Page 149 of Blood Game

“Va te faire!” Anthony replied, crushing out the stub of a cigarette, then throwing his jacket across the back of a chair.

Innis's French was limited, but the tone and the hand gesture that went with it, needed no translation.

“What have you got?” he asked.

Anthony scrubbed a hand back through his hair, then slipped into the chair beside him.

“I went to the club first. The captain has friends. He also has a financial planner who knows people in banking. They have connections all over.” He made a sweeping gesture.

“He's pissed. Twenty million dollars gone, right under his nose. He was willing to help. After all, he is a businessman. He went to some of his friends.” Anthony rubbed the fatigue from his face.

“The money didn't pass through the usual channels.”

No bloody fucking kidding, Innis thought. He was the one who had found that out.

“Where did it go?”

“Crypto currency; a broker out of the Caymans, not exactly sophisticated, but all in small transactions with fake accounts, then passed into another offshore account under an individual name.”

“Not the gallery?”

Anthony shook his head. “Under the name of Gold Star Holding.”

“Gold Star.” At least he had that to work with. He needed to find out who the players were.

“Anything else?” Innis asked.

“I went by the gallery. Gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“Stripped bare, no displays, no framed paintings, no priceless piss urns, gone. Nothing left behind.”

Not good, Innis thought.

Who walked away from a successful black-market operation? That was the question. The answer—no one, unless they were afraid of being caught. Or simply moved on, to set up in another location. Or?

He spent the next several hours checking all his sources, all the back channels, all those places that supposedly didn't exist.

He finally found it. A coincidence?

“Bloody fucking ironic.”

“What is it?” Luna asked, leaning over his shoulder as she set a plate of food in front of him later that morning.

“Gold Star Holding.”

“Gold Star?”

He sat back, thinking. Being a fairly good gamer, he'd acquired a good imagination. He particularly liked war games.

“The gold star is a symbol of the ultimate sacrifice of a family member. But it has other meanings.”

“What other meanings?”

He scrolled through several images until he found what he was looking for.”

“Oh,” she said softly. Then, “It could be just a coincidence.” He gave her a look.