Page 101 of The Devil's Canvas

The fire tightens.

The courtroom. Dominic sits on one side, composed and worn.

Melanie sits across from him, draped in black silk like it’s a funeral. Her expression is half-grief, half-performance. She watches the cameras more than she watches him.

Dominic doesn’t look at her once.

The judge reviews documents. Pages shuffle.

Dominic’s voice cuts through the stillness. “This marriage is over. I asked for nothing. Just space. I want it done.”

Melanie leans into her lawyer. Her whisper is sharp enough to sting.

She doesn’t look like someone fighting for love. She looks like someone who can’t bear to lose—even if she already has.

Later that night, her social media floods with carefully curated grief.

There are betrayals deeper than infidelity. There are silences louder than screams.

Truth will come out. Until it does, I’ll heal in private.

The comments are split. There are some that pity her, but most don’t.

Dominic never responds. But a photo goes viral the next day. It’s him, leaving the courthouse. His sunglasses are on, his suit is pristine clean, and he’s carrying a new script under one arm.

The caption below the photo spreads like wildfire.

Dominic Forsythe Signs Onto New Project Days After Divorce Filing

Beneath it, more headlines pile up, bitter as ash.

Not Even Forsythe Wanted to Keep Her

Melanie Arden Alone and Out of Time

Affair, Abandonment, and the End of the Arden Reign

The last flame holds longer.

Melanie, alone in her apartment. The white marble gleams too bright. Her makeup, usually so perfect, is smudged. Her dress is wrinkled like she hasn’t changed in days.

She stares at her phone, waiting for it to ring. It won’t.

The city hums outside her window, oblivious. And she is surrounded by silence. The kind that is louder than applause ever was.

The fire pulls back.

Leaving only the echo.

The flames dim but don’t die. They linger, flickering low like they’re catching their breath.

Ophelia stands still, her arms at her sides, fists loose. Hollowed out in a different way. “She didn’t fall,” she says, her voice low. “She just got everything she asked for.” There’s no pity in it. “She never took from me. It was given to her,” she adds, quieter now. “Cassius made sure of that.”

She turns her head slightly toward the Concord. Her tone shifts—no longer dazed, but direct. “Is this what happens when the balance resets?”

The Concord answers in unison, their voices like distant bells tolling through stone. “This is not punishment. It is a correction.”

“She fed on what was never hers to hold.”

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