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Chapter27
Erick
The day is a mess. Gallo’s people are pissed, Frost’s people are a pain in the ass, and in the end, I have to threaten to withhold future paintings to get the whole matter resolved. I’m in the middle playing peacemaker, when I’d rather start shooting to make this all go away.
“I never wanted the fucking prick to cut Gallo out in the first place,” I say to Hellie that night. We’re in the studio, and I watch as she does some work on the forgery, mostly testing paints and getting a feel for the overall shape. “I told him not to do it, and he goes ahead and does it anyway, which makes me look complicit.”
“That sucks.”
“Now I’m soothing egos and trying to get this mess sorted. Meanwhile, we’re running a multi-million-dollar art scheme and any little thing could fuck it up. Gallo could run his mouth and ruin this if he wanted, and I’m not totally convinced he won’t just to piss off Frost.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Here I am, complaining about it to you instead of doing what I really want to be doing, which is breaking knees and slamming skulls into walls until people do what I say. I miss the old days sometimes. When I first started, I didn’t have to worry about playing politics. I only worried about who had more guns.”
“Rough.”
“You’re not listening, are you?”
“Huh.”
“Hellie.” I stand and walk to her. “You’re not listening to me.”
She frowns as if she’s only just realizing I’m there. “I heard you. Gallo got cut out. Frost is an asshole.”
I grunt, head tilted. She’s been strange since I got home earlier tonight, and I can’t figure out why. Short answers, no interest, like she’s trying to keep herself distanced, or like she’s got something else on her mind.
I chalked it up to work on the painting, but that’s not it. She’s barely doing anything, and I can tell her head’s not in it.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just working. You’re distracting me, you know.”
“You’re done for the day.” I take the paintbrush from her hand and toss it on the floor. It leaves a brown smear as it clatters away.
She looks outraged. “That was the perfect color, asshole!”
“You’ll be fine. Tell me what your deal is.”
“I have no deal.” She gets up from her stool and storms away, grabbing the brush from the floor and putting it back in the can. “Maybe I’m just sick of chatting with my kidnapper about his day. Maybe I don’t want to hear about your feelings.”
“No, I don’t think that’s it.”
“Did you stop to think that maybe I still hate you? And maybe I’m sick of pretending?”
“Nope, definitely not it.”
“You’re such an asshole. How can someone be so arrogant?”
“Because we’ve been through this already and nothing’s changed.” I walk to her, forcing her to back up to the window. It’s a familiar position. One I very much enjoy. “Let’s skip the game and go right to the part where you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She lifts her chin defiantly.
She’s lying. I don’t know why, but she’s holding something back. Something is definitely wrong—and I can’t tell if it really is the kidnapping thing, which is frustrating since I thought we were past that by now. If that’s not it, I have no idea why she’d be in this shitty mood.
“Is the painting too difficult?” I ask softly. “We can find something else. The Gardner stuff—”
That pisses her off. “The painting is fine. I can handle the stupid painting.”
