Chapter 19

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

JULIUS

“The money is starting to move.”

Felix turned his chair so he could look over my shoulder. “Whoa. Dude, I thought I was bad. That’s, like, a hundred different windows. How can you even watch all that at the same time?”

I shrugged. “It’s my superpower. What can I say?” In truth, I’d learned the skill watching stock prices when I’d been a Wall Street day trader. I hadn’t lasted long in the Big Apple. New York City made me feel claustrophobic. But I’d learned a hell of a lot in the two years I’d lived there.

Felix pivoted back to his computer. Like some sort of heist movie cliche, we were camped out in a black van parked along a quiet stretch of road behind Dasselaar’s estate. We could see the house from our vantage point, but unless someone knew where to look for us, we were almost invisible, tucked in along the edge of a thick copse of trees.

“Quin, how are things looking inside?” Felix’s voice echoed in the comm in my ear on a short delay.

“All good. Half the guests are in the auction room. The rest are in the ballroom and hallway.”

After Quin had paid his half-million-dollar buy-in to bid on the artworks in Dasselaar’s collection, he’d been given access to an encrypted app. Felix had been able to hack the app, learning that there would be no live auction element at Dasselaar’s gala. Instead, all the bidding was done completely anonymously via the app. Only two people—Dasselaar and his Swiss banker Emil Mondvogel—had access to the administrative side of the app. Dasselaar decided when the lots were closed for bidding, then Mondvogel, using the account information he’d taken when he’d collected the buy-in, swept the money out of the buyer’s account.

For someone who didn’t even keep a copy of the guest list for the gala on his computer, I thought it was strange Dasselaar was putting so much faith in an app. Not that I was complaining because he was making my job a hell of a lot easier, but still, it was weird.

Another of the lots closed, and I watched the money move from the buyer’s account into Dasselaar’s.

And so it continued until only one lot remained open.

“This is it.” I watched the lot close, then did a double take when the money was swept out of Gaspard Malveau’s account. “What the hell does Malveau want with a shifter painting?”

Malveau was one of the only non-shifters in attendance at Dasselaar’s gala. He was a Belgian jewelry and gold dealer known for his ruthless business dealings. According to the profile Felix had put together, Malveau’s great-grandfather had built their family fortune on illegally and inhumanely mined conflict diamonds, and while there had been a push toward legitimacy during the intervening generations, Gaspard had seen the same lucrative opportunities as his great-grandfather and was now one of the most powerful players in the black-market diamond trade. I’d been able to ballpark his net worth at somewhere around five billion dollars. As far as we knew, he had exactly zero interest in the painting. According to everything Felix had been able to find, his fine art holdings were minimal and trended toward surrealism. If it had been a Dali, I might have been less surprised that he’d ended up the high bid, but neoclassical was not his thing. Which meant he was buying the painting for someone else, or he had a buyer lined up and he was using the auction to launder some of his own dirty money.

Felix turned around so fast I felt the breeze on the back of my neck. “Wait. Malveau is the buyer?”

“Looks like it. I just watched two hundred and fifty-seven million dollars leave his account.”

Felix whistled. “Damn. He’s gotta be planning to unload it to someone else for more than that. He’s probably using it to launder some of his money.”

I nodded. “You read my mind.”

He shrugged. “Nah, these criminal types are just that predictable.” Felix turned back to his computer. “Nero, the buyer is Gaspard Malveau. Are you in place?”

For a minute when we’d been planning this op, Nero had thought about not making a play for the painting at all since we knew it was Quin’s fake, but Malveau buying the painting was a neon, flashing red flag, and I was glad he’d decided to move forward with the heist. My gut told me that even when we got the painting out of Amsterdam, this wasn’t going to be over. Letting the fake fall into whoever Malveau was working with’s hands would only prolong the inevitable. Someone was still going to be looking for the real thing, and if we had the fake painting, we could use it as leverage to draw out whoever that was and find out who had kidnapped Felix and put a target on our family. If Dasselaar’s painting had been the real thing, it might have been different, but learning it was a fake meant whoever was looking for the real painting would eventually end up on our doorstep since Juno was still on the short list of people who had the skill set to acquire it.

While he’d agreed to go through with the heist, Nero didn’t love the plan he, Cal, and Jack had come up with. Cal and Jack had done more recon and had found out Dasselaar had hired a small team of people to prepare the auctioned art for transportation, either by the buyer at the conclusion of the event or to be shipped through Dasselaar’s gallery for an additional fee. The plan was that following the auction, the art would be prepped for transport while the guests enjoyed more of Dasselaar’s hospitality. At the end of the evening, the winning bidders could take their prizes or they would be moved to Dasselaar’s gallery for shipment. Nero had infiltrated the team and would have eyes on the painting. Cal and Jack were in another rented van, ready for Nero to give them the all clear to make the switch, the transportation case with the painting in it for a case holding an empty frame that hopefully closely matched the weight of the painting. Nero thought there were a lot of holes in the plan, contingencies he didn’t feel like he could plan for in an environment he couldn’t control, not to mention the number of people that would still be around the estate. Jack was banking on the number of people around being excellent cover, but Nero was less certain. After they had the painting secured, they were going to head into the heart of Amsterdam to get Dimitri’s sister.

Before Nero could answer, movement on my screen caught my eye.

“Something’s up. Someone just deposited the exact amount Malveau paid for the painting back into his account. Felix, are you seeing this?” Felix looked over my shoulder. “Ten seconds ago, this account was two hundred fifty-seven mill lighter.”

“Pull up the transaction log. Let’s make sure it’s not a glitch on Mondvogel’s end.”

I did what he asked and tapped a finger against the screen over the transaction’s initiating party. “AB Holdings Limited. I’ve seen that name before. It’s a shell company.”

Since Felix had been kidnapped by Agent Lance Cooper and I’d started following the money flowing into his accounts, it had been shell game after shell game, and I’d made next to no progress. Our cousin Marcus, who was a forensic accountant and the person who’d taught me everything there was to know about burying my financial trail, was working on unraveling the web back in Seattle, but that didn’t help me now.

“Let me see if I can find anything.” Felix’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “Bingo! AB Holdings Limited has an approved flight plan for a private jet that’s waiting on the tarmac at the same airstrip where Reuben’s plane is parked.”

Nero’s voice came over our secure channel. “I like swapping the painting at the airstrip a hell of a lot better than going into the estate.”

“Me too,” Cal agreed.

“We’ve gotta get Quin and Dimitri out.” I sent Marcus Malveau’s transaction record as I reminded them of our secondary objective.

Nero grunted. “Agreed, but the sister complicates things.”

Felix tapped at his computer. “I closed Quin’s channel. What are you thinking?”

It was Jack who answered. “If we’re going to swipe the painting at the airstrip, we won’t have time to go get her. Felix, what are we looking at for a timetable?”

“It’s tight. Flight manifest says the plane is on standby and will be cleared for takeoff at the pilot’s confirmation.”

“We have to make a choice. It’s either Dimitri’s sister or the painting. We can’t be in two places at once.”

I jumped into the conversation. “We don’t have to be. Send Quin and Dimitri to get Dimitri’s sister. She’ll be more likely to go with her brother anyway.”

“Do you think Quin can handle it?” Nero had always been oddly protective of Quin, even though he’d proven he could take care of himself.

I scoffed. “You treat him like he’s fragile, but he has all the same skills we do, big brother. He learned to shoot right along with us, and if my memory serves he might be a better shot than you.”

Nero growled. “He beat me at the range one time. One. Time. And that was more than a decade ago. He doesn’t use those skills often.”

Cal cut in. “Um, pardon me, but when was the last time you shot someone?”

“Irrelevant.” Nero’s response was mumbled.

Cal spoke over it. “Quin will be fine. We’re not expecting trouble at the sister’s place. He’ll be in and out and meet us at the airstrip.”

“And I’ll be there. I’m armed too.” Hadrian’s reassurance tipped Nero over the edge.

“Fine,” he begrudgingly agreed.

“I’m going to reopen his channel and we can tell him about the change of plans.” Felix tapped his keyboard. “Quin?”

“I’m here. What’s going on? I think I lost you for a minute.”

“Change of plans. Grab Dimitri and get to Hade. You are going to have to go get Dimitri’s sister, then meet us at the airstrip.” Nero’s instructions were clipped, but Quin confirmed he understood.

“Quinny, do you have that gun I gave you?” Cal asked.

“It’s in my room.”

“You need to go get it, then give Felix the all clear when you’re back in place and can get to Dimitri.” Despite Cal’s earlier confidence that Quin could handle the extraction, there was worry in his tone.

With the auction over, a handful of people were beginning to trickle out of the estate, hustling to their town cars, expensive sports cars, and limos. Likely they were the sore losers of the bunch.

“People are already starting to leave. Hurry, Quin.” We needed there to still be enough people inside to cause chaos when Felix cut the power.

“I’m already on my way back to my room.”

“Good.”

For a while, the comms went quiet, and I counted every heartbeat. No one else left the estate, and the security team that had been patrolling the perimeter stuck to their predictable routes. From where we were situated on the property, I could see the far side of the building where a row of vans waited for the auction cargo to be loaded, and an idea hit me. “Felix?”

He cocked his head my way, not looking away from the screen where he was watching Dasselaar’s camera feeds. “Hmm?”

“Is there a camera on the east side of the building?”

Felix tapped a few keys. “Yep, got the feed right here. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Can you run the plates on the vans lined up back there?”

He laughed like I’d said something ridiculous. “Obviously. Give me a minute.”

I went back to counting heartbeats.

“Shit, Jules. I’ve got AB Holdings Limited on one of the trucks. Looks like the company rented the vehicle two days ago in Utrecht.”

“No way that’s a coincidence.”

Felix shook his head. “Definitely not.”

“I’m in place. I’ve got eyes on Dimitri.” Quin sounded ready, and I knew Nero’s concern was for nothing.

“Took you long enough,” I teased.

“Had to get my bag to Hadrian and make a quick stop.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course Quin had grabbed his suitcase.

“All right. Cutting the power in three, two, one.” The second Felix finished the countdown, Dasselaar’s estate, which had been lit up bright enough that the building could probably be seen from space, went dark. Through Quin’s comm, we heard the sounds of chaos erupting as Dasselaar’s guests tried to get their bearings in the pitch-black maze inside the estate.

“Let’s get out of here before we get stuck in traffic. We can run comms for the next part of this from the airstrip.” Felix slid past me into the passenger seat of the van and set his laptop on his knees.

Nodding, I climbed into the driver’s seat, pulling my cell phone from my pocket and tossing it to Felix. “Call Marcus. I want to make sure he got the copy of Malveau’s bank records and tell him what we’ve got. Get him to start digging into AB Holdings.”

Felix gave me a mock salute as I hit the main road, heading for the airstrip.

If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.