16 Seven
The day before the event, I was on the roof of the venue, dressed in the same uniform I wore previously. Jumpsuit, rubber gloves, goggles, and a respirator covering half my face. The ultimate return of Jose Rivas.
No one except the janitor had asked me why I came back so soon when I was making my way through the bowels of the building.
"Management requested," I muttered out on my way to the stairs. Because elevators were always unpredictable as far as the headcount inside went. No one took stairs. Lazy was the trend. As for me, an extra set of steps was never a problem.
The massive square shaped power sprayer I'd brought in today was designed differently from the one I carried last time. It did hold some fluid but had a secret compartment that hid the forged Picasso.
Technically, I was there to kill a million roaches and needed an actual sprayer to pretend I was doing my job should someone see me.
But frankly, nobody looks at exterminators, especially not the rich. And the last thing they want to know is what you're eradicating.
I started at the top and worked my way down. The building was old—or historical according to the internet—but rehabbed to hell, full of marble and bad taste. A perfect place to show off an expensive painting, or to humiliate a man in front of two hundred witnesses.
My first stop was the HVAC room. I checked the map Viper sent—there were three ways to access or escape the basement without setting off a single motion sensor if things went sideways and I needed to disappear using alternative routes.
The ductwork was wide enough for a person if you didn't mind tight spaces.
Next, I scouted the perimeter of the building. The external cameras were wireless, with battery backups, but nothing Viper couldn't loop. Plus I had the jammer. But the jammer would trigger the security to start looking for an intruder, so looping was a better option.
I doublechecked their angles, timing the way they blinked to transmit data every ten seconds. I walked between them, like an animal that had evolved to survive only in the margins. I sprayed water from time to time. I was totally in my role.
Then I made my way inside, carrying my power sprayer. Nobody asked what was in it. The only person who looked twice was a security guard with a shaved head and a ring of sweat on his collar. He nodded once, let me pass.
The ballroom itself was as advertised—too bright, too cold, and full of event stuff preparing it for tomorrow.
I ran a handheld scanner along the baseboards, pretending to check for bugs.
The scanner was real, but so was the transmitter in my palm—broadcasting a local signal that mapped every Bluetooth device in range.
Two phones. One keycard. Three radio mics.
From the ballroom, I went into the gallery proper where the painting would be unveiled.
On the wall opposite the entry to the gallery was a safe-room door—an after-market vault with four digits, custom-cut into the drywall.
That's where they'd keep the painting until showtime once they move it from the basement to this floor.
Then, it would be set up for viewing prior to the guests entering the gallery.
It was supposed to be moved back to this very same vault after the event until Castellano's people took it away, but that wasn't going to happen.
I found the service entrance behind the kitchen, traced the path from there to the vault room.
The cameras in that hallway were painted to match the ceiling, but the LED was visible if you knew where to look.
I'd checked it all before but you never knew with these kinds of events.
Sometimes, extra security measures were added at the last minute and I didn't want to rely on the outdated information.
Last but not the least was the basement where I stashed the forgery behind the tiles of the utility closet.
By the time I walked out, the afternoon shift was just arriving. A pair of women in skirt suits, one short, one tall, both trying too hard. They never even slowed down, and I was invisible to them. No one would remember me if asked.
At the curb, I dumped the canister in the trunk of the van, took off the gloves, and texted Viper via a secure app we had on our burners that everything was ready for tomorrow.
Tonight, the painting would be checked again. There would be no issues with it. But tomorrow… Well, tomorrow would be another story.
Viper replied with
Can't wait to see you work
Damn right.
Neither could I.
Gala nights in Mid-Wilshire were always the same.
A crowd of pretty faces with too much money and too little shame, all converging on a building made to outlast them by centuries, all waving for the cameras or for the passing by fans with their phones up in the air.
Security wore black-on-black, earpieces jammed deep, badges too shiny.
I wore one too.
The polyester and the fake beard made my skin itch, but I ignored it. I walked with the careful boredom of someone who was paid not to care.
Viper did a clean job of hacking into the event organizer's system and adding another name to the list of contracted guards. There were two different companies hiring for tonight, so not all of the guards knew each other. It was perfect.
Inside, the place was already humming. Chandeliers that looked like crashed satellites hung overhead, refracting light into diamonds.
The floor was a grid of motion—servers balancing flutes of champagne, women in sequined gowns drifting from one gossip pod to the next, men in tailored suits pretending not to notice each other.
I kept my route slow, looping the perimeter of the ballroom.
Nobody saw me, but I saw everything. At some point, I found my mind drifting to the other night, to that strange sensation of a female body behind me on a bike.
I thought back to all the encounters with women in the past. I'd never given a ride to anyone.
The client—Kimberly Holt—was the first.
Fuck.
I shook off the thought and focused on the task.
Target was in the middle of a circle near the bar, holding court.
His hair was blonder than the photos. The suit fit him well.
He took care of himself physically and was in great shape.
He laughed at all the right moments, shook hands with a grip that dared you to squeeze back.
On his left wrist, a watch with a sapphire face glinted every time he raised his drink.
He was working the crowd for tomorrow, not tonight.
Dominic Castellano hadn't shown yet, but his rep was easy to spot. He was a middle-aged man who wore nervousness like cologne and checked the time every minute. He stayed close to the gallery entrance, eyes glued to his phone, probably watching the world markets for aftershocks.
The painting was still in the vault in the basement, but at eight sharp it would be transferred upstairs, into the smaller vault next to the gallery to make its grand entrance later.
I felt jittery just thinking about the target's reaction. Oh, he was in for a real treat. Compliments of the client.
I waited, counting every exit, every camera, every idle glance from the staff.
An hour before the painting's move, I drifted toward the kitchen, slipped out a side door, and made my way to the basement. The only sound here was my own shoes.
At the downstairs vault, the guard was new. He slouched, scrolling on his phone, oblivious to the world. I gave him a nod, flashed the badge, and told him I was there for an unscheduled check because we had a potential security breech. He shrugged and returned to his game.
Once inside the vault, I used the same hacks as before.
Meanwhile, Viper was supposed to hack into the guard's comms and call him elsewhere. I wouldn't be able to communicate with Viper from inside the vault, so I had to rely on his plan of creating a distraction on the main level to pull all the security away from the basement level.
But Viper always came through.
I had a fifteen minute window starting—I glanced at my watch—now!
When I exited the vault, no one was around.
"You're sharp," I told him as I rushed to the utility closet.
"Always at your service, boss."
I muted the mic as I started to remove tiles to retrieve the forgery.
"Twelve minutes to go," Viper chirped in my ear.
I sped up. Tiles were not the problem. Being fast inside the vault would be the real challenge.
"Ten minutes to go."
I was on my way back to the vault when I heard a beep in my earpiece.
"What the fuck is this, Viper?"
"Eeeeeeh," he drawled. "Looks like we have company. It's my RFID reader."
"Hundred feet?"
"Approximately. Bogey's on the stairs."
"Get rid of him."
"Okay." The line cut off and Viper was gone.
I had no time to waste. I entered the vault, shut the door behind me and got to work.
I didn't know if Viper managed to ward off whomever was on the way down. I had to rely on his skills.
My pulse spiked as I swapped the paintings. I checked the signature, the fray on the upper left, the smudge on the lower edge. Rolled and slid the original under my jacket.
Perfect.
The whole thing took less than five minutes.
Now I just needed to get out of here. I checked my watch. According to our plan I had two minutes left before the safe time pocket ran out.
Fuck.
Fucking motherfucker fuck.
Was there someone waiting on the other side of the door? Or did Viper handle the variable?
I couldn't wait any longer. I yanked the vault's door open, ready either to put down anyone that was in my way or lie through my teeth depending on what the situation required.
The corridor was empty.
My earpiece crackled with static and I heard Viper's voice.
"Knock, knock. Anyone there? Boss?"
"I'm good," I hissed out and darted to the utility closet.
The real painting was now stuffed back behind the tiles and I'd have to come back for it tomorrow, posing as law enforcement. Taking it out right now was too risky because of Viper's decoy. Every security guard was on high alert.
"I take it the operation was a success?" Viper asked, sounding extra chipper.
"So far so good. I'm out for now."
"Cool, cool."
I turned off the mic as I passed through the kitchen, dumped the gloves in the trash, and returned to the ballroom.
Nobody noticed I'd gone.
Target was still in the middle, telling a joke to a pack of investors. I drifted closer, eavesdropped without listening. His laugh was the same—sharp, high, calculated to land in the softest parts of the crowd.
Soon the painting would appear. The crowd would gasp. Castellano would smile his frozen smile. And nobody, not even the target, would know the difference…at first.
Things went as planned.
At eight sharp, the lights dimmed, and the guests funneled in from the main room to the gallery.
The target stood next to the display. The painting was still covered by a heavy black cloth. He waited until the last guest had filtered in, then cleared his throat and raised his voice.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he started, elongating the vowels. "This evening is about more than just beauty. It's about preserving our heritage—the efforts of visionaries who transformed our perspective on the world and on ourselves."
The speech was practiced, just long enough to keep you from checking your phone, just short enough to make you feel clever for listening.
Then he talked about Picasso's genius, the tragedy of lost art, the heroic measures taken to bring this masterpiece into the light. To his right, Castellano stood with his arms folded, eyes fixed on the painting, jaw set.
I watched from my spot near the exit, arms crossed, head tilted a little, enough not to be caught on camera. And even then, the beard made a good camouflage, made me older than I was. The room was a low-key warzone—everybody buzzing, every eye hungry.
When target reached the climax, he didn't even pause for applause. He nodded to the curator, who stepped forward and drew the black cloth aside.
The painting glowed, all blue and green and wild energy. The crowd gasped, exactly like they were supposed to. Even Castellano's mask slipped for a second, and he let himself look impressed.
Photographers swarmed. Phones rose. For ten seconds, nothing else existed but that rectangle of color.
Castellano stepped up, nodding at the target, then leaned close to inspect the canvas. He was no amateur—his father had run a gallery in Milan, and he'd spent his life sniffing out fakes. He tilted his head, blinked twice, then reached out and hovered a hand a centimeter from the brushwork.
His lips moved.
He checked the corners. The edges. The signature.
I saw the moment he noticed.
He looked at the target, then at the painting, then back at the target. The silence crackled.
Castellano said, "Do you seriously think you can fool me?"
The target's mouth twitched. "Excuse me?"
"You son of a bitch," Castellano gritted out.
The crowd gasped. The journalists perked up. The security at the doors tensed.
The target tried to recover, but Castellano's finger stabbed the lower left of the painting. "This is not the piece I paid for," he said. "This is a forgery."
Half the room went dead silent. The other half started whispering.
The target's face drained. "Dominic, let's—"
"Don't. You. Fucking. Dominic. Me." Castellano's accent grew thicker as he lost control. He waved his hand, summoning his own expert. A petite woman in a velvet blazer hurried forward, pulled out a jeweler's loupe, and examined the edge of the canvas.
She turned. "Mr. Castellano is correct," she declared. "It is not authentic."
Flashbulbs popped. The media smelled blood.
The target tried to speak—tried to explain, to improvise, but Castellano wasn't having it. "You will be hearing from my lawyer."
The next minutes went wild. Security circled the target and the painting. Castellano raged, staffers scrambled, and the crowd morphed from audience to jury.
I slipped away toward the kitchen, then ducked into the restroom, ditched the uniform, changed into my leather jacket, slapped on my hat, removed the fake beard, and stuffed it into my pocket to burn it later. No DNA left behind was my main rule.
I covered my face with a bandana as I walked briskly through the corridor and toward the rear exit.
There was no need to see the rest. I knew how it would play out. The target's public image would be ruined and Castellano would make sure no reputable collector would ever work with him.
I felt the old pulse settle on my way to my bike. Not relief—just a cold, clear sense that the world had clicked into its correct shape, if only for a minute.
Tonight's task was done.
Tomorrow there'd be a new job.