“Kolyan.”
Mischa’s voice diverts my attention from the monitor on my desk. He’s propped against the doorframe wearing a wolfish grin. I’m not certain how long he’s been there observing my distractions, but it’s obvious he has.
In the Vory brotherhood, Mischa is a bratok. A soldier. But he is also a close friend, and after ten years by my side, I have little chance of being rid of him.
“What is it?” I grunt.
He gestures to the screen in front of me. “What are you looking at?”
I press the button on the monitor and watch it fade to black. “Nothing.”
Mischa laughs. He knows it was not nothing. It is the girl. For two weeks, I have scrutinized her therapy sessions, watching the way she peels back a layer at a time, revealing herself like a lotus flower. The temptation to know her secrets was too much to resist, but lately, I have decided her thoughts are better left to the professionals, and my screen is better left on mute.
Mischa makes himself comfortable in the empty seat across my desk, volunteering his own theory. “Porn. It must be, considering the girls at Kosmos tell me they haven’t seen you in nearly a month. Surely, your hand must be getting tired.”
“The selection at Kosmos has gone downhill,” I lie.
In truth, the girls are all very pretty. How much better can it get than a Russian owned space themed strip club? But lately, I have found my time better spent at home. A statement I don’t want to analyze too closely.
“A pussy is a pussy.” Mischa shrugs. “What difference does it make? Take your pick and enjoy. Though if you want a bit of advice, stay away from the redheads. They bite.”
A drawn-out sigh sags from my chest. “What do you want, Misch?”
“You mean besides the pleasantness of your company?” He chuckles. “I came to give you a heads-up.”
“About?”
“Mr. Buchanan’s expert will be here shortly to inspect the painting.”
I lean back in the chair and snort. Nine times out of ten, these so-called experts the clients send are scarcely more knowledgeable of art than a museum guide on his best day.
“No need to warn me. The piece is ready, and I have little doubt it will live up to his scrutiny.”
“I never doubted his satisfaction,” Mischa replies. “But my warning is only that Sergei will be escorting him today.”
“I see.”
My throat itches for a drink. The least appealing of all the items on my agenda is dealing with my father. It will be the first genuine conversation we’ve had since I cut his ear off and surpassed him in rank. Tensions will undoubtedly be high.
I have a hankering to suggest we crack into a fifty-year-old scotch when Nonna enters and alerts us to the visitors. Hardly a heads-up, I glare at Mischa, and he shrugs.
“I came as soon as I knew.”
“Offer them a drink, Nonna. In ten minutes, see them up to the vault. I’ll be ready then.”
She nods and leaves the room.
“Find a way to entertain yourself until I’m done,” I instruct Mischa. “But stay out of my shit.”
He smirks, and I leave him to his own amusements as I trudge up the stairs to the vault. It’s the most secure area of my home, and it takes no less than five minutes to navigate the security measures. Logic dictates that these operations are not to be carried out in the presence of even my most trusted men. In my world, you never know who may turn on you.
For all the trouble, the vault is considerably cozy inside. The steel reinforced concrete walls utilize the majority of the space, while the remains are left to the madness that infects my mind.
On any given day, the room may house a genuine artifact worth more than the average lifetime salary. Some of the items are authentic—either stolen or recovered artwork—but in instances like today, there is a forgery waiting inside.
For this occasion, the solicited work is Five Dancing Women by Edgar Degas. If I were a man who believed in serendipity, I might have given a second thought to the timing of the request. It was just after my most difficult acquisition to date.
One dancing Tanaka Valentini.
Even in the criminal underworld, there is a place for beautiful art. In most syndicates, it’s negotiated for value, not beauty. It isn’t uncommon to see priceless paintings used as collateral for drugs or weapons. As such, the works are often damaged as they are passed around and left to suffer at the hands of those with no true appreciation. Art collectors would be horrified if they knew what really became of some long-lost treasures.
There are a variety of reasons I might receive a request for a forgery. Sometimes, collectors want to lay claim to history’s lost or stolen artworks. But more often than not, it’s a black-market dealer who makes the request. In turn, he will pawn the work off on some unsuspecting fool with too much money to burn and not enough sense to know the difference. When they want to up the ante, I am tasked with acquiring valuable works from authentic sources. Whether it is by brushstroke or by force, there are no two ways about it. I am a thief at heart.
While I may not have affection for all the works I replicate, the Degas piece has commanded my attention. The original Five Dancing Women was stolen from a Jewish-Hungarian collector during World War II. While the other works from this collection are pending return to the heirs of the original owner, this piece remains lost. Looking at my replica, it is easy to understand why.
“She’s really something special to look at, isn’t she?”
I turn to greet the expert Mr. Buchanan sent, and as fate would have it, he is a familiar face.
“Christophe?”
He tosses his hands up. “Guilty as charged. How are you, old… I’m not sure how to address you. Is it friend or foe?”
Sergei, who is standing beside him, watches us indignantly, his eyes bouncing back and forth as he tries to interpret our connection.
“I studied under Christophe at Brandeis before he abandoned us for the real Ivy Leagues.”
“Ah, yes,” Christophe answers. “And as I recall you were one of the worst students I ever had. Lazy. Smart mouthed. Utterly unappreciative of the masters.”
“We can’t all be Picasso.” I shrug.
Christophe turns to Sergei. “Truth be told, he has more talent in his little finger than most of us could ever dream to possess.”
“Not a fair comparison,” I argue. “Considering I don’t have a photographic memory.”
“An artist doesn’t need it,” he says. “He uses his imagination. Which is why I am no artist myself.”
Sergei doesn’t add to the conversation, and there’s a pause of awkward silence before he checks his watch. “I’ll wait downstairs.”
I am relieved when he leaves, and Christophe seems to be of a like mind. “Pleasant fellow.”
“Indeed,” I answer. “Just be grateful you don’t have to call him father.”
Christophe laughs, and I gesture him into the room.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance this isn’t going to take all day, is there?”
“Five or six hours ought to do it,” he jests.
Ice broken, he sets about the task of removing his instruments from the bag he carries. Magnifying glass, black light, time dated materials, and beetle-infested wood being just a few of the items at his disposal.
He gets down to business, examining the piece from every angle. While he seeks out imperfections, I bide my time with the ten-thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey I swiped from a collector at an art show in Zurich. The guy was a prick, but he had fine taste in whiskey.
At one point, Christophe takes a break and gestures for the bottle before thinking better of it.
“I suppose I shouldn’t drink on the job.”
I make it a point to savor the next drink while he watches. “When did you take up your time with freelancing? The golden campus not pan out for you?”
“I’m still a scholar,” he answers. “My credentials are quite impressive, really. Mum and Dad are pleased as punch and seem determined to throw every half eligible English lass my way in a wickedly devised ruse to tempt me back home permanently.”
“I don’t think English women would put up with your shit.”
“You’re quite right about that.” He chuckles. “Try telling that to Mum, though.”
Christophe returns to his work, talking while he examines the pastel. “Honestly, the pay for freelance work is better, particularly in this business. It was all very romantic to be a starving artist when I was younger, but I’ve decided I’d like to retire early. Buy a yacht. Sail around the world and sleep with exotic women in every port.”
“Don’t tell your mother that,” I advise.
“Dear god no.” He snorts. “The old bird would have a heart attack.”
He pauses on one piece of the dancer’s shoe. A ballet shoe, to be exact. After several moments of tense scrutiny, he shakes his head.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he says. “Magnificent. You are a wasted talent.”
“So you say. For all you know, I could be the real Banksy.”
“No, no, definitely not. Haven’t you heard? There’s a different name in the papers every other week. Last one was some sort of famous singing duo.”
“Keep the people guessing,” I answer.
“What about you?” He trades the magnifying glass for his black light. “How’s the Russian bakery business treating you?”
We both have a good laugh at the ridiculous notion. During my time at the university, I told him I would run my father’s Russian bakery business when I left school. It was a flimsily crafted cover I invented when I was too bored or drunk to come up with something more creative.
“It does well enough.” I gesture to the house. “As you can see for yourself.”
“Indeed, it’s a nice place you have here out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.”
“Just how I prefer it.”
He pauses to look up at me. “And a pretty little peach secreted away down the hall.”
“You saw the girl?”
“I presume it must be her, this girl with no name. She was apologetic when she bumped into us in the hallway. Tall like a willow and soft like the sea. Her pretty amber eyes will long haunt me.”
“You should have been a poet,” I deflect.
Christophe sniffles and murmurs something in response, but I don’t hear it. It never occurred to me that Tanaka’s appointment with the therapist would be ending around the time of their arrival. I had grown accustomed to her being locked in her room, but now that she’s permitted to roam the house under the doctor’s supervision, Sergei has seen her, and it’s a development I dread. He will have questions. He will have many questions.
“All done.” Christophe snaps off his gloves and glances back at me curiously. “She’s beautiful.”
“The piece?”
“The girl. But the piece is remarkable too. If I were able to compare the original, you might give me a run for my money.”
“With certainty, I would.”
He smiles and snatches the bottle from my hands, helping himself to a drink while we examine the dancing girls in the picture. “Degas said that art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
“And what do you see?” I ask.
“It’s a beautiful, bloody sport. Unappreciated. They make something impossible appear effortless.”
I nod in agreement. “It wasn’t until recently that I came to understand the gruesome labor of a dancer.”
Christophe whistles and shakes his head. “You were holding back on this piece. This is the problem with reproductions. You are forced to color in the lines. But that one—” He points to a stray canvas in the back of the room. “That one is a force of nature.”
In my rush to prepare the piece for him, I forgot about my other works lying out. Most notably, the one he is currently gravitating toward. It feels intimate, and I want to stop him. But it would only serve to fuel his curiosity.
“She’s a beauty,” he repeats. “You have captured every emotion on her face. The toil, the agony, the pain. Fall from Grace. It’s an apt title. Color me captivated.”
There is no denying the muse for my piece. The night Nakya fell from grace, I was as shocked as the rest of the audience. While most of the onlookers politely chose to look away from her shame and focus on the show, I was not one of them. Her struggle to get back up again held me hostage, and at that moment, the heartbroken beauty enchanted me.
“It’s a pity,” Christophe muses. “The greatest love stories always end in tragedy.”
A throat clears from the doorway, and I turn to find Sergei waiting there, half blitzed already. The rims of his eyes are red and glassy, and the broken capillaries around his nose seem more obvious than usual.
“Are you finished?” he asks brusquely.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Christophe answers. “Though I could stay here and thumb through the inner workings of your mind all day, I have a real job waiting for me in the city.”
I shake his hand and offer him a smile. “We can’t all live a life of luxury, running Russian bakeries.”
He removes a card from his wallet. “Well, if you ever get tired of peddling pastries, I think you’d do well selling your own pieces.”
My eyes move to Sergei, who seems amused by the idea. To him, my pieces have never amounted to more than chicken scratch on paper. It was Viktor who decided that I should attend college to nurture my skills. Now common practice in the modern Vory world, a well-educated Vor is a valuable asset.
Christophe gathers his bag and offers me one last goodbye before Sergei tells him a car is waiting downstairs. With his departure, I am left with only the company of my father. His eyes move around the room, cataloging my things into order of nonsense. I know what comes next, but I only wish I had more alcohol in my system.
“What is with the girl?” he asks.
As avtoritet, it is now my right to tell him that it’s none of his concern. But as my father, I am still inclined to show him respect. When it comes to Tanaka, I am not worried that he will connect the dots. Even if he were to discover the name of her father, it would make little difference to him. As far as he believes, my mother has been dead to me since he told me she ran off with an Italian man. He would have no reason to suspect I’d been searching my whole life for answers.
I edge toward the door of the vault, and Sergei follows suit. “The girl is just collateral.”
“Pretty little thing.” He scratches at his chin. “She has a tight ass. I wouldn’t mind borrowing her—”
My fist collides with his jaw so fast that I have little time to understand what has come over me. Sergei reels back in astonishment, his teeth bloody and his eyes furious. I offer an apology in Russian while I try to come to terms with my actions. It would be in my best interest to smooth it over, but all I can think of is that I’ve just given him cause to poke his nose where it doesn’t belong.
“She is mine,” I declare. And this was not the thing I should have said because now he’s laughing.
“Yours? And Viktor has approved of this?”
“It’s nothing more than entertainment,” I correct. “A temporary distraction. But I don’t care to share her.”
Sergei strikes out at me like a snake, his fingers wrapping around my throat. “You might be Viktor’s little pet now, but don’t forget where you came from, syn. If you ever disrespect me again, I will take this news to Viktor and watch him destroy your plaything after she has been passed around to all of the brothers.”
As the spittle flies from his mouth, so do Sergei’s true colors. This is not the father who boasts endlessly of my accomplishments in false showmanship. This is the competitor. The man who sets the bar to impossible standards. The man who will offer his hand to save you, only to rip your throat out. And with a face so similar to mine, I wonder if he is truly capable of the horrors I have always questioned.
He had no reservations about ousting Alexei and his mother from the family home after tragedy reaped his hearing. It’s hard to conceive that a man who hates his firstborn so much could possibly harbor any love for his second. These things I know to be true, but I still hesitate to believe he sent my mother away.
It would be easier to accept if she left on her own. If she abandoned me to a year’s worth of tears, I could justify whatever fate befell her. But Sergei is not the type of man who would allow a woman to embarrass him by walking away. When I search his lifeless eyes, I conclude he is not the type of man I can respect at all. And when I pry his fingers from my throat, it’s with a new resolve.
I must find my answers, and I must do it fast.