Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anthony
The sun hadn’t come up yet. The sky was still stuck in that sleepy gray hour just before dawn when the only sound outside the cabin was the steady hush of wind moving through the pines. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Gabrielle. Her breathing was soft and even, one arm thrown over the empty side of the bed where I’d been just moments ago. She looked peaceful, and for the first time in many months, I did too.
I moved quietly through the room, gathering my keys. No creaking floorboards, no slammed doors. Just the soft rustle of the fabric of my suit and my thoughts.
I didn’t want to leave her, not even for a few hours, but I had to. As far as the foundation knew, I was still checked in at the hotel a few miles away—and the foundation’s vehicle, the one I was supposed to be using, was still parked in its lot.
When I arrived at the hotel, I parked one car and climbed into another, like I was living out some second-rate spy movie. The road into town was nearly deserted. I passed a lone pickup truck, a jogger in a reflective vest, and a white-tailed deer that paused just long enough to meet my headlights before disappearing into the trees.
It was quiet here. A different kind of quiet than I was used to. Not like Miami. Not like New York. Not like any of the places I’d called home.
And for once, I didn’t mind the silence.
As the Dallas skyline began to rise in the distance, I dialed the gallery’s call-out number and waited for the tone. Rather than speaking, I used the system’s SMS prompt—a feature I’d memorized when I first joined the gallery, back when I made it a point to learn every protocol they had.
I entered Gabrielle’s name, typed out a brief note about her feeling under the weather, and added that she’d be working remotely for the day. Professional. Non-specific. Just enough to discourage questions. I hit send and slid the phone back into my pocket.
It wasn’t really a lie. She did need to stay where she was—for both our sakes.
By the time I pulled into the foundation’s parking lot, my thoughts had already shifted. Not to Curtain. Not to the photo. Not yet.
What I felt instead was something I hadn’t felt in months.
Stillness.
Not the kind that came from avoidance, repression, or those long nights I used to spend holed up in my apartment, staring at the same untouched bourbon. No, this was something quieter. Something steadier.
I’d told Gabrielle the truth. About my past, about everything. And she hadn’t flinched. She didn’t run. She met me where I was, saw me fully—and for once, I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for who I used to be.
When I stepped into the foundation’s field office, the place was already alive with the kind of quiet, productive energy that came just before a full day of digging through the past. A few staff members stood in the break area with steaming mugs of coffee, chatting in low voices. The scent of roasted beans and fresh pastries—strangely comforting, like the calm hum of a machine that still had all its parts working.
Wilma caught sight of me from across the open-concept space and waved briskly. “Morning, Anthony,” she called. “I thought you might be in early, so I placed the dossiers with questions on your desk.”
I offered her a nod and a faint smile. “Just wanted to get a jump on the dossiers.”
“Good. You’re in for some dense reading,” she said, already halfway back to her office. “But it’s exciting. We’re almost there. If you have any concerns, I’ll be at my desk.”
Hmm, perhaps this is the reason for expediting my arrival.
Other team members greeted me as I passed—familiar faces behind screens and spreadsheets, people who’d dedicated years of their lives to tracing stolen art, inch by inch, back to its rightful homes.
It wasn’t glamorous. Most days were slow and methodical, the breakthroughs rare and hard-won. But this? This was why I’d come on board in the first place. To help untangle what others had ignored. To see something returned that never should’ve been taken.
I made my way to my assigned workspace and booted up the secure system, watching as the familiar display of icons came to life. The top of my task list blinked with three names—three separate claimants whose cases had emerged after months of validation, cross-referencing, and legal vetting.
Three pieces. Three families. Each had decades of silence behind them. And now, maybe, resolution.
I opened the first dossier, scanning the verification trail. A watercolor believed to be lost in Belgium during the Nazi occupation. I smiled as I read the dossier. “ Memory of Light ” was painted in 1937 by Belgian watercolorist Elise Van Der Meer, known for her delicate use of light and quiet domestic scenes. The painting, believed to depict the view from her grandmother’s kitchen window in Leuven, was part of a private family collection confiscated during the Nazi occupation. It hadn’t been seen publicly since 1942 until it resurfaced in a discreet estate sale catalog in Zurich.
I made a note for Wilma: Verify the signatures with certified copies.
The second piece, a stolen engraving that had once belonged to a Viennese historian, took nearly a year to trace. The third—an oil portrait—was still under internal legal review, but all signs pointed to approval with a few exceptions. I made another note.
Verify the bank record that indicates the funds exchanged for the most recent purchases.
This was the part I liked best: the tipping point, the moment when years of fog cleared, and a direct line formed from the past to the present.
I felt…good. Steady. Focused. Even a little proud. Not because of the cases themselves but because I knew how much work had gone into each one. How many paintings we’d verified, documents we’d sifted through, and threads we’d followed until something—finally—held.
For a moment, everything else faded away. The judge. Curtain’s game.
None of it mattered here, not in this space.
Here, we were still doing good.
I moved on to the second dossier, already mentally lining up the next steps, when a new email slid into my inbox. It had no subject line, no sender name, and just a string of numbers and dashes for an address—disposable and untraceable.
My gut clenched.
I clicked it open.
The body of the email was blank, but the image attachment loaded immediately. It was a grainy, slightly tilted photo. The color balance was off, but the content was unmistakable: me, Gabrielle, framed in the glow of a gallery lamp. My hand was at the small of her back. Her bare legs were around my waist. My head was thrown back in pure ecstasy.
The angle—low, from the gallery steps—told me everything I needed to know. He’d taken it that morning when we were too wrapped up in our desire to care that someone could be watching.
A line of text followed beneath the image:
If you try to stop your girlfriend from carrying out my request, I’ll make sure this goes viral. You’ll lose your job, your credibility, and what’s left of your precious reputation.
I leaned back in my chair, the cheap plastic armrests creaking beneath me.
There it was.
The second move.
Frank Curtain wasn’t bluffing. He never bluffed. He was the kind of man who collected leverage like currency, who waited for people to bury themselves just deep enough, then handed them a shovel to finish the job.
But this time, he’d miscalculated.
I wasn’t ashamed of Gabrielle. And I wasn’t hiding anymore. Not from her. I’d told her the truth about my past, about who I was, and what I’d done to get here. The worst parts. The hardest parts. And she’d stayed, even promised to help me work through my issues from losing Charlotte.
So no—there was no guilt now.
Only fury.
My pulse hammered against my ribs as I closed the photo. I hadn’t deleted the email yet. I flagged it, encrypted a copy, and moved it into a locked folder under a nondescript file name. If Curtain wanted to play games, fine. But I’d been trained to anticipate every move on the board. Even the ones that hadn’t been made yet.
The bastard had made his move to Gabrielle and now to me. And now we needed to make ours.
Leaving my desk behind, I couldn't bear the charade of poring over paperwork when the real challenge loomed elsewhere. With a decisive click, I shut my laptop, snatched up my suit jacket, and made a beeline for the exit.
"You've got everything under control, Wilma," I breezed past her station with a casual smile. "No need to trouble yourself with arranging my trip back to Miami. I'll take care of everything. You've got plenty on your plate here as it is."
"Thank you, Anthony. Have a safe journey," Wilma replied, lifting her gaze from the computer screen with a genuine warmth in her eyes.
Returning to the cabin, the morning haze had dissipated, unveiling a crisp, unyielding daylight that laid bare every detail. Gabrielle, fresh from the shower and wrapped in a robe, sat perched on a stool at the kitchen island. Her legs crossed, she cradled a steaming mug in her hands. As I entered and closed the door behind me, she glanced up.
"You, okay?" she inquired. "Your expression gives it away."
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out my phone, and held it up so she could see the photo on the screen. Her jaw tightened as she took it in.
“I was afraid he had a picture. Otherwise, with the security footage erased, he wouldn’t have any leverage against me,” she said, setting her mug down.
“There was a message, too. Said if you don’t follow through with his request, he’ll make this photo public.”
Gabrielle arched an eyebrow. “At first, I thought he was bluffing. But now I’m not so sure.”
I crossed the room and set my phone on the counter beside her. “He knows how to stir up just enough chaos to make Judge Valencia second-guess us. Even if the fallout doesn’t stick, the stink will.”
She exhaled slowly, then stood and walked to the window. “It’s fine. Juliette will help us with this. But I wonder who erased the security footage. Curtain said it was gone. There may be another piece of this puzzle floating around out there.”
She stood there for a moment, silent, her arms folded as she stared out at the trees beyond the glass. I could tell her mind was already working through the angles, forming a strategy. That’s what we did—solve problems and stitch chaos back into order. But this one had teeth. Before we went any further, I needed to explain that the extra puzzle piece was me.
“I need to tell you something,” I said. “I deleted the gallery footage. The part from the night that photo was taken. He won’t be able to get anything else.”
Gabrielle turned, eyes narrowing, not with anger—but calculation. “You erased it?”
“I did. Before security or anyone else could see it.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “The archivist in me is horrified.”
“But the woman standing here?”
She stepped in close, fingers sliding around my waist. “Thanks. I guess I was secretly hoping the cameras were off or something. I couldn’t bear to face the truth.”
I leaned in and kissed her—slow, deliberate—the kind of kiss that settled things without saying a word.
We both knew it now: whatever came next, we were in this together.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Your place. If that’s okay, I need to keep you safe—and now your sister too. Curtain’s probably watching the gallery… maybe even watching you.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Then what are we waiting for?”