Page 41 of Single Mom's Daddies
Because value is perception. And perception is what we sell. If Svet’s name starts to slip—even by rumor—this whole scheme unravels. And if it unravels, Max and Yuri will crawl out of their holes with old ideas and older grudges, begging us to return to the methods that got people like Nadia killed.
I won’t let that happen.
I can’t.
I grip the armrests of my chair hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
Renner announces the next lot. I see his mouth move. But I don’t hear him. I’m too busy counting the ways this went wrong.
The rest of the auction drags.
People clap when they’re supposed to. They bid because it’s what they came to do. Renner moves through the lots like a conductor—smooth, practiced, barely a bead of sweat. Everyone is doing their thing, like nothing has changed.
No one else knows what’s at stake. But I do.
I stay seated until the final Svet painting is gone, sold to a Saudi buyer I know damn well is buying insurance, not art. That canvas will never hang on a wall. It’ll sit in a temperature-controlled vault somewhere in Dubai, waiting to be referenced in a phone call that starts with “We need your help” and ends in seven digits.
That’s the game. That’s always been the game. Until people like Ruger show up and start poking holes in the rules.
Once Svet stops being seen asworthy—as a genius, as exclusive, as expensive—this all falls apart. Because the money isn’t in the paint.
It’s in the belief. And once belief cracks, it rots. I stand before the applause stops. Walk past the rows of chairs, the glittering donors, the whispering assistants and soft-throated appraisers.
People part for me. No one wants to be in the way of a man who looks like he’s about to kill something.
I find Renner backstage, pretending to review notes. His hands are still. Too still.
“You saw him,” I say.
He doesn’t look up. “Yes.”
“He said anything else?”
“Not directly. But he lingered near the ledger. Asked questions.”
“About?”
“Value. Provenance. Frequency of sale.”
“He’s trying to find the seams, tug at them.”
“Yes.”
I nod. “Did you answer?”
“I said what we rehearsed.”
“You looked calm.”
“Iwascalm.”
I believe him.
He’s better at this than he should be. Years ago, Renner was a spoiled trust fund brat selling fakes out of his parents’ lake house. Now he’s our primary laundering front. Funny what grooming and leverage will do.
“Still,” I say, voice flat, “he shouldn’t have been that close.”
“I know.”
