Chapter 2 - THE STUDIO WITH A SECOND SIGNATURE
Mireia did not sleep.
At six in the morning, she unlocked her studio, switched on the work lamps, and began opening drawers.
Not because Nora Chen had asked her to search for evidence.
Nora had specifically told her not to alter computers, delete messages, or reorganize financial records until a forensic technician arrived.
Mireia obeyed.
Mostly.
She stayed away from the laptop.
She stayed away from archived email.
But the steel drawer beneath her soldering bench was physical, old-fashioned, and hers.
Inside, she kept stamping tools.
Letters.
Numbers.
Texture plates.
And the custom steel die that pressed the crescent-and-flame mark into boxes, authenticity cards, and the backs of larger pieces.
The slot was empty.
Mireia stared.
Then she pulled the drawer all the way out.
Nothing.
Her hands went cold.
The die had been there for years.
She remembered using it on a bridal commission eighteen months ago.
After that?
Maybe not.
She had shifted most packaging to foil-printed paper because hand stamping was slow.
Someone could have taken the die without her noticing for months.
The bell above the front door rang.
Mireia spun around.
Alyssa stood there carrying two coffees.
Her sister took one look at her face and set both cups down.
“What happened?”
Mireia pointed toward the drawer.
“My maker’s stamp is gone.”
Alyssa did not ask whether she was sure.
That mattered.
“Do we call the police?”
“Not yet. Nora’s sending someone.”
Alyssa came around the counter.
“Caleb?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think Caleb.”
“I think he had access to my signature. I think his company sponsored a fake vendor using my tax information. I think Sebastian Vale approved it. I think I would like five minutes in a room with both of them and no legal advice.”
Alyssa’s mouth tightened.
“Then I’m glad you have legal advice.”
Mireia laughed without humor.
“So am I.”
They stood in silence.
The old awkwardness between them had changed shape since the dinner.
Alyssa had called the next morning and apologized for something she had not done.
Mireia had told her to stop.
Neither had figured out what came after that.
Now Alyssa looked toward the workbench.
“I need to tell you something.”
Mireia’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Caleb texted me.”
Of course.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
Alyssa unlocked her phone and held it out.
Caleb:
You know I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.
Then:
I need to explain something before Mireia gets pulled into Villano business.
Then:
Darius is not someone she understands.
Mireia read the messages twice.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
Alyssa flinched slightly at the word.
Mireia caught it.
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Mireia put the phone down.
“For six years, he made me think you were the problem whenever I felt insecure. I’m not going to turn around and make you manage him for me now.”
Alyssa’s eyes filled.
“That is not why I flinched.”
“Why then?”
“Because I spent years being careful around you.”
Mireia went still.
Alyssa continued.
“I thought you resented me. Maybe you did.”
Mireia opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Honesty hurt more when no one was screaming.
“Sometimes,” she said.
Alyssa nodded.
“I know.”
“I hated that people compared us.”
“I know.”
“And I let that become your fault in my head.”
Alyssa looked down.
“Caleb helped.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not sister betrayal.
Not simple innocence either.
A family dynamic Caleb had learned to use.
Mireia took a breath.
“I’m sorry.”
Alyssa looked up.
“Thank you.”
The bell rang again.
This time it was Nora Chen with a digital forensic examiner named Eric Lowe.
Mireia showed them the missing steel die.
Eric photographed the drawer before touching anything.
“Who had keys?”
“Me. Caleb had one for emergencies.”
“Still?”
“No. I changed the locks four days ago.”
“Any employees?”
“One part-time apprentice last year. Not now.”
“When did Caleb last enter without you present?”
Mireia tried to remember.
“He used to pick up packages. Bring dinner. Sometimes wait here when I worked late.”
Eric nodded.
“Normal access can be useful to someone doing abnormal things.”
The sentence made her skin crawl.
He imaged the studio laptop.
Then he found something.
Not malware.
A cloud folder.
Two years earlier, Mireia had asked Caleb to help print new insurance documents.
She had shared a folder containing:
business registration,
tax forms,
lease,
signature page,
brand vector files.
The access link had never expired.
Caleb’s Vance Meridian email account had opened it seventeen times after Mireia believed the task was finished.
The most recent access was nine months ago.
Nora looked at Mireia.
“That does not prove he created the vendor.”
“I know.”
But it made the air colder.
By afternoon, the forensic accountants had more.
Dalton Artisan Services was incorporated in Delaware eighteen months earlier by a formation agent.
Beneficial ownership was hidden behind another LLC.
The bank account receiving the Villano payments had been opened using:
a scanned version of Mireia’s signature,
a tax identification document with one altered address line,
and a letter of reference from Vance Meridian Partners.
The letter was signed by Caleb Vance.
Mireia read his full name for the first time in the case file.
Caleb Vance.
The man who had spent six years telling her she was imagining things.
Nora did not let her keep the copy.
Not yet.
“Law enforcement has it.”
“Who contacted them?”
“The foundation’s audit committee.”
“Darius?”
“No. The committee.”
Mireia looked at her.
“Does he actually let other people make decisions?”
“Sometimes after a visible internal struggle.”
That surprised a laugh out of her.
Then the front window darkened.
A black sedan had stopped across the street.
Mireia’s spine stiffened.
Nora followed her gaze.
“Villano?”
“I don’t know.”
Two men sat inside.
Not Darius’s usual security.
At least not the two she had seen.
Nora called building security and the police, not Darius.
Good.
The sedan left before officers arrived.
License plate obscured by road grime.
Could be nothing.
Could be someone watching.
Mireia hated both possibilities.
By evening, Darius came to the studio only after Nora asked whether Mireia wanted him there.
She said yes.
He arrived alone except for the men who stayed outside.
Mireia placed the empty stamping drawer between them.
“My die is gone.”
“I heard.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I am past the part where surprise is useful.”
She looked at him.
“Did your mother ever have more jewelry with my mark?”
Darius was quiet.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Three pieces.”
Mireia frowned.
“I repaired one.”
“I know.”
“What were the others?”
Darius removed his phone but did not unlock it.
“Photographs only. A ring and a small brooch.”
“I never made them.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You’re certain?”
“I would remember.”
“Why?”
“The ring used granulation work I didn’t learn until three years ago. Your mother died before that.”
Silence.
Darius looked toward Nora.
“Get the archive images.”
Nora did not move.
“Tomorrow.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he nodded.
Mireia almost smiled.
Again.
No punishment for waiting.
Darius looked back at her.
“My mother bought those pieces through the foundation’s artisan program.”
“When?”
“After she met you.”
Mireia felt something shift.
“You said she only came to me for a repair.”
“That is all I knew.”
“What artisan program?”
Darius hesitated.
“My mother funded small independent studios anonymously. She believed people behaved differently when they didn’t know a Villano was paying.”
Mireia remembered the first terrible year of her studio.
A grant.
Five thousand dollars from something called the Open Hand Artisan Fund.
She had thought it was a city arts microgrant.
Her mouth went dry.
“No.”
Darius saw her face.
“What?”
“Open Hand.”
He went still.
“That was hers.”
Mireia sat down slowly.
That grant had paid three months of rent.
She had never known.
“She helped me.”
Darius nodded.
“And apparently someone later used the program to steal from her foundation.”
Mireia looked at the empty die.
“Using people like me.”
“Yes.”
The anger came slowly.
Cleaner than heartbreak.
“Do not turn this into a favor you repay for me.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not fix it with your people.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not decide I need protection and put someone outside my window without telling me.”
Darius glanced toward the street.
“That car was not mine.”
“I believe you.”
His eyes changed.
It was a small thing.
Trust, offered without surrender.
Mireia continued.
“If that changes, you tell me.”
“I will.”
Nora’s phone buzzed.
She read the message.
Then looked up.
“The audit found seven historical artisan vendors with duplicated or altered identities.”
Mireia’s anger sharpened.
“How much?”
“Preliminary total is six point eight million.”
Darius’s face became stone.
Nora continued.
“One of the vendors was created using the identity of a ceramic artist who had been dead for two years before the first invoice.”
The studio fell silent.
This was no longer Caleb using his fiancée’s documents once.
May you like
It was a system.
And somewhere inside that system, Mireia’s missing steel stamp had become a tool.
