Page 10 of Painted in Sin

He shoves me hard, then releases me, and my hands fly to my neck. I gasp for breath, coughing as my eyes well up with tears. Nicola isn't joking. He's going to hurt me badly if I don't do what he says, but how can I? I have Matthias coming for the real one, Victor for the forgery, and my boss, Mr. Giani, expecting me to be the reputable, honest art authenticator I have the reputation for being.

"I'll be back. You'd better have it for me."

Nicola walks away without touching me again, but I shake so violently I can’t even open the door. If Victor Costa doesn’t get me, Nicola Vitale will.

8

VICTOR

As my driver whisks me away from Isabella's building, I tuck my dick back in my pants and then lick her moisture from my fingers. Like taking candy from a baby, it was. She's easy—on the eye and easy to manipulate too. Her own desires catch her up and she stumbles over herself trying to get to me, which is the effect I have on women. Never did I think it would be so easy to convince her that she wants to be taken like that. Next time, I'll make her regret that choice briefly before I satisfy her.

We're halfway across town and I'm ready to pour a nightcap and call it a night when my phone rings. I pull it out to read the caller ID and see that it's my friend Antony, the fence. He's probably got an update for me about the status of our latest sale, and I'm not in the mood so I send it to voicemail, but it rings through again almost immediately. Annoyed, I answer, "What?"

"Mr. Costa, I hope I didn’t wake you." He sounds breathless and frightened, but that's normal. He's a wise man, stubborn, sometimes ill-behaved, but he always quivers like a bowl of Jell-O when he speaks to me. It's cowardice, or maybe that's the effect I have on weak men.

"It's not even midnight, youcazzone." I massage the bridge of my nose and suck in a breath that helps inflate my lungs fully. I'm tense, and dealing with this shit at this time of night enrages me.

"Sorry, Mr. Costa, I just wanted to know if you'll be needing a buyer lined up for that Raphael. We have some options and I am already taking bids on the?—"

"Shut up, Antony," I snap, and the line goes deathly silent. I hear the tremble in the way his breath catches, then the moisture in his mouth as he swallows and closes his maw. "I may not be selling that painting."

"But, sir," he protests, much to my disdain.

"The artwork belongs to my family. It was my great-great-grandfather's painting, commissioned for his great-great-grandfather before him, stolen from my family's villa in the south of France more than a hundred years ago." This history has been spoken so many times, I'm annoyed that I even have to tell the man.

"But sir, your father?—"

"I know what my father said, and he's allowed to have his opinions about the matter, and I am a different person. I hired Vitale to retrieve this painting for me and for now, it belongs to me." I think of the art thief imprisoned not too long ago for his ties to an art smuggling and forgery ring and get even more annoyed. He thinks I owe him some payout larger than the price of his freedom, which I purchased in order to grant him the privilege of working for me.

Nicola has no clue the lengths to which I went to get him out of prison. He should be grateful he's walking these streets and not behind bars still, and yet he thinks I'm going to cough up a percent of the price when I fence the artwork. That may not even happen.

"I understand, Mr. Costa, but Emilio told me the frame alone was?—"

"Fuck what my father says, Antony. You aren't my father's fence. You're mine, and if you call me with stupid questions like this again, you'll see concrete boots and a ride to Greece. Am I clear?" I'm seething now, nostrils flared, hand clenching my phone so tightly I might crush it. After all that relaxation with Isabella, this buffoon has to go and ruin it.

"Yes, sir. I understand."

Antony hangs up, and I let my head fall back against the headrest behind me. I can't understand what's going through my father's head about this painting. Pushing me to fence it by hyping Antony to line up buyers… It's not the way we work. In fact, it's not even my father's realm of expertise. He prefers to stick to the task of management, letting his capos run the show for him, trusting their judgment as long as they cut him in on every cent. And now he's micromanaging me all over a picture—and not even that. He seems to not care about the painting at all. It's the frame he wants.

The car turns and makes me sway a bit, and I look out the window at the city skyline. Rome is beautiful even at night, especially from this elevation where most of the twinkling lights shine brightly, silhouetting buildings and roadways. It's a hidden gem nestled into the rolling hills, admired for its historical architecture and prominence, like the painting in mypossession. But deep inside the city lies a network of thieves and criminals waiting to be seen, to have their moment in the sun, so to speak. It sparks an idea inside me that niggles at my conscience.

"Mario," I call, and the divider between my cabin and my driver slides down.

"Yes, sir," he says, stealing a glance in his rearview mirror.

"Have you ever heard of a famous piece of artwork where the frame is as valuable as the art itself?" My mind is whirring, spinning ideas of why my father is so obsessed with the frame. Yes, it's gilded, but even at that the total value of a painting that large with the gilt frame isn't increased substantially.

Even if they used twenty-carat gold to gilt the frame, at the size of the painting in question and the fact that they'd have to scrape it, melt it down, reconstitute it, and then have it forged into something… my father would spend more to endure the process than the gold is even worth. Less than six hundred and fifty euros.

"Well, no, sir," he says, "I don't believe I have. Usually, they’re just wood, right?"

That gets me thinking too. What if the frame isn't just wood? Except, it's not heavy enough to be made of a precious metal, or any metal, for that matter. So why could my father possibly prize the frame over the painting itself?

The sentimental value of the painting isn't just what I'm after. I understand that thirteen million dollars is a lot of coin for a piece of art, and that alone is what makes it so desirable to many people. But thirteen million is a drop in the bucket to my father, more than loose change but not enough to make or break hisbank. I had Nicola retrieve it for me and paid him well for it so that it can proudly hang on the wall of my home as an heirloom.

"Why do you think my father might care more about the frame of a painting than the image itself when it's priced at millions of dollars?" The lights of passing cars whir past the window and I unfocus my eyes to let myself think more clearly.

"I suppose if something were hidden in the frame, maybe?"

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