Page 3 of The Collector's Temptation

I also managed Belladonna Gallery, the largest art gallery in Atlanta, as well as Vellum & Vine—an exclusive, extremely high-end museum. Both were among the many legitimate businesses owned by The Family, although some of their dealings were done in the shadows.

However, those jobs were not the skill that made me the most valuable to The Family. I was an artist. And I was fucking exceptional, which was how I’d become one of the best art forgers in the world. Although that was only speculated about in the smallest circle so I’d been able to stay off the FBI’s radar. And any other law enforcement organization.

In the smuggling game, being able to replace originals with a perfect forgery added more layers to the business. We could boost a shipment of paintings and replace some with replicas before we left them to be recovered by the cops or insurance investigators. Which gave us the option of selling the real piece on the black market without the same amount of heat there would be if the stolen items hadn’t been “recovered.”

Or, as was the case this evening, we had a collector who “discovered” a rare, or rumored to exist, painting. Only our guy existed in every way except being actual flesh and blood.

A couple of months ago, the boss of the Sicilian Mafia—whom the DeLucas stemmed from back in the early 1800s—died. There had always been rumors about a secret art collection, especially since The Family had been linked to several high-profile thefts over the years. The collection existed, but no one outside the organization knew, so the contents could only be speculated upon.

One of the pieces allegedly part of the collection was Caravaggio'sNativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence.People had no idea that their conjecture just happened to be true.

Nic had called his distant relative, the boss’s son and successor, to convey his sympathies. During his conversation with Fiero DeLuca, they talked about the collection of art. Fiero only wanted to keep a handful of them and asked Nic to handle the sale of the others. They would smuggle some of them out of Italy to be sold in backdoor dealings or put up for public auction as newly discovered, or recovered, pieces.

Fiero intended to keepNativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence, but he was aware of my skills and suggested we create a forgery to sell. Since the original would remain in The Family’s private possession, there was less risk of getting caught.

I’d taken a last-minute trip to Italy, where it was easiest to collect the necessary ingredients to create an authentic replica that would stand up to the most intense authentication processes. Then I made the paints and brushes to match the ones Caravaggio would have used, mixed with remnants scraped from art created in the same timeframe so that it would have the same microbial ingredients—like microscopic pollens and other things that would have been in the air and ground in 1609. We’d even used a canvas from the same time period, cleaning off the original painting before I created the forgery.

Then Charles had come to collect the canvas and escort the “newly discovered” piece to the States while I stayed in the shadows and returned home.

Despite how fucking good I was, the painting was still a fake, so we intended to use an authenticator on our payroll to make sure it passed all the tests. However, the woman we’d worked with for the past decade had gotten involved with the wrong person and been outed as corrupt. She was spending some time in prison, but as long as she kept her mouth shut, she’d remain alive.

Her arrest had left us with a gaping hole in the plan. So Rafa tasked me with finding someone to take her place. Luckily, I’d already been in the process since we’d decided to have a backup here in Georgia. Having more than one authentication specialist in the southern branches made sense because we sold the most stolen and smuggled art for The Family.

Isaiah had been on my radar for a while before I conveniently bumped into him and built a friendship over a year ago. When I was confident that he could be trusted, I’d approached him with a deal, and he’d taken the bait. Which saved me the trouble of having to use the dirt we’d dug up to blackmail him. Marco, Rafa’s brother and a fucking genius—especially with technology—had found plenty of shit to use, and it was all stored on our secure server in case we ever needed it.

I’d used Isaiah on some smaller jobs, each bigger than the one before, all leading up to this event. He was in too deep to screw us now, but when faced with law enforcement, there was the smallest chance that he would cave and work for them as a rat. Although, if he attempted that path, we had safeguards in place that would ruin his career and reputation, all of which would also embarrass the agency trying to use him against us.

If that happened, my head would be on the chopping block with Rafa because I’d vouched for this guy. Not that mistakes were never forgiven, but I would still pay for the fuck up, and it would be a long damn time before I fully gained Rafa’s trust again.

However, I was confident in Isaiah’s commitment to The Family. That wasn’t what I was judging him on today. Not completely, anyway.

“Tonight will not end with me discovering how creative Rafa can be. The point of this test is mostly to gauge Isaiah’s ability to think on his feet. We’ll see how he handles the scrutiny under pressure,” I explained to my brother.

“Did you tell him?”

“No.”

“From what we’ve seen so far, I think he’ll come through for us.”

“Bene,” Charles murmured.

Since we were in public, despite speaking in French, we kept our conversation vague. The authentication process was underway, and Charles wanted to know if Isaiah knew if the painting was real or fake.

With something this big, I needed to know he could pass it off as real when he discovered it on the spot rather than being prepared ahead of time. If he failed, then the safeguards would be put into action. However, if he succeeded, the test of loyalty would happen shortly after when he’d be approached by a private insurance investigator who would offer him an obscene amount of money to admit the truth.

Our conversation paused when Alessio—Alec—Dominici, one of Rafa’s enforcers, strolled up to join us. “Marc has run every face in the room. No major red flags. I suspect a few of our guests are party crashers but harmless.”

“What are Sara Bosch and Sterling Ellis up to?” I asked, tipping my flute toward the extremely successful insurance investigators. Although they worked for different companies, they were speaking quietly while standing in front of a Camille Claudel sculpture.

It was another long-lost masterpiece that would be up for auction. Although, in this case, it was authentic…at the moment. My ability to replicate sculpture was excellent, but it wasn’t my forte and wouldn’t stand up to anything but the first few levels of testing.

That particular piece would be replaced after the auction while it was in transit to the new owner. And with theauthentication certification from the auction house in hand, there would be no reason for them to request further testing.

“Isn’t Sara’s company set to insure the sculpture?” Charles clarified.

“Oui.” Which was why I was very curious to know what they were discussing so intently.

“You don’t think she’ll ask for an independent examination?”

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