Shadows Between Us (Stella and Sebastian) novel Chapter 239

Chapter 239

Jake said, “Mr. Reed, where’s that case I asked you to carry for me?”

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As soon as he spoke, every eye that had been fixed on Jake snapped over to Allan, all of them watching with intense interest.

Allan moved stiffly, almost like a robot, back to that table.

His legs shook uncontrollably.

He awkwardly crouched down.

His mind went totally blank as he pulled out the wooden case from under the table, littered with peanut shells

and husks.

Everyone stood there, dumbstruck.

Camden looked absolutely devastated. He yelled, “Oh, what a sin!”

His voice rose with every word.

Allan panicked.

He thought, ‘Just stop already!’

Allan clutched the wooden case in both hands and shuffled awkwardly back to Stella, giving her a puppy-eyed look.

Stella thought, ‘It’s really not that dramatic!

She reached out, took the case, and, with a quick swipe, brushed off the peanut husks stuck to it. The only sound was a sharp click as Stella opened the case in the heavy silence.

Allan was right there, so he got the first look.

Then he froze,

He thought, ‘Can I just drop dead now? Right this second!’

More people craned their necks to get a look, and after that dead silence, a wave of gasps rippled through the crowd, each one louder than the last.

People looked like they were about to stampede.

The cops thought, ‘Figures, the worst-case scenario just came true.

Fortunately, reinforcements arrived just in time, holding the crowd back and preventing total chaos. But the shouts and gasps from the onlookers just kept coming.

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Chapter 239

Celia blurted out, “No, this can’t be real!”

Her knuckles turned white as she clenched her fists.

Linda murmured, “How could this happen?”

Linda wobbled, while Sophia, next to her, looked as pale as a sheet.

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Inside the case, forty-odd brass dies lay in laser-cut foam, smallest to largest, each one glowing with quiet, museum-grade swagger.

Linda yelled, “They’re all fake! All of them!”

Her scream was ear-piercing, but nobody paid her any

mind.

Every eye tracked Camden as he snapped, “Bring the tackle box,” and snapped on nitrile gloves.

This time, he deliberately pulled on white gloves. With great care, he extracted the authentication seal from its case and began to examine it minutely under a jeweler’s loupe.

Sunlight caught the raised reliefs and threw off honey-colored glints of old-world bling.

Camden moved through them one by one, way faster than last time.

After a while, he looked up at Stella, his eyes more complicated than words could describe. He said, “They’re all real!”

One locked case, one museum’s ransom in metal-enough hardware to merit a three-man armed escort.

Murray whispered something to the plainclothes man beside him. In an instant, the security personnel hidden in the shadows all moved out, joining the effort to keep the crowd under control.

The cops were about to speak, but when they caught a glimpse of the plainclothes guy’s ID, their expressions turned to shock, and they immediately made way,

Meanwhile, Linda was still shrieking, “Impossible! Impossible!”

Conrad’s eyes on Stella grew darker and more intense.

He thought, ‘Beneath that beautiful, delicate exterior burns a captivating fire that is impossible to ignore.

‘She is a total enigma.

Stella stirred up an obsession in Conrad that he just couldn’t escape.

While the room was still picking its jaw off the floor, Stella stayed ice-cold.

She flicked a fresh sheet of survey parchment onto the blotter, then, like she was picking toppings at a salad bar, dipped die after brass die into the last surviving stick of wax, stamping each seal with a sizzle. One press, one irreplaceable mark gone forever.

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Chapter 239

The crowd gasped in stereo; cell phones shot up to catch the carnage.

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Camden clutched his chest, face the color of old brick. “She’s burning a National-Treasure-grade wax stick like it’s grocery tape!” he muttered, half expecting his heart to quit on the spot.

Stella slammed each brass die onto the survey parchment with dead-center precision; hands steady, pulse calm, while everyone else lost their minds over nothing.

Everyone watching was just speechless.

They stared, mouths hanging open like broken garage doors. If they hadn’t seen it themselves, they’d swear the real thing had time-warped onto the table: every river bend, every wax seal, even the ghost of ink still glistening.

Only giveaway was the paper’s shade: a hair less yellow than two-century-old fibers.

They thought, ‘Turns out this pretty girl wasn’t just all talk. She’s actually a total legend.

“So Elite Gallery was selling fakes all along?” someone whispered.

“Looks like Elite Gallery is finished!” another person said.

“One tackle-box of those brass dies could bankroll a dozen beach mansions in the city!” someone hollered.

The crowd kept whispering nonstop, and a cold sweat broke out on Sophia. She shot Linda a vicious glare and thought, ‘I should’ve known she was hopeless. Why did I ever let her drag me into this mess?

‘My Elite Gallery.

‘My secret stash. All gone!’

Sophia’s mind was racing, eyes flicking back and forth, and just as she was thinking about pulling the fainting act, Stella’s voice rang out.

Stella said, “I’d think twice before trying to play dead.”

Stella looked up, her gaze zeroing in on Sophia. She added, “Trust me, you’ll have plenty of reasons to pass out soon enough.”

Stella smiled, a cold, mocking glint flashing in her eyes.

Sophia sputtered, “You-”

Stella said, “Your daughter-in-law’s been running a forgery mill out of your own Elite Gallery, passing fakes at auction and skimming the cream. Take a look. At least a third of the pieces on those walls are straight-up knock-offs.”

Sophia snapped her head toward Linda, eyes wide. She demanded, “Is she telling the truth or not?”

Linda shook her head frantically. She said, “Mom, don’t listen to her! She’s just trying to turn us against each

other!”

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