One Night in Valeria - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

The invitation arrived in a white envelope, hand-delivered by courier.
There was no return name only a gold-embossed crest: the sigil of the Velar Foundation.
Inside, a note written in calligraphic script:
> Jessica Hale,
Your vision has shaken the silence. I would like to meet with you no intermediaries, no press.
There is room in the future for what you are creating. Let’s discuss how to protect it.
— Thorne Velar
Jessica held the card without blinking. She could practically smell the manipulation soaked into the ink.
Liam read it beside her and cursed under his breath. “He’s not here to help you.”
“No,” she said. “He’s here to buy me.”
The meeting took place at the Velar Archive Library, a private building reserved for generational donors and Council family heads. Liam wanted to come, but Jessica refused.
“I need to hear what he offers,” she said. “And I need to say no by myself.”
She wore black again. No jewelry. No makeup. Her hair tied in a single braid. She wanted to walk into the lion’s den looking like a blade.
Thorne Velar greeted her in a high-ceilinged room lined with glass cases of preserved textiles. Tall, white-haired, and elegant in a way that made him seem almost kind until you looked at his eyes.
“Miss Hale,” he said with a slight bow. “You wear your mother’s shadow well.”
Jessica sat across from him without returning the smile. “I don’t wear shadows. I unravel them.”
He chuckled. “Yes. I see that now.”
Tea was poured. Offered. Untouched.
Then Thorne leaned forward, folding his hands. “Let’s be plain. You’re brilliant. You’ve made noise, and now everyone is watching. But noise, my dear, doesn’t guarantee longevity. The industry forgets loud women quickly.”
“I’m not here to be remembered,” she said. “I’m here to be unerasable.”
That earned her a pause.
Then, a slow, approving nod.
“Then allow us to help you remain so.”
He slid a folder across the table.
Jessica opened it.
A contract. A proposal. A partnership.
The Velar Foundation would acquire Lineage: Reclaimed under a legacy preservation trust. She’d retain creative control but all financial and legal matters would fall under the Conservatory’s authority.
“You’d still be the face,” Thorne said. “The vision. But with our weight behind you, no one could touch you. Not August. Not the press. Not even time.”
Jessica closed the folder.
“This is velvet-wrapped ownership,” she said. “You want to protect the collection by controlling it. You want to erase my freedom the same way you erased my mother’s.”
Thorne smiled thinly.
“I’m offering you power, Miss Hale. Not chains.”
“You’re offering me silence in exchange for survival. I’ve already survived. Now I want to be loud.”
She stood.
“I’m not Klara,” she said. “And I will burn this entire house of threads before I let you fold me into it.”
That night, back in the studio, Jessica dropped the contract on the table in front of Liam.
“I think I just declared war.”
He looked at her, something fierce and reverent in his eyes.
“Then let’s give them a war worth fearing.”