Chapter 24 A DEBT
Penelope was driving through the city, music blasting windows halfway down, when something caught her eye just as she was about to make a sharp turn.
She slowed down instinctively, eyes locking onto a familiar building up ahead.
The gallery.
Lena's father's gallery.
But something was wrong.
The front door was wide open. A moving truck sat at the curb, engine still running. Inside, several men in gloves were carefully carrying out canvases, wooden frames, wrapped sculptures. One by one, they were loading them into the truck. There was no demolition but the place was being emptied.
Penelope snatched her phone and called without thinking.
"Pen?" Lena answered, light and warm.
Penelope didn't bother with pleasantries."
"Lena, are you sitting down?"
The urgency in her voice snapped Lena straight.
"What's going on?"
"I just drove past the gallery." Penelope's breath was shaky. "Your dad's gallery. Lena... they're taking everything."
Lena froze. "What do you mean everything?"
"There's a moving truck outside. Men in gloves, uniforms, they're not damaging anything. They're wrapping your father's paintings, the ones in his reserve, lifting his sculptures like they're museum pieces, loading them into the truck."
Lena's voice dropped. "You're sure?"
"I'm staring at it," Penelope said.
Lena couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her father a man who had kept every intimate piece of his soul locked away in that back room of the gallery had somehow signed them over. Not the commercial works he put on display, not the ones he painted to sell, but the ones he created in silence, in grief, in joy the ones he never let the world see.
Even when Lena had nothing when bills were piling up and creditors were circling she never thought of selling those. They were sacred. Her father's true legacy. The private reserve of a man who gave everything to his art, and nothing to himself.
Lena's breath caught in her chest.
"No," she said quietly, but her mind was already racing. "Pen, I paid off everything. There is no transfer. That's my building. That's my father's work."
"I thought so too," Penelope said. "But they're not acting like they're stealing. They look official. Confident. Like this was planned."
"They waited until I left."
"Yes," Penelope said grimly. "That's exactly what it feels like."
"Send me photos," Lena said, already moving back inside. "Close shots. The plates on the truck. Anything."
"Already taking it," Penelope said, snapping a few shots and sending them over.
'Just keep an eye. I need to make a call'.
Lena's fingers trembled slightly as she scrolled through her contacts. She finally found the number and hit Call.
Her father's old landlord picked up on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Lena said tightly, trying to keep her voice calm. "It's Lena . I need to know what's happening with the gallery. Why are people taking the paintings?"
There was a long pause.
"Ah, Lena, I was hoping you wouldn't find out like this."
"I'm asking you directly," she said, her voice sharper now. "I paid off every debt tied to that gallery. Every legal notice, every lien, every tax. So why are strangers clearing it out like it's been repossessed?"
He hesitated again, then spoke slowly. "A man came forward three days ago. Vincent Halpern."
He dropped his voice slightly. "He showed up with legal documents, an old contract signed by your father years ago. It outlined that if a certain loan wasn't repaid in full, Halpern would have claim to any unsold original artwork in your father's collection."
"Vincent Halpern," Lena repeated in disbelief.
Everyone in Melbourne knew who he was.
He wasn't just wealthy, he was dangerously powerful. Vincent had built his fortune in the shadows, running one of the city's most notorious underground lending networks. His money didn't come from clean business; it came from desperation.
But it wasn't just the money. It was who stood beside him.
He had a loyal network of thugs and muscle men who did more than collect debts. Politicians backed him, whispered about him, and used him when they needed jobs done that couldn't be traced. Rumour had it he handled everything from vote fixing to asset laundering. He was deeply entrenched in the city's underworld and just enough of its legitimate one to be protected.
Vincent had been arrested multiple times for serious charges, open investigations but every time, he walked out the next morning without a scratch. Untouchable.
"How did my father even get entangled with someone like that?" Lena muttered, more to herself than anyone else. Her voice trembled with disbelief, her thoughts spiraling.
She snapped back to the call. "And you just let them walk away with everything?" she snapped. "His entire life's work gone? Just like that?"
David hesitated. "Lena, you don't understand-"
"No, you don't understand!" she shouted. "That gallery was all I had left of him!"
"I didn't have a choice," David said quickly. "Lena, he threatened me."
The words landed hard.
"What?" she said, her voice dropping.
David pressed on, hesitantly. "You don't understand what kind of man Vincent Halpern is. You don't fight him. People like me... we stay out of his way."
"I didn't even question it," he went on. "It's Vincent Halpern, Lena. Everyone knows what he's capable of. He made it clear that if I interfered, there would be consequences."
David continued, more quietly now. "And the worst part? He had a contract. A formal document with your father's signature on it. Dated. Witnessed. It laid everything out in black and white if the loan wasn't repaid, ownership of the unsold artworks transferred to him."
He paused. "That was all he needed. It was legal. And once I saw the paperwork... there wasn't anything I could do."
Lena's voice was barely above a whisper. "You're telling me he walked in with one document and just... took everything?"
Lena's stomach turned. Her father had signed something, something she'd never seen. And now it was being used to dismantle his legacy while she stood halfway across the world, powerless to stop it.
"Send me his contact ild like to speak to him," she said finally.."
" Lena, listen to me," he said, voice softer now, more urgent. "Don't go after him. Don't even think about it. This mess, this gallery, this debt it's not worth your life."
That cracked something in her.
Tears blurred her vision. She turned away from the window, her back shaking.
"It is my life," she choked. "That gallery... that art it's all I have left of him. My father spent his entire life building that place, pouring everything he had into those paintings. And now he's gone, and someone like Vincent thinks he can just sweep in and erase him like he never existed?"
David was silent on the other end.
"I'd rather die fighting for it," she whispered, voice cracking, "than live knowing I let someone steal it."
"Lena," he said carefully, "I know you're hurting, but you're not thinking straight. You need to let someone-"
"No," she cut in, wiping her face roughly. "I'm not letting this go."
"Then please, at least-"
But she ended the call before he could finish