Chapter 7
Gaby barely slept in the week after Big Tex broke.
Sleep required her mind to shut down. It refused to. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her sister: pale, frightened, trapped on a remote island ringed with rock and armed guards. Unreachable.
So she did the one thing she could. She worked.
Other than a name and a profession, Tex hadn’t given them nearly enough.
As she dug into what little of Sebastián álvarez’s life was public, one thing became clear: the man valued his privacy like oxygen.
Press mentions had been scrubbed, interviews were rare, and he appeared before cameras only when his presence demanded it.
She brought Callan in as soon as she hit her first wall.
He did what he did best—found patterns buried in repetition and uncovered a decade-long trail of money flowing through shell buyers and discreet sales. And always, the trail circled back to the same thing.
Not young women. Not commodities to be flipped. Art. High-end acquisitions that vanished from public view the moment they entered álvarez’s possession. As far as she could tell, none were ever resold. Just like the women who vanished behind the locked doors of his private island estate.
Gaby sat cross-legged on her office floor, back against the couch.
Notes, press releases from galleries and auction houses, and crumpled papers from a host of dead ends were scattered everywhere.
Her shoes were off, and her laptop hugged the edge of the chair she’d dragged over as a makeshift table, its screen flickering and buffering under the weight of too many open tabs.
Wincing at the ache in her lower back, she stretched. Her foot caught the corner of her desk, sending a picture frame toppling. It clattered facedown on the floor.
She reached for it, fingers running over the glass, which luckily hadn’t shattered.
The photo inside was one she’d carried from apartment to apartment: her and Natalie at twelve and four, pressed close together, both smiling in that loose, unguarded way kids do.
Their mother stood behind them, dark ringlets spilling over her shoulders.
The same curls Gaby fought with every morning.
And beside her was Aunt May: sun-streaked blonde hair, layered beads, a flowy cotton blouse, and the kind of soft, open smile that made strangers tell her their life stories.
Natalie had inherited her gentle features and her easy warmth.
The picture had been taken not long before everything changed. Before the diagnosis. Before the hospital. Before the funeral.
Aunt May packed up her life without hesitation and moved into their small house, filling it with essential-oil diffusers, herbal teas, mismatched quilts, and a kind of fierce, unconventional love that held them together when nothing else could.
When Natalie disappeared, Gaby had texted her updates. At first, every day. Then every few days. Then weekly, when there was nothing left to say except, I’m still looking.
Her aunt always tried to remain calm and encouraging, but Gaby could hear the tremor beneath her voice. The fear she was trying so hard to hide. The unspoken plea threaded through every message: Please find her. I can’t lose another one.
Seeing the photo now made Gaby’s throat tighten. Aunt May had already lost a sister. She didn’t deserve to lose a niece, too.
Movement in the hallway snapped her out of her thoughts. She blinked, wiping her eyes before the tears fell, and set the frame back on her desk.
She turned just as Rhys appeared in the doorway. Jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms dusted with dark blond hair, he leaned casually against the doorframe. In one sweep, he took in the floor, the papers, her posture.
“It’s late,” he said without preamble. “You should go home. Take a break for the night.”
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “I can’t stop now. I think I’m on to something.”
That got his attention.
“álvarez has been chasing the same piece for close to a decade,” she went on. “It’s not the hobby of a man with money to burn. It’s an obsession.”
Rhys crossed the room and crouched beside her, balanced easily on the balls of his feet. He didn’t touch her but was close enough she felt his warmth.
“Show me.”
She turned the laptop toward him and pulled up a high-resolution image of an early Renaissance oil panel.
He studied it in silence. “Le Virtù e la Caduta,” he said finally.
“You know it?” she asked, unable to keep the awe from her voice.
“Yes. Lorenzo Bellandi. Florentine. A minor master, controversial in his time.” He paused, a shadow crossing his face before he went on. “When I was living in London a few years back, it sold at auction for several million pounds.”
“Purchased by álvarez,” she concluded. “And ever since, he’s been chasing the fourth panel.”
He glanced at her, frowning. “That’s a triptych. They only have three.”
“Usually.” She pulled up another file, this one a sketch rather than a photo. “Private correspondence surfaced, letters between Bellandi and the baron who commissioned it. The fourth panel was never catalogued, deemed too indecent to survive the ecclesiastical scrutiny of the time.”
She arranged the images side by side. “Faith. Purity. Obedience.”
“And the fourth?” Rhys asked, eyes flashing with interest.
“It’s called Tentazione.”
“Temptation,” Rhys translated. “An incomplete set would drive a man like álvarez mad. Like missing the final piece of a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.”
Her voice dropped. “I’m not a professional profiler, but from what I’ve read about álvarez, he enjoys collecting—the hunt, the negotiation, the acquisition—almost as much as the possession. If we could find the fourth panel, we could draw him out.”
Rhys’s mouth lifted at the corner. “Then let’s make it happen.”
“How? We don’t know where it is, if it even exists.”
“No, but we know someone who might.”
Realization sparked. “Cari.”
“She lived abroad and moved in European art circles for years. She can make discreet inquiries.”
Their eyes held—too long, too charged.
For a fraction of a second, his hand lifted, as if he might reach for her. Then the shadow returned, and he stopped himself. He rose smoothly, the space he put between them deliberate.
“I’ll make the call,” he said, tone back to business. “Get some rest.”
Gaby watched him go. Hope stirred. At last, a potential crack in the wall of secrecy álvarez had spent a lifetime constructing. But confusion followed close behind. The look in Rhys’s eyes, that almost-touch. None of it fit with the careful distance he fought to maintain.
She didn’t have the energy to unravel what that meant. Not tonight. Besides, if he was still dead set against forgiving her, still hiding behind those shadows, what could she do but let him?
***
Cari walked into her gallery at 9 a.m. Her phone rang at 9:01. Her heels clicked across the marble floor, echoing through the lofty space as she rushed to answer it.
Seeing the name on the caller ID, she skipped her usual greeting—Shoreline Galleria, where art meets the sea—and answered, “Rhys. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Indeed,” he replied, in his smooth, slightly accented baritone. “A chat with you is always the highlight of my day. I haven’t spoken to you since your return. How was Florence?”
She stepped away from the counter as sunlight spilled through the tall windows. “Like a dream,” she answered, wistfully. “Lake Como nearly convinced me to stay forever. But you didn’t call about that. What’s up?”
A pause. Then—of course—he got down to business.
“I need your art expertise. What do you know about triptychs?”
“Quite a lot, actually,” she replied, pacing past a newly mounted canvas.
“Traditionally, they’re painted trifold panels, although I’ve seen them in stone and even in modern-day photography.
They were originally Christian altarpieces but made a resurgence during the Renaissance.
One, the Le Virtù e la Caduta, was quite scandalous and mired in myth and secrecy. ”
Across the gallery, Simone looked up mid-uncrating and lifted a brow. Cari, equally curious, offered a small shrug.
“Funny you should mention La Caduta,” Rhys replied. “I need to find the fourth panel.”
She stopped mid-stride, surprised. “That there is a fourth panel isn’t common knowledge.” She didn’t ask why he needed to find it. Men like Rhys didn’t chase art without reason. “But you’re in luck,” she replied. “I know the owner—from my Paris years.”
“Tell me about him.”
Sorting through memories, she said, “Richard Sabatini. An older gentleman from old European money. Once, he fancied himself a painter. When that failed—and I say this kindly, his work was dreadful—he decided legacy mattered more than talent.”
She glanced at Simone, who had resumed unwrapping the crate but was clearly listening.
“He reinvented himself as a benefactor—the kind who equates patronage with legacy,” Cari continued. “Now he’s convinced the artist he ‘discovered’ is a misunderstood genius and that ‘all the boy needs is exposure.’”
Silence stretched on the line before Rhys spoke again, tone carefully measured. “It would help Gaby—and me—if you could give it to him.”
“This is about her sister.” She lowered her voice. “Richard isn’t involved in trafficking. Tell me you’re not suggesting—”
“Not Sabatini,” Rhys cut in. “But someone who wants that panel badly enough may be. Would he sell it?”
A slow exhale left her lips as she calculated angles. “I’d have to ask. But it’s an ideal incentive. A rare offering draws serious collectors—and gives his protégé a platform he’d never get any other way.”
“Just as we hoped,” Rhys said.
Her mind raced ahead to logistics, invitations, and press positioning. “I’ll need to run it past Simone. And Dev—our silent partner.”
“I already briefed your husband.”
She smiled despite herself. “Husband. That still sounds unreal. In the best possible way.”
“Congratulations again, love,” Rhys said warmly. “About the showing?”
“Yes—sorry.” She reached the far wall and turned, pacing back the other way. “Richard will jump at this. He gets his exhibition, sells a piece that doesn’t suit his taste, and is revered for having launched the next Ikemura or Hockney.”
“And we help shut down a predator,” Simone said, coming closer, her tone decisive. “Count me in.”
Cari nodded, resolve settling in her chest. “We’ll need time, Rhys.”
“How much?”
“Ordinarily? Months.”
“Gaby’s sister may not have months,” Simone said evenly. “We have nothing scheduled for Saturday after next. Tell Sabatini we had a cancellation and, after that, it could be a year.”
Admiration bloomed in Cari’s chest as she looked at her partner.
“He’s wealthy enough to move mountains,” Simone added. “He’ll make it happen.”
Turning back to the phone, she said, “Simone had an excellent idea.”
“I heard,” Rhys said dryly.
“Given the caliber of collector we’re courting, tell Dev I’ll need increased security.”
“With his wife involved, was that ever in question?”
She felt a rush of gratitude for Dev. His skill and the formidable team he’d put together made it possible for her to run her gallery without constantly looking over her shoulder, and to wade into the mysteries of the art world without fear.
“Leave the rest to us, Rhys.”
“I’m asking a lot,” he said gently, “but if this works, you might be helping to save not only Gaby’s sister but countless other girls.”
“I hope so,” she murmured, her own brush with trafficking and her family’s complicity still fresh and raw.
She ended the call and met Simone’s gaze.
“Well,” Simone said lightly. “Looks like we’re about to make art history.”
Cari glanced toward the sunlit gallery, already envisioning the room filled with power, money, and men who thought themselves untouchable.
“No,” she said softly. “We’re about to set a trap.”