The Mafia Princess He Abandoned Became An Art Queen Chapter 04
His head snapped to the side. Blood appeared at his lip.
“Do you have any idea what The Undercurrent means to me?”
Mario wiped the corner of his mouth and, unbelievably, laughed, his eyes turning colder.
“It’s done. I’ll compensate you thirty million dollars. And…”
He leaned forward slightly.
“…I wiped the hard drive before I smashed it. Don’t waste your money on recovery. I have plenty of ways to make sure you never work in the New York art world again.”
I stared at him, my fist clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palm, fighting the urge to hit him again.
“Mario. You’re going to regret this.”
When I got back to the Conti estate, I could hear laughter and conversation coming from the sitting room.
Mr. and Mrs. Galli were sitting on the sofa, holding Irene’s hands and smiling broadly.
“Mario is so lucky to have such an exceptional fiancée. It’s an honor for the Galli family.”
Irene looked up and saw me. Alarm flashed in her eyes before she pasted on her sweet, well-bred smile.
I nodded politely to the Gallis and went straight upstairs.
The broken pieces of my computer were still on my desk.
Mario had given me that computer.
He’d said that since I spent all day at it, using something from him would mean I’d think of him constantly.
I stared at the cracked screen for a long time.
The last bit of warmth in me went out.
The door opened.
Irene leaned against the frame, a smug little smile on her lips.
“Mario told me everything. So what if you knew each other first? He chose me in the end.”
“He said only someone like me is fit to be his wife. You’ll never be enough.”
I wasn’t about to argue with her over something so meaningless.
I swept the shattered computer into my backpack.
As I passed her in the doorway, I paused.
“Being Donna Galli means nothing to me.”
At Melissa’s studio, Sylvia was waiting too.
The Best Actress who had lent me the couture gown.
She’d starred in the first adaptation of one of my novels. She wasn’t famous yet at the time, but that film made her overnight. After that, I cast her in every project I could and helped push her to the A-list.
The moment I walked in, she handed me a cup of coffee.
“Don’t worry. My hacker is the best. He’ll get everything back.”
Within thirty minutes, the hacker handed me a USB drive.
“Full source files recovered. Master files, layer history, edit timestamps, cloud sync logs, cached backups, everything.”
Sylvia picked up her phone. “Rossella, want me to expose Irene and Mario right now?”
I shook my head.
“Not yet. Let her stand on that stage as the author of The Undercurrent. Then I’ll drag her down from it myself.”
Sylvia paused, then laughed. “Sounds like someone’s confident in her own work.”
Beside her, Melissa arched a brow. “Of course. She’s Brightness.”
A week later, the Aurelius Art Prize announced its winner.
Irene.
Overnight, her name was the hottest in the American art press.
But the day of the ceremony was also the day I was flying to the Paris Academy of Fine Arts.
I finished packing and told Melissa, “You go to the ceremony. I’ll post the evidence from the Brightness account. We hit them from both sides.”
At the airport, I sat at the gate with the livestream open on my phone.
On the live stream, Irene stood at the podium in diamond-studded couture, holding the trophy, tears filling her eyes.
“The Undercurrent is the product of three years of my life, painted layer by layer. Thank you all…”
The next second, Melissa stood up in the audience, holding the USB drive high.
“I’m reporting fraud.”
“Irene Conti’s award-winning work is not hers.”
“She stole another artist’s original work. This is art fraud.”
I stared at the screen and calmly opened the post I’d already prepared on the Brightness account.
It contained every draft, every layer file, every screenshot of the creative process, every timestamp, every cloud sync log for The Undercurrent, along with the chat records where I’d sent Mario the early compositions and color studies.
At the bottom, I added the line I’d written long ago.
“I am Brightness.”
Send.
The moment I posted it, the announcement crackled overhead.
“Flight AF8368 to Paris is now boarding at Gate 3.”
I stood up and picked up my bag.
My phone was vibrating nonstop in my pocket.
Caller ID:
Mario.
I turned it off and walked to the gate.