Chapter 12 - THE COLLECTION VANESSA COULDN’T OWN
Vanessa did not flee the country.
She went to Brooklyn.
Julian found her through an old vendor contact.
She had contacted a private manufacturer asking whether an entire capsule collection could be produced under a new label.
My designs.
Again.
This time, the sketches were unpublished.
If she released them first, proving authorship would become harder publicly, even if legally possible.
I was done letting Vanessa decide when I reacted.
I called her.
She answered.
“Nora.”
No surprise.
“Give me the sketchbook.”
She laughed.
“You finally sound like a Caruso.”
“No.”
I looked around my temporary studio.
Claire’s dining room.
Eli’s crayons mixed with my pencils.
“This is what I sound like when I stop asking permission.”
Silence.
Then Vanessa said:
“You have no idea what Dominic did to me.”
I almost laughed.
“Do not make us sisters.”
“I built that division.”
“With my work.”
“Some of it.”
“Eleven pieces.”
“You weren’t using them.”
That sentence.
Again.
As if unused meant abandoned.
As if motherhood created a public-access license.
“I want the book.”
“What do I get?”
“Nothing.”
She laughed.
“Then no.”
I had expected that.
Rebecca filed for emergency seizure of disputed creative property.
Police involvement remained limited because the sketchbook ownership needed verification.
But Julian found something better.
A camera.
Caruso archive footage clearly showed Vanessa removing the book the morning after the gala.
Dominic had preserved the archive access after resigning.
For once, his obsession with surveillance helped me.
Vanessa’s attorney contacted us by evening.
She would return the book in exchange for no immediate civil filing related solely to its removal.
Rebecca asked:
“Do you want that?”
I thought.
“Yes.”
Not mercy.
Strategy.
The bigger fraud case remained.
The sketchbook came back the next morning.
I held it like someone had returned part of my body.
Pages bent.
One corner torn.
But intact.
Eli sat beside me.
“Are those dresses?”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad draw any?”
I smiled.
“No.”
“Good.”
I laughed.
Then he pointed to one page.
A simple gown with embroidered stars along the hem.
“That one is pretty.”
“That one was for you.”
He frowned.
“I don’t wear dresses.”
“I drew it when I was pregnant.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know whether you were a boy or girl yet.”
He studied it seriously.
“Still pretty.”
“Thank you.”
Then I found something I had forgotten.
A note taped inside the back cover.
Dominic’s handwriting.
Four years old.
Nora—
This is the collection that makes people learn your name.
I stared.
He had believed in me once.
Before fear.
Before control.
Before company debt.
Maybe that was what made everything worse.
He knew exactly what he was burying.
My phone rang.
Dominic.
I answered.
“What?”
“Vanessa turned herself in to investigators.”
I froze.
“Why?”
“She learned her father’s company is under subpoena too.”
“What does that have to do with her?”
“She says Vincent Caruso ordered her to keep you out of design.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your father.”
“Yes.”
“She has proof?”
“Emails.”
Of course.
Then Dominic said:
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Vanessa claims my father arranged the studio flood.”
My hand tightened around the sketchbook.
“What?”
“She says the pipe didn’t burst accidentally.”
Three years earlier, the flood that supposedly destroyed my laptop.
The event that allowed Anthony to copy my files onto Caruso servers.
I felt cold.
“Why would Vincent do that?”
Dominic’s voice became hollow.
“To get your designs inside the company without activating Elena’s trust.”
Silence.
The theft had not begun with Vanessa.
It had been engineered.
And my father-in-law had been willing to destroy my studio to do it.
May you like
Then Dominic whispered:
“Nora, I’m going to testify against him.”
