then footsteps were approaching fast, and heading straight toward the east wing.

It wasn’t Adrian.