Page 65 of Silence and Surrender

“Alleged Caravaggio,” I said during an authentication session, maybe ten days after my arrival. My hands were steady despite everything else, examining the canvas with practiced precision. “Composition is right, the tenebrism technique is convincing, but...” I leaned closer, studying the brushwork. “The direction of the strokes is wrong in the shadowed areas. Caravaggio painted from dark to light, always. This forger worked the opposite way. And the ground layer contains titanium white—a material unavailable until the 20thcentury.” I looked up at the Collector, whose face had darkened with disappointment. “This is a very expensive fake.”

He cursed in what sounded like German, then composed himself. “This is precisely why I acquired you,” he said, his voice calm again. “You’ve just saved me eight million euros.” His eyes studied me with renewed interest. “You’re almost ready.” Ready for what, he didn’t say.

When the door opened again—hours or days later—I retreated into memories of Colton. His voice promising to find me. His arms promising safety. His kiss promising...love? The drugs made everything else uncertain, but those memories remained clear. But…had he loved me?

If only I could hold onto them long enough. If only I could remember who I was long enough. If only Colton could find me before I discovered what happened in those blank spaces in my memory.

But in my prison, there was only darkness and confusion and the endless uncertainty of what happened when the drugs took me. Only the sound of women crying and guards laughing and the Collector discussing his acquisitions—both artwork and human. I’d wake sometimes with fragments of conversations about upcoming auctions, private sales, and his growing collection.

I floated in my drug haze, analyzing brushstrokes I could no longer see, identifying forgeries in my dreams, holding onto memories that felt more real than reality. Somewhere above us, the world continued. Somewhere above us, Colton was searching.

Unless that too was just another drug dream. Unless everything was just chemicals and confusion. Unless I’d already been broken and just couldn’t remember it happening.

The cellar door opened again. More boots. More hands. More darkness waiting to swallow me whole.

“The Rembrandt arrives tomorrow,” I heard the Collector say from somewhere far away. “Prepare her.”

I retreated into memories of Colton’s strength, praying they would be enough to keep me whole until he found me.

If he found me. If I was still me when he did. If there was anything left to save.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Colton

The cold had almost won when I heard it—a subtle scraping against the container’s exterior. Three short taps, pause, two long. An old signal from Cooper’s smuggling days.

My body felt like ice, muscles nearly useless after hours and hours in the container. The temperature kept dropping—both punishment and precaution—meant to keep me docile while they cleaned up loose ends.

A whispered curse in American-accented English filtered through the metal. “This lock’s a pain in the ass.”

Stryker. Which meant—

“Move over,” Cooper murmured. “Some of us actually know what we’re doing.”

The lock clicked open with surgical precision. Luckily my brother had spent years defeating all kinds of security measures.

Light spilled in, revealing Cooper and Stryker in tactical gear, faces smudged with black.

“You look like hell,” Cooper said, moving to cut my restraints. His knife was warm against my frozen skin. “Though better than most of the guards outside.”

“First things first.” Stryker pressed something into my hands—a Glock, familiar weight. “Can you shoot?”

I flexed my fingers, willing feeling back into them despite the cold. “Yes.”

“Good.” Cooper helped me up, steadying me when my legs threatened to buckle. “Because we’ve got about ten minutes before they realize the guards in the north sector aren’t responding.”

“Isabella—” My voice cracked from cold and disuse. “Tell me you found—”

“We’ve been looking,” Stryker cut in. “No firm location yet. But we have leads.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Eighteen hours since the shipping yard incident,” Cooper replied grimly. “They moved quickly after capturing both of you. We’ve been tracking container shipments, checking our contacts.”

“What do we know?” I asked, forcing my frozen limbs to move as we exited the container.

“After the ambush at the shipping yard, they separated you two,” Cooper explained, keeping his voice low. “Put you in one container, her in another. We managed to get past them, and then traced yours, but hers...” He shook his head. “Trail went cold in Rotterdam. But we’ve been picking up chatter about a high-end art authenticator being sold through an exclusive network.”

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