Page 33 of Sweet Animosity

My fingernails dug into my purse. “What is your name?”

“My name is immaterial. All you need to know is that it would be very dangerous to disappoint me on this.”

Without meeting his gaze, I slowly nodded to show that I had understood the threat. My hand went to the now unlocked door handle.

“Vivian?”

I stilled. “Yes?”

“I’ll be watching.”

Without another word, I yanked on the door latch and climbed out as quickly as I could.

Seconds later, the SUV sped out of the parking lot in a trail of dust and debris.

I was so fucked.

It was impossible to recreate the forgeries in a few days, which meant my only option was to find the ones I’d already created.

If this man didn’t have them, and the Southside gang didn’t—that left only one other option.

Var has the paintings.

CHAPTER 13

VAR

“Why are there columns?” asked Mac.

Serg shook his head. “I may not know a lot about art, but I know the Mona Lisa does not have columns.”

The forger had perfectly captured da Vinci’s sfumato technique of soft, translucent layers. I couldn’t detect a single brushstroke. “Not the original in the Louvre, but the others have columns.”

We were standing in my office two days after Abakar’s murder, inspecting five of the forged paintings we recovered. I had to admit the forger’s work was exceptional. I rubbed my jaw as I studied the works. Simply amazing.

Mac made himself a tea from the heated samovar on the sideboard and slumped down into one of the leather chairs in front of my desk. “Others? There’s more than one?”

“Technically, there are possibly two more,” I answered absentmindedly as I focused on the expertise on display.

Serg leaned against the sideboard as he crossed his arms. Nodding toward the paintings, he asked, “What’s the end game with painting five versions of an unknown version of the Mona Lisa?”

Turning away from the works, I took my seat and steepled my fingers. “My guess is someone is planning on running the Mona Lisa scam with actual Mona Lisas.”

Mac leaned forward. “Can you explain that to the rest of the class who aren’t art geeks?”

I laughed. “Where are Gregor and Samara when I need them? Talking art with you two Philistines is like quoting Shakespeare to apes.”

I rose and crossed to the samovar. Selecting a glass, I placed it in a Podstakannikand poured a generous portion of concentrated tea from the pot, before twisting the spigot and filling it with piping hot water.

Preferring my tea black with no sweetener, I turned back to my business partners. “The Mona Lisa scam is a classic art heist. You steal the painting. Then sell multiple forgeries on the black market. Since the painting is stolen, none of the buyers will ever authenticate or sell it. So they will each assume they are the only one with the original. And even if the painting is returned to the museum, as they often are used as collateral during criminal prosecutions, the buyer will still assume the museum has a forgery.”

Mac shook his head. “The art world is fucked up. What a racket. Hard to believe gambling is the regulated industry out of the two.”

I gestured toward the paintings. “Shit like this is why it’s so easy to launder money through art, but it’s a delicate balance. Everyone is in on the con, including the museum, as long as everyone plays by the rules. Abakar flooded the market with too many, too quickly, and that was before this bullshit.”

Serg shook his head. “So why the columns?”

Turning my chair around, I studied the paintings. “There are two other supposed Mona Lisas. The Isleworth one is held in an underground secure storage facility in Singapore. That one is darker, and the subject is younger. This is the Russian one.”

---