Page 7 of Iron Blade

Which is why I had no problem robbing them blind.

There was a note on my desk, left by the Governor of Massachusetts, requesting that we sell artwork for him. They were forgeries, stamped and sealed as having hung in the governor’s mansion.

I had forged the papers myself, and he had signed them, and taken photos with them hanging on the walls.

I guess we’re about to finance a big operation…

I’d get them sold and funnel the money into an untraceable account.

Still, I’d have to sell some of these other mediocre monstrosities somehow. I should just put up the pages against the wall and blindly throw darts to see who I’d sell. It had so little to do with the art, and more to do with the tale I told. So, who would I be the fairy godmother to today?

I went down the hall to a storage closet. The room was kept cool, and devoid of light, to preserve the “precious art” within. Covered canvases and paintings that my colleague failed to sell were stacked five deep against a barren wall.

The covered canvases looked like ghosts. The ghosts of artists’ hopes and dreams.

My canvases never died in this catacomb. Mine always sold… eventually.

I ran my hand over a single painting of a girl, sitting on an older man’s lap. It was a sensual Lolita-like piece that I had sold to my mark, Cosima Durante. Mafia heiress.

I reached into the gold engraved frame and checked that the listening device was still implanted into the carved wood.

I pulled out my phone and started a text conversation.

Me: Your painting is packaged, ready to be delivered. It’ll be there tomorrow evening.

Me: I’m looking at it now, and it’s even more stunning than I remember.

Cosa: You are the best! I am so happy we’re friends. Brunch, tomorrow?

Me: Absolutely!

I was skirting too close to her. My handler, Blink, did not approve. But he didn’t protest either, which was basically his version of consent.

We needed an in with them. We needed information for our operations however we could get it. If I could do it without endangering myself, then all the better.

I stared longingly at the paintings, running my fingers over the pieces that would never find a home. Like stray dogs in a kill shelter, they’d disappear if they spent too long in this hell.

They, like me, had failed to live up to their potential. I had realized too late that the price of art is not just in the craftsmanship of the painting itself. The sculpture or canvas was worth nothing if it didn’t have a good story attached to it.

The story was worth as much as the paint itself. That’s what separates the $20 painting you see on the wall of your local coffee shop, and the $20,000 masterpiece you see on the wall of a museum. Van Gough’s paintings were worthless while he was alive.

Frankly, the impressionists were overrated. Except for Dali. Salvador Dali was the only real genius in the bunch…

The word “genius” was bandied around entirely too much. I could not believe that I was so taken by a painting that I even called someone a “master”!

Heat flushed my cheeks when I remembered that he had heard my praise.

I practically salivated over the money I could rake in with his art. Good technique, and good bone structure? That was every gallerist's dream!

I trudged back to my office, annoyed at how offensively handsome Eoghan Green was in person.

The dossier I had received about him didn’t do him justice. The photos with all the information on Green Fields Enterprises had depicted a blond man with black eyes and masculine features. But it didn’t capture his magnetism. He could suck the air out of a room!

If he were a real artist, I could craft him a persona that would make him millions just by sneezing paint onto a piece of paper.

I pondered that while I walked back into my office, going through the intellectual exercise of how I would sell his work – if that were a possibility.

The question was: why wasn’t he doing it already? He owned the fucking gallery!

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