There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

I heard the faint rustle of papers, then a heavy door closing in his office.

“I tried to talk him down, Ava,” Daniel said. “He’s vindictive. You know how he gets when he loses control.”

“He doesn’t want me,” I said. “He wants to destroy me.”

“He wants you to beg,” Daniel corrected. “He wants you to realize you can’t survive without his name.”

“I won’t go back to him,” I said.

“I know,” Daniel said. “But you need to be careful. He’s checking every reference you gave to those galleries.”

“How can he do that?” I asked. “It’s illegal.”

“Elias doesn’t care about the law when it comes to his reputation,” Daniel said. “He’s telling people that you stole proprietary information from the King office before you left.”

I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth.

“That’s a lie,” I whispered.

“Of course it is,” Daniel said. “But nobody in the art world is going to risk a lawsuit from Elias King just to hire a new curator.”