The Gilded Chain

Gie

“Dimitri, your cigar cutter please.” Still gripping the thief with one hand, he held out his other hand, palm up, toward the Russian.

“Of course.” Dimitri fished a small cigar cutter out of his trouser pocket. “Start with his fingers. He’ll bleed a lot, but he won’t die too fast.”

“Duly noted.” Wes took the cutter and jerked one of Gie

“Wait!” Gie

Wes relaxed, but only enough to pocket the cigar cutter. “Then talk.”

“The Goya came from an American. Someone out of Long Island. That’s all I know.”

Wes’s entire body went rigid. Someone from Long Island?

“Give me a name!” He let loose a shout and slammed his fist right into the wall beside Gie

“It’s a man, midthirties. He had a nickname, the Illusionist.”

“The Illusionist?”

“Yes. He puts forgeries in the place of the paintings he steals. He creates an illusion that the real art was never taken. Most people never know they’ve been robbed. He’s a right dangerous bastard. You’d never see him coming.”

Dimitri burst out laughing. “The Illusionist? Oh, that’s rich. We’re dealing with a dramatic thief.”

Wes didn’t see the humor in this. This was serious. Someone from his island was stealing art and selling it on the black market. Art sold on the black market was mistreated, often ruined, and usually never seen again. There was no honor among thieves and no respect for masterpieces either.

“That’s all I know,” Gie

“Dimitri, I trust you can assure me that Mr. Gie

“What?” Gie

The Russian sauntered over and gripped Gie

“Kill?” Gie

“A strong word, but an apt one. No one would ever find you when I’m through,” Dimitri growled. He continued to squeeze until the thief’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward unconscious.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.” Dimitri dragged the limp body back to his car and shoved him into the trunk. Wes nodded. He didn’t usually resort to such dark tactics, but he knew there was only one way to handle this and Dimitri had known best how to go about it. There was no sense in paying men like Gie

“Here, you don’t want to forget this.” Dimitri retrieved a white tube from the back seat of his car and placed it carefully into Wes’s hands. “The Goya. Take care of her, my friend.”

The relief at having such a piece back in his hands was intensely overwhelming, like he could breathe again.

“Thank you.” He shook Dimitri’s hand and left the alley, where he hailed a passing taxi. He didn’t want to think about a traitor on his island or what that meant for his friends like the Mortons who collected pieces and were willing to share them with the world. Art was meant to be shared, but also protected. In the hands of thieves, it was only a matter of time before it was destroyed. Knowing that some fool calling himself the Illusionist was stealing paintings made a veil of red descend over Wes’s vision. He would have to call the Mortons tomorrow and get hold of the FBI to let them know he’d recovered the painting.

Holding the tube with the rolled up Goya inside, he set it across his lap in the back of the taxi and gave the driver his address. The bed back in his apartment with a warm and willing woman was the place he wanted most to be in that moment. With Callie in his arms, he’d be able to touch her and soothe the raging fires inside him.

Chapter 15

Callie covered her mouth, stifling the scream that would have shattered the robust activity on the streets of the place the taxi driver called Pig Alley. She’d had him trail Wes’s cab and she’d been afraid to get out and follow him on foot. This was stupid. She shouldn’t have gone after him in a foreign city close to midnight. But she’d rationalized it by promising to stay in the taxi if things looked bad. She just had to know if he was meeting someone else. Part of her still believed she wasn’t enough for Wes and he’d see other women. Logically, her mind told her Wes wasn’t that kind of man, but late-night phone calls and leaving? What was she to think? That was how she’d ended up at Pig Alley.

The flashing lights and the questionable atmosphere had been one thing. Her father would have called this place a knife-fight magnet, since all ma

Clutching her coat around her, she remained in the back seat of the taxi, peering across to the street where she’d just witnessed Wes throw a man into a wall. The moonlight wasn’t bright enough to see everything in the dark alley clearly, but there was no mistaking Wes and Dimitri accosting a man. A man who had been stuffed in a car trunk…A chill rippled through her and she shivered.

“Oh my God,” Callie whispered. Fear sizzled like sharp electricity beneath her skin, frazzling her control until her body shook with the force of it.

Wes was a bad man. A very bad man. And she was all alone in Paris with him. This wasn’t good. What could she do? If she ran, he’d follow her. He’d made that clear enough. But if she stayed, who knew what would happen.

Was he involved in the Russian mob with Dimitri? Was that how he’d accumulated all of his wealth? His love of art was likely a front. Her stomach became a hollow pit.

What the hell was she going to do? There wasn’t an easy way to get home. She’d flown here on Wes’s jet. While she and her father were now out of the woods financially, it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t have the money to buy a ticket home. Even if she did, there was no guarantee that Wes wouldn’t come after her and stop her from boarding the plane. In fact, she was sure he would. The night’s di

“Where to, mademoiselle?” the driver asked her.

“Back to my apartment.” She told him the address in the Rue Cler neighborhood and he pulled out onto the street. Callie ducked down as they drove past Wes. In his hands he held a white tube. He hadn’t had that when he left the house. Was he carrying drugs? Or money? Or something else? Callie didn’t want to know. People who knew probably ended up dead.

By the time the taxi pulled up by the door, Callie swore she had aged a decade from the panic and stress. The doorman recognized her and he hit the button to let her in. She shot him a strained smile and ran straight for the elevators. There was no telling how soon Wes would get back. When she got into the elevator, she leaned back against the wood paneling and focused on slowing her breathing. Panting like a spent racehorse was a dead giveaway that she hadn’t been sleeping. If he was heading back, too, he could be only minutes behind her and she couldn’t take the chance he’d find out.