Page 50 of City Of Thieves
Moments later, I’m flying apart, my whole body shuddering with relief, my head finally falling forward as he releases his hold on my hair. Sliding his arm around my waist, he keeps me pinned against him until my frantic breathing slows.
“Nero,” he murmurs, biting down on my shoulder as the haze starts to clear. “My brother’s name was Nero.”
I try not to move a muscle.
“The ‘Atonement’ ended up in our hands last year. We needed to shift it fast, so my intermediary set up a meeting between Nero and a secret buyer. Next thing I know, the painting’s vanished, there’s no money or intermediary, my brother’s lying dead in a hotel room, and there’s a stone-cold trail as to what went down.” There’s a note of bitterness in his voice and a tome's worth of regret as he spins me back around and takes my jaw between his fingers. “This auction has been my first lead in three months, Tatiana,” he says, brushing his thumb over my flushed cheek “And now I discover that might be bullshit, too?”
“Not necessarily.”
His eyes narrow. “I’m listening.”
“Seb came to see me a couple of days ago. I think he was trying to tell me what he’d done, but I threw him out before he confessed. If I’m right, the real painting might still be in his possession.”
I watch his face cloud over with things that belong in closets in the dead of night.
“My brother isn’t a murderer, Renzo,” I whisper, placing my hands over his. “I swear he hadnothingto do with your brother’s death. My family is several shades past squeaky clean but promise me you’ll speak to him first before your trigger finger starts pointing.”
“Call him,” he repeats, breaking away, and reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Right now.”
That’s not reassurance, Renzo, that’s a different kind of blackmail.
Glaring at him, I take the device and dial a number I know by heart, but it goes straight to voicemail. I hand it back to him to listen as proof. “What should I do?”
“Leave a message. Set up a meeting for late this evening. We’re flying back to New York the second this auction is over.”
I’m so shocked I hang up by accident. “You still want to buy the painting, even when you know it’s a fake?”
There’s a pause. “This was never about ownership, Tatiana. This was about getting a front row seat for the action.”
The blood starts rushing in my ears.When the truth starts to drop, it bruises like rubber bullets.“You were never going to buy the ‘Atonement’, were you?”
You lied, too.
He shakes his head, his gaze never wavering. “I want the Russian bastard who’s over eager to get his hands on it, not the painting itself. I have intel that he’ll be there today in some capacity, whether in person or through an intermediary. Either way, it’s a fucking trail to follow.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
“You didn’t need to know. And this doesn’t let your brother off the hook… He’s still connected with this, and I want his life story autographed in blood.”
“That’s not… Wait, what Russian bastard?” I say, finally registering the words, my stomach lurching.
“The one who keeps coming at us with his knives and his guns and his shitty blue sedan. It tells me he values his identity more than he does our lives.” He checks his watch. “But we have an advantage... He doesn’t know it’s a fake.”
The fragile connection between us splits and multiplies.
Konstantin.
Is he talking about Konstantin?
Is he the man who murdered Renzo’s brother?
Chapter Fourteen
Renzo
Most family treesgrow straight and true. Then there’s Tatiana and me… Two people whose roots coil into so many knots, removing them would level entire cities.
Since the moment I barged into her life, we’ve tried to strip the bark from each other’s branches. We’ve plucked leaves just to drive the stems under the other’s skin, never realizing that our trees are more tangled than we ever imagined.
