The Dark Arts

by Kitty Thomas

  She never tired of coming here. On first arriving, she’d bought up every tourist-y book she could get her hands on and learned everything she could. The Piazza San Marco had supposedly once been called the drawing room of Europe by Napoleon. Whether he’d truly said it or not could never be proven, but it felt true nonetheless. This place kept drawing her back to it.

  After a couple months of traveling and seeing everything she could think to cram into that time—every famous art museum and gallery dotted across the world—she’d finally settled back in Venice. The tropical island idea had gotten boring after two weeks. Italy was where she belonged. It was an artist’s paradise.

  Sometimes she liked to sit inside St. Mark’s Basilica, staring up at the awe-inspiring gold mosaics so long it made her neck hurt. Even with tourists fluttering about, the space felt sacred. But even inside a church as grand as St. Mark’s Saskia had barely a flutter of guilt about her crime. Why should she? Lachlan had billions. Twelve million was so laughable he wouldn’t have missed it if she’d taken it right out of his bank account while he looked the other way.

  “Having fun, Miss Roth?”

  That voice.

  Saskia considered running, screaming, anything but turning around to confirm who she knew stood just behind her, his hot breath mixing with the warm breeze against her neck.

  She exhaled.

  People ran into people—even in Venice. There was no reason to think he knew...

  “If you run, I’ll have you arrested.”

  Okay, so he knew.

  When she finally turned, he looked far more smug and self-satisfied than a man who’s learned he’s been robbed should look. He wore a crisp, dark suit and appeared as if he were on his way to a funeral. Hers, maybe?

  “How did you find me?”

  “Why don’t we have this discussion at that lovely expensive villa you bought with my money? It’s not far from here, is it?”

  She’d just bought it a month ago.

  “No, Mr. Niche.”

  “Oh, it’s Mr. Niche, now. So formal. You think the formality will do you any good?”

  His hand slid into hers, and for the first time in their association, she didn’t pull away from his touch. Maybe he could be reasoned with. He might make good on his arrest threat. But then again he might kill her if he got her somewhere private. Maybe she should take her chances with the police. Which option would be worse? Which might save her?

  “Just relax,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. Much.”

  It was close enough to walk, though each step dragged so that it seemed impossible one could span the distance by foot—even though she’d done it easily just that morning.

  Her hand trembled when she tried to put the key in the door.

  Lachlan’s fingers closed over hers. “Relax,” he said again as if simply repeating the word would have any effect on the way everything inside her convulsed over what he might do with her now that he’d isolated her from possible witnesses. He unlocked the door with a steady hand and walked in like he owned it.

  And really, he kind of did.

  “Not bad,” he said. “But I can tell you with this kind of money management you’d be a starving artist again inside of three years. Why don’t we sit out beside the pool?”

  “So you can drown me more easily?”

  He laughed, and the tightly bound breath that had been stuck inside Saskia’s chest came rushing out. Surely he wouldn’t laugh like that if he planned to kill her. It wasn’t an evil laugh; it wasn’t even a sleazy laugh. It was... musical somehow.

  And all at once the guilt appeared.

  Have I been dehumanizing him this whole time just so I could steal from him? It wasn’t a pretty thought. It didn’t match the trees and clouds and sky and all the beautiful old buildings that seemed like art installations on their own. There was no denying how uncomfortable he made her. And that one day in his study when he’d touched her inappropriately—she hadn’t imagined that. But beyond that one moment, had she created the image of a monster for her own convenience?

  “Did you paint the trompe l’oeil on the walls yourself?”

  “I did.”

  “It’s good.”

  Saskia tried not to let the compliment affect her. Who cared what Lachlan thought about it? She remained unconvinced he’d know real art on his own if it bit him on the dick.

  She followed him to the terrace and sat in the chair he indicated. He reclined next to her and watched her for several minutes—so long she couldn’t stand the scrutiny and silence any longer.

  “Lachlan, I’m sorry, I...”

  He held up a hand. “No. You’re not sorry. You’re sorry you got caught. You’d rob me blind again if you thought you’d get away with it.”

  A fair point.

  “Holding back and giving me a lower quality forgery the first time was a nice touch. Lesser men might have been fooled. How much of my money have you spent?”

  “Six million,” she mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “Six million. H-half of what you gave me.”

  “A three-year countdown to your renewed destitution was generous. I give it two, tops. Were you planning to invest any of it? Even millions run dry if you just keep spending.”

  “I wanted to travel and get settled first.”

  He nodded as if any of this mattered now. It was all just trivia of a life that could have been. She wondered how many lives that could have been would be dangled in front of her and then ripped away before her true fate unfolded. The fantasy of the fairy tale with Eric, the illusion of this independent life in a villa in Venice... both lovely ideas, both impossible dreams.

  “So, you owe me six million dollars.”

  “I’ll sell the villa, and...”

  He twisted his chair to face her. “No. That’s not the deal. You stole from me; I decide the terms. I want a wire transfer by the end of the day in the full amount.”

  “But you know I can’t...” It was ridiculous for him to demand she return the money on such short notice. It took time to sell a villa. And the furniture. And the Ferrari—which had already depreciated. She didn’t want to think about the amount she wouldn’t be able to get back—the small things that added up. Clothes. Jewelry. And the intangibles: spa appointments, all the travel.

  “So we’ll handle it the old-fashioned way. You will indenture yourself in servitude to me to pay off your debt—likely for the rest of your life given the amount of money anyone would reasonably pay you for anything you’re actually qualified to do.”

  Just what he’d wanted all along: her at his mercy in a compromising position where she’d have to warm his bed to survive. It was no doubt like winning the lottery for him. He knew everything could be bought, even her—given the right circumstances. And here the circumstances were, wrapped up and gleaming.

  Saskia wasn’t unattractive, but she knew there were other women more beautiful than her. The appeal to him was acquiring something that was difficult to acquire—just like all the art he collected. If she’d been eager to jump in bed with him, he wouldn’t want her. Was that worse or better?

  “And if I don’t agree to your terms, you’ll what? Kidnap me? Exactly how would your felony cross out my felony?”

  He laughed. It was decidedly less endearing this time around. “I’ll turn you over to the authorities. You can go to prison, or you can give yourself to me. The accommodations with me will be better.”

  “But not the company.”

  Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to do something about that smart mouth of yours the moment we get home.”

  “I haven’t agreed. You said you wouldn’t kidnap me. So you don’t think you’d go to prison right along with me? Didn’t you conspire to steal a multi-million dollar painting?”

  “I’ve got fantastic lawyers and connections in high places. Most likely I’ll know the judge that gets my case. I won’t go to prison, and if I play it right, I’ll b
e able to keep the whole nasty mess out of trial and out of the media. But you’ll go to prison. And I’ll make sure they throw the book at you to make an example. Our justice system is far too lenient on art crimes if you ask me.”

  Maybe he was bluffing, but somehow Saskia was sure this man didn’t know the meaning of the word. And even if the judge was lenient, even if he had mercy on her, she was still looking at a few years behind bars. Best case scenario.

  No amount of prison was a small matter that one easily moved on from. She’d known a guy who’d been to prison once. The system seemed to revel in making it absolutely impossible for a criminal to mend their ways. It seemed like they didn’t want people to change and be better. They wanted you to pay and pay and pay for your crime and never stop paying even if you were free.

  On release, they’d maybe give you a twenty dollar gift card. And that was it. And no one would hire you. How would someone fresh out of prison get a job to pay for things if nobody would hire them? The only choice left was to steal more things until you got caught and thrown in prison again. The only hope of breaking the cycle was if you were fortunate enough to actually know somebody with some standing in life who could help you back on your feet. Otherwise, it was almost impossible.

  Saskia might have been able to imagine and cope with some of this if the threat of prison came on the heels of living with less than a hundred dollars in her bank account most of the time. But instead, cruelly, the threat came after four months of the kind of luxury she’d never before known. And here, Lachlan Niche was giving her the choice between a worse fate than where she’d started—one she was unlikely to ever fully recover from—or continuing on in this luxury... as some sort of concubine.

  The tears started to fall. Finally. Saskia flinched as his thumb reached out to wipe those tears away.

  “I’m not so bad. You’ll see. Whatever ideas you have in your head about me are wrong. I’m prepared to provide for you. You have an immense talent which you’ve squandered. I can help that talent flourish. I’ll mold you into the kind of artist you’ve only dreamed of being.”

  This time it was Saskia who laughed. “You can’t afford it. It’s not something you can buy. You know nothing that would benefit me as an artist.”

  “Really? I knew the second you gave it to me that the painting you supposedly stole wasn’t authentic.”

  “I thought you used the software. You knew that night? You just wanted to entrap me in deeper debt. You’d already given me thirty thousand. Wasn’t that enough?” Though maybe he wouldn’t count the five for the known forgery against her.

  “No. It wasn’t. And I didn’t use the software. I didn’t need it. I just wanted to make you sweat a while before I gave you some money to squander because it makes the moment of acquiring you that much sweeter and your debt to me that much larger.”

  She’d thought she’d been running a long con on him, but it was clearly just the opposite. If he’d known he didn’t have the real painting the night of the party, he’d simply been following and watching and waiting for the right moment to spring the trap on her.

  “Saskia, I knew the game you were pulling the moment I didn’t see the mistake in the painting.”

  “The mistake?” He was speaking in riddles she couldn’t unravel.

  “It was one of my earlier works and had sentimental value. I only sold it because I was hungry, and my start-up was still stumbling and trying to get funding. There is a small defect, a few brushstrokes that aren’t quite right—not quite what I wanted them to be. Nobody else ever sees it, but I know it’s there. But it wasn’t there on the painting you gave me.”

  Everyone knew Quill had been a perfectionist to an obsessive degree that, had it not come wrapped in such talent, surely would have gained him entrance to a mental institution. Niche knowing this fact about the artist wasn’t nearly enough for her to accept something so impossible.

  “If you expect me to believe you’re Joseph Quill... He died. What’s more, I met him in person, and you’re nothing like him.”

  “No, Saskia, you met my assistant, Derick. I was trying to run a family-friendly tech business that had a real shot at financial success. Initially, the art didn’t seem like a wise bet. The subject matter alone would have killed Niche Industries before it was off the ground. Joseph Quill was an alias I created, and my loner assistant agreed to pose as him in public. He signed non-disclosure agreements. He had no one in his life who would miss him.”

  “You mean...”

  His eyes widened a fraction, mirroring the horror she was sure her own face held.

  “My God, Saskia, don’t be so dramatic. I didn’t have him killed. Why would I? For God’s sake. I was able to manage the business and paint. It was an ideal set-up, especially once I could afford to offload most of the day-to-day operations of the tech firm to someone else. I just meant there was no one who could say with authority that my assistant wasn’t Joseph Quill.”

  “But the subjects of the paintings...”

  “...All signed non-disclosure agreements and were each paid handsomely for their silence. And it isn’t as if I’ve been a media hound under this name, either. You didn’t recognize me as Lachlan Niche when we met. There are benefits to keeping my face out of the media and letting representatives speak on my behalf.”

  All of that was true, but she’d also been so drunk it was amazing she’d been able to stand under her own steam. She wouldn’t have recognized the pope under those conditions.

  “By the way,” he said, “I was there, blending into the crowd as a guest the night you met Derick. He was going to use who you thought he was to fuck you under false pretenses. I stopped him. You’re welcome.”

  Had he recognized her when he’d bumped into her the night she’d been so drunk? Had the seeds of all this already been planted all the way back when she’d met his assistant posing as him? A lot of time had passed between those moments. No, that was crazy. He couldn’t have lain in wait that long. Could he? What was wrong with this man? Even the idea that he could be so calculating on such an impossibly long timeline made him that much more of a threat to her.

  Saskia couldn’t find a sarcastic retort. He could be lying. He probably was lying. But somehow, when she thought back to her encounter with the man she’d thought was Quill, something hadn’t been right about any of it. She’d been starstruck and nervous because of how she’d admired his talent. He’d been quiet and shy and seemed more like an accountant than the commanding artist she’d envisioned him as—like he’d be far more comfortable locked in a closet with numbers than pigments.

  She’d imagined Joseph Quill would be frightening in person. Much as Lachlan was. And she believed without any doubt Lachlan could strip a woman bare and paint her in such a way that you couldn’t look away from her eyes. The idea of Quill was far less dangerous than the reality. She would have gone to bed with Derick—lying to herself the whole way—because he wasn’t a threat to any piece of her.

  Not like the real thing.

  “I will paint you, of course.”

  Her breath hitched, and all the foolish fantasies of Joseph Quill came rushing back. Except this time, there was a face and body to go with them. She’d never questioned why, even after meeting who she’d thought was the artist, the fantasy had remained vague—a faceless, nameless stranger. It was as if her subconscious had known all along and refused to participate in the ruse of that man being Quill.

  “How can you let the world think you dead and never share your art again?” On balance, that might be the biggest crime here. She was no less terrified of him than she’d been before, but she also felt the pull of the artist she’d so deeply worshiped.

  “Something you must learn now, Saskia, before your heart is broken... People prefer their artists dead. They don’t want a real flesh and blood human interrupting their hedonistic consumption of the work. Nor do they want someone who can talk back. Though talking back won’t be your problem when I’m finished with you. So you
may just have a shot out there after all.”

  Saskia shivered.

  She stared at the gentle ripple of the pool water. The birds chirped in the distance while the Mediterranean sun beat down, interrupted only by the warm, soothing breeze. There should be thunder and lightning and a sky so grim and black that the only relief would be the cool rain of a torrential downpour.

  The day outside didn’t match the storms churning within her. It didn’t fit with what Lachlan or Quill or... “What am I supposed to call you?”

  “You will call me Master.”

  Oh, hell no.

  This was her fantasy—the exact thing wrapped with a bow. And despite all her protests, the actual living in-the-flesh Joseph Quill exceeded all expectations. But up close... no, she couldn’t. She’d actually mourned this asshole back when she’d thought the artist dead. To resurrect him and play out this sordid... no. Just... no.

  She knew it wouldn’t matter what she called him. Now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t think of him as anyone other than Quill. It didn’t matter that Lachlan was his real name. That name meant nothing to her.

  What came after denial? Bargaining? “W-what if I stole the painting for you? Really, this time? Couldn’t we call it even and forget this?”

  As if she could bring herself to steal anything out of Eric’s family home. Even for Quill.

  He leaned back in the chair and regarded her as if considering it, but she knew from the way the side of his mouth quirked in pleasure that the offer was no longer on the table—if it ever had been at all.

  “Miss Roth.”

  Her name hung there on the air, open, exposed... naked. He was her judge, jury, and executioner. Everything paused as she awaited her sentencing.

  Her breath.

  Her heartbeat.

  When he spoke again, her heart and lungs came back online. “The woman in that painting was very dear to me. She was a muse of sorts, and without her, I never would have painted the things I’ve painted. But our relationship grew too... intense for her. She scampered off to the east coast, and all I had left were the paintings. I never forgave myself for selling the one I sold. I promised myself I’d never sell any in that series. I thought I wanted the painting, but the more time passed, and once I saw how much talent you were wasting... the short answer is no. I’ve moved on. The price is you, Saskia. Just you.”