Page 65 of Captive Ruin

Then snap it shut. A rush of nausea climbs up my throat, but it’s quickly tempered by a sense of… relief? Exhilaration? No, fear. But the other emotions are undeniably present.

Dear god, Van Wyk really is insane. “Uh… I need a moment in my office.” My voice wavers, and I clear my throat and try again. “Sierra, would you please start processing all of this?”

“Of course, Amelia.”

“Ma’am, the signature?”

“Oh, yes.” I accept his pen, scrawl my name on the docket with trembling fingers, and hand it back. Then I turn and walk away, my heart racing, my breaths sharp and rapid.

I don’t make it to my office before I open the box again. Just around the corner is enough. Out of sight.

The contents are what they were the first time: resting in the purple silk is a severed finger with a signet ring I’ve seen before. It’s Serranto’s, there’s no mistaking it. And it’s his finger—short, fat, blood under the nail. The other end isn’t a clean, surgical cut; the skin is pulled slightly back, the white of the bone visible in the center. Horror and a terrible sense of perverse satisfaction slither through me, intertwining and mixing until I don’t know which takes precedence. I briefly shut my eyes, fighting back a renewed wave of bile. I’m not sure insane is a strong enough word to describe this. Surreal fits better.

I’m standing in my gallery, where a collection of priceless art just showed up. And, with it, the finger of the blackmailing bastard who nearly brought my life to ruin. I already know who’s responsible for all this; it can only be one man.

The single card resting beneath the finger confirms it. It’s signed LVW.

My monster has saved my gallery.

I can’t accept this. Can I?

Fuck it.

Yes, yes I can.

Seventeen

Amelia

It takes us the rest of the day to catalog all the art, and we’re well into the evening before every piece has been checked, signed for, and moved in. The Crozier guys agree to return tomorrow to help install it.

Before the insurers close, I take a copy of the manifest to my office, doing my best to put an appraisal together. I’m used to dealing with the likes of Amiento and Quek, artists whose pieces sell for five to ten thousand, not art at this level. Twenty pieces, and my estimates put it somewhere between one and one-point-five million.

The insurance alone is as much as my monthly rent. But at these prices, I’ll more than cover all my costs by selling just one of these pieces at the exhibition.

This Bastien Fournier has been amazingly generous. Did Van Wyk blackmail him or chop off his finger? Who the hell agrees to sixty percent commission?

I have to know who he is, who I’m accepting all this art from, and I pull up a browser, typing his name into the search.

He’s a frigging billionaire, and the owner of a company called Cadrion Holdings, which owns three others: Apex Advanced, a tech company; Sentinel Risk, a security company; and Northbridge Capital.

The company behind the gala.

Van Wyk talking to Serranto, then telling me he was security for Northbridge. Threatening me with a corporate espionage suit.

I’d thought it was a bluff, but with that pull, he probably could’ve done it.

And now, in the space of two days, he’s fixed all my problems, massively boosted the reputation of my gallery, and potentially made me a hell of a lot of money along the way.

I hate that I have to accept anything from him, but not so much that I can bring myself to turn it down. It’s not just Sierra’s job and my gallery, my parents’ belief in me, my dreams. It’s the art we’ve already unpacked. It calls to me. It’s beautiful. It’s stunning.

By the time we call it a day, it’s late and I’m exhausted, but it’s a good kind of tired. There’s now hope where there wasn’t any, and a collection of art that has me drooling. Whoever chose it from Fournier’s collection has impeccable taste. It goes together so easily, sculptures and wall work both, that I can’t wait to get back in the morning and lay it all out.

The exhibition is going to blow their minds.

I can’t wait for Serranto to read Jordan Fletcher’s review in Time Out. Assuming Van Wyk stopped at a finger and didn’t cut off something more… necessary.

Shit, did he? Do I even want to think about that?