The Thorne Heiress Unveiling Shadow novel Chapter 66

Evelyn woke to the soft weight of cashmere and the faint, clean scent of expensive cologne. She blinked slowly, her mind gradually returning from the depths of exhaustion. Kaelen's jacket was draped over her, a warm, protective shield against the cool cabin air.

She looked across the aisle. He was sitting there, watching her, his usually cold eyes holding a warmth she had never seen before. The silence wasn't awkward; it was comfortable, a shared space of quiet understanding.

A faint, unfamiliar heat crept up her neck. She sat up, letting the jacket pool in her lap. "Thank you," she said softly.

"You needed the rest," Kaelen replied, his voice a low murmur.

The moment of tenderness passed, replaced by the familiar, sharp focus of their mission. The air between them crackled with a different kind of energy. The hunt was back on.

"The Ouroboros ring," Evelyn said, her voice all business. She was already reaching for her tablet. "We need to identify its owner."

Kaelen nodded, the brief softness in his expression replaced by the cool command of a CEO. "My intelligence division is already on it. I've ordered them to scan every major jewelry auction record and insurance database for the last fifty years."

He was deploying his army, a massive, powerful force designed to sift through mountains of data. It was a thorough, but slow, approach.

Evelyn's method was different. Hers was a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

"That will take days," she said, her fingers already flying across the screen of her own device. "They hid the transaction records, not the creation records."

"The client's identity is locked behind a seven-layer encryption key. It would take me a few hours to break," she continued. "But I found something better. Something they didn't think to hide."

She turned her screen towards him. It showed a digital invitation, elegant and understated.

"Dubois is having his first and only career retrospective exhibition. It opens tomorrow night, at a private gallery here in New York."

Kaelen's eyes narrowed, taking in the details. "And the centerpiece of the exhibition?"

Evelyn's lips curved into a small, triumphant smile. "The Ouroboros Sapphire Ring."