After my mother’s funeral, I inherited her favorite but old painting, while my sister got her three vacation homes…

Anything. Elena must herself give us the rope with which we’ll hang her. After Roman Sheffield’s departure, Elena sat on the floor in the hallway for a long time.

The card in her hand seemed heavy as a stone. Twenty-four hours. This deadline buzzed in her head like a funeral bell.

She was in a trap, and the exits from it led either to prison or to a gilded cage. To surrender the painting, get money, and live all her life with the stigma of an accomplice, knowing that her mother and grandfather were something like thieves. Or refuse and be crushed by the Sheffield legal machine amid the hooting of her sister and husband.

She stood up. She needed to leave this apartment. Here the walls pressed, here every corner reminded of Alex, of his betrayal.

She felt naked, defenseless. She needed her sanctuary. The workshop.

Let Alex try to break in there, but there were her walls, her tools, her work. There she was the mistress. She packed a bag with essentials—change of clothes, toothbrush, laptop.

Before leaving, her gaze fell on the corner of the room where the fragments still lay. The cracked frame from the painting. Alex hadn’t cleaned up the traces of his barbarism.

Elena approached and picked up two pieces of heavy, darkened by time oak. The very split from which the key fell. She didn’t know why she was doing this.

Just some irrational need to take with her everything connected to this story. All the evidence. She stuffed the heavy pieces of wood into a large shopping bag and, without looking back, left the apartment.

She didn’t know if she would ever return here. In the workshop, it was cold and smelled of dampness. But it was the smell of safety.

She locked the door with all locks, slid the heavy bolt installed by the previous owner. Then turned on the old electric heater. It hummed, and warmth spread through the room.

She unpacked the bag. Laid the frame pieces on the work table. And only now, in the bright light of the desk lamp, could she examine them properly.

The wood was very old, dense, with deep patina. The split was fresh, light, exposing the inner structure of the wood. Alex’s rage had uncovered what had been hidden for decades.

Elena ran her finger along the inner side of the frame. And suddenly her finger hit something uneven. It wasn’t just wood roughness.

It was a long, narrow groove, a slot cut inside the frame. It ran the entire length. And it was perfectly even, made not by nature but by a tool.

It was a hiding place. Her heart beat faster. The key fell out from here.

But maybe there was something else. She took her thinnest restoration tweezers and carefully ran them inside the slot. In one place, the tweezers hit something soft.

She carefully hooked it and pulled. From the slot appeared a tiny dark lump.

It was a plug of beeswax. Old, hardened, almost black from time. The wax sealed the hiding place.

Her hands trembled. She took a scalpel and carefully, trying not to damage the wood, picked out the wax plug. Behind it opened emptiness.

She inserted the tweezers into the slot again and felt something thin, rolled into a tube. It was a small, tightly rolled bundle of oiled fabric, like oilcloth. Such were used before to wrap documents, protecting them from moisture.

The bundle was the size of her pinky. She placed it on the table and just looked at it for a few minutes. What else? What other secret? Maybe another key? Or a note with some address? She carefully unwrapped the oilcloth.

It was old and brittle, crumbling in her hands. Inside, tightly rolled, lay a small sheet of paper. No, not one.

Several thin sheets written on both sides, torn from a tiny notebook. The paper was almost transparent from time. Elena unfolded the first sheet.

And recognized it. Recognized immediately. This beaded, tiny, slightly slanted to the right handwriting.

It was her mother’s handwriting. It was a diary. A tiny, secret diary.

And the very first line, the very first date made her freeze. The date was a week after her and Olivia’s birth. She began to read, and the words written by her mother’s hand 40 years ago came alive, sounded in her head in her quiet, calm voice.

The Sheffields entrusted my father to keep their greatest treasure. Now this debt falls on me. I must protect the last dawn.

Not for myself. But for the day when justice can return. This painting is not our property.

It is our honor. Elena reread these lines several times. Every word hit the mark.

Not property. Honor. There it is.

There was the answer she was looking for. The key more important than the brass key from the box. Her grandfather wasn’t a thief.

Her mother wasn’t a scammer. They were keepers. Soldiers at a post they didn’t choose but couldn’t abandon.

She feverishly unfolded the next sheets. These weren’t daily entries but rather notes at key moments in life. Today sold Grandma’s earrings.

Money needed for a new frame. The old one completely dried out. Scary.

It seems they’re watching me. But I must move. Another move.

Took the painting with me. Can’t leave it in the old apartment. It’s like leaving a child alone.

I’m so tired. Sometimes I want to just take it to a museum and end it. But I can’t.

I gave my word to Father. And he gave his word to them. Today Lena first asked about the painting.

Said it’s beautiful. And Olivia said it’s gloomy and boring. They’re so different, my girls.

Who of them will understand? Who can I pass this to? Or should this curse die with me? The last entry was made just a year ago. The handwriting was no longer so firm, the letters danced. Took the last loan.

Bankers look at me like a crazy old woman. Let them. Money needed for a safe vault.

I feel I have little time left. I rewrote the will. Vacation homes to Olivia.

She loves money, let them go to her, even with debts. Maybe this will teach her something. And the painting to Elena.

Only to her. She’s the only one who can understand. Not its price but its essence.

I hid this diary in the frame. If she’s worthy, she’ll find it. If not, I was wrong.

Then our honor dies with me. Elena sat at the table in her cold workshop, and tears streamed down her cheeks. But these weren’t tears of grief or fear.

These were tears of revelation. She cried from pride for her mother. For her quiet, invisible feat.

She understood everything. Mother left her not the painting. She left her a choice.

And this choice was not between prison and money. It was between dishonor and honor. And now this choice was hers.

The whole weight of the century-old secret, all the sacrifices of her family now lay on her shoulders. And she no longer had the right to be weak. The tears dried, leaving salty tracks on her cheeks.

Elena sat in the silence of her workshop, and there was no more fear or confusion in her. Mom’s diary changed everything. It was like a compass that suddenly pointed her to the only true direction.

All these days she was a victim. A victim of circumstances, a victim of her husband’s and sister’s betrayal, a victim of powerful heirs. She reacted, hid, defended.

Now everything would be different. Now she would act. She stood up and approached the window.

Dawn was breaking. Gray, cold city dawn. She looked at it, and in her head, for the first time in many days, a clear and cold plan was forming.

The plan was risky, bold, but she had no other. She could no longer hide. She had to come out into the light and finish what her mother started.

First, she called Samuel. Not from her phone but from an old button phone she kept in the workshop for emergencies. Samuel, it’s me. I found it.

Found what explains everything. She briefly retold the content of the diary. He listened silently, and she heard his heavy breathing in the receiver.

Honor, he said when she finished. That’s what it is. What a woman your mother was, what a rock.

I need your help, she said. I’m going to meet with Sheffield. But on my terms.

And I need you to play one role. She outlined her plan to him. He was silent for a few seconds.

Dangerous, Lena, he said finally. You’re playing with fire. I have no choice.

I must do this. For Mom. Okay, he answered after a pause.

I’m with you. Tell me what to do. Then came the hardest part.

She needed to call Roman Sheffield. She took out her smartphone, which she hadn’t turned on for several days. Turned it on.

The screen immediately flashed with dozens of missed calls and messages. She didn’t read them. She found the number from the card and dialed it.

She knew this conversation was probably being listened to. Not only by Sheffield. But by Alex too.

He had probably installed some spy program on her phone. That’s what her calculation was based on. The receiver was picked up instantly.

Sheffield, came the familiar cold voice. Roman, this is Elena Harper, she said as calmly as she could. Her heart pounded, but her voice sounded even.

I thought about your proposal. And… I want to meet. But not just with you.

I want to see the head of your family, the heir. And I want my expert Samuel Peters to be present at the meeting. I have new information.

Very important. There was a pause on the other end. Okay.

That’s reasonable, Roman said. Place and time I’ll let you know later. There’s one more condition, Elena added, and this was the most important part of her plan.

I want my sister Olivia Patton and my husband Alex Kramer to be present at the meeting. Silence hung on the line again. This time longer.

Roman clearly didn’t expect such a turn. Why? he asked, and surprise slipped in his voice for the first time. They’re part of this story.

They must hear everything. Without them, there will be no conversation. I understand you, he said slowly.

Well? Your right. Wait for the call. He hung up.

The first part of the plan was done. Now the second, the riskiest. A trap for Alex and Olivia.

Elena waited half an hour. She imagined how Alex, receiving notification of her call to Sheffield, was now tensely waiting for what would happen next. She had to give him what he so wanted.

Evidence. She dialed Samuel’s number. This time from her smartphone.

She spoke loudly, excitedly, so that anyone listening wouldn’t doubt her panic and greed. Samuel! I just talked to this Sheffield, they’re ready to meet. But they’re up to something, I feel it.

They want to take it for peanuts, offer some reward and that’s it. She paused, breathing heavily into the receiver. It’s unfair.

This painting is mine. Mom left it to me. I won’t give it for pennies.

Samuel on the other end played along, indignantly gasping. We need our own appraiser, Samuel! Elena almost shouted. Independent? I don’t care about their official museums.

I need the real price, Samuel! Black market, a closed auction, anything.

You have connections to such people. I need someone who’ll say how much I can really get for it if selling quietly. She spoke for a few more minutes, discussing with him fictional collectors and closed auctions…