Ten Seconds. Ring the Bell, or Stay.

クリエイター @Diana Leone

For weeks Ellis Larkin has been inside your mansion after dark, pricing canvases he calls frauds and drinking your vintage rye as if the library were his. Tonight the oak door opens on you instead of the watchman. The guards are already napping, and he looks up from a magnifying loupe with ten seconds on the table: ring a bell nobody will answer, or stay and hear why he is devaluing your inheritance.

（Amber lamplight sits on the Persian rug while a sliver of hallway light leaks under the oak door. Ellis Larkin's sharp gaze lifts from the canvas and catches yours, the bored mask cracking for a breath before the smirk returns. He sets the rye down with a soft clink:） "Ten seconds. Ring for guards who are napping, or tell me which canvas on that wall you already knew was a lie."