Page 96 of Vow Of Fire

I turned.

“There’s a charity auction at the Guggenheim tomorrow night. We’re going.”

I blinked at him, the name ringing a bell. “Oh God. I was supposed to attend that.”

“I know. It’s in your calendar.”

I was about to ask how the hell he’d seen my schedule, but then I knew.

Nico.

“You said we’re going. Did you mean together?”

He gave a firm nod. “It’ll be a good way to show everyone that you’re now under my protection.”

“Everyone” meant Sergei and his organization, I guessed. I ignored the strange flutter that caused in my stomach.

“They’re auctioning an exquisite Varela,” I said, recalling why I wanted to go. “Nocturne in Red, it’s called.”

“Malakov wants it,” Dante said simply.

I stared at him. “How do you know that?”

“Marco knows one of the assistant curators,” he replied. “And this gives us an opportunity.”

Slowly, realization dawned. “You want the Colombians to outbid him.”

He gave a tight nod.

“But how do we know they’re going to be there? Or even if they’ll bid on the painting?” I perched on the edge of the bed.

“We’ll make sure they do. One of their usual intermediaries will place telephone bids through a shell company out of Bogotá. Malakov will believe the cartel is muscling in on his territory.”

I frowned. Okay, the intermediary was a nice touch, but it wasn’t foolproof.

“What if they trace the buyer? Find out he’s a fraud, or worse, connected to you?”

“They’ll find exactly what they expect to find,” Dante retorted. “A company structured the same way as the cartel’s. Same region. Same paper trail. Close enough to be believable.”

I let out a shaky breath. They’d thought of everything.

“You can set all that up in less than twenty-four hours?” I asked, my voice quivering.

His expression didn’t change. “Vincent is very effective.”

“Yes. I know,” I said dryly.

I hadn’t forgiven the double-crossing snake for lying to me.

We ate a quiet dinner of truffle ravioli, grilled sea bass, and rosemary focaccia delivered by a man Dante seemed to know, called Federico. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but it smelled good, and after the last few days, I knew I needed the sustenance.

It had started to rain, and the soft pitter-patter against the floor-to-ceiling windowpanes lent a cozy ambiance to the penthouse. The whole situation felt strangely domestic and I could almost forget there were armed guards outside and a ruthless cartel supposedly trying to kill me.

Dante barely touched the wine Federico had brought up with the food, but I had a glass to steady my nerves. He spent most of dinner checking his phone, replying to messages, and studiously ignoring me.

Every so often, however, his gaze would flick toward me as if to check that I was still there, but he didn’t try to engage in conversation.

I could feel the tension radiating off him. That was a man with a lot of pent-up aggression. Part of me wanted to delve behind the stoic façade and find out what drove the man underneath, but another part of me wanted to eat up and go to bed and forget this day had ever happened.