Page 2 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

Did Ezra know I was paid to leave? Did he agree to it? Or did he search for me after I vanished? These questions circle like vultures, useless and destructive.

I give my head a shake and readjust my glasses. I need to focus, or I’ll be caught the same way my grandfather was.

He spent the end of his life in prison for art forgery.

Not for the quality of his work, which was exceptional, but because he trusted the wrong person.

His Anatomy of a Ghost was his masterpiece, completed before his arrest. The original vanished into a private collection, and his perfect copy disappeared with it.

Both were presumed destroyed until three weeks ago, when a confidential auction listing mentioned a Valenne being sold at Halcyon. My sources confirmed it’s the original. And after tonight, it will still appear to be the original, while the real painting leaves with me.

It holds a symmetry that would bring a smile to my grandfather’s worn face from whatever afterlife holds forgers and thieves.

Ezra and the Rockfords belong to the past. The hunt, the artistry… This is my present.

I drift to the next table, moving closer to the staircase. The security guard has changed positions, moving to follow some commotion near the main entrance, opening a window of opportunity.

The memories recede, not gone but contained, like paint sealed beneath varnish. Tonight isn’t about Ezra Rockford. It can’t be. Not when I’m so close to finishing what my grandfather started.

The shattering of crystal breaks the air, and everyone turns to the Omega from earlier, who stands next to the champagne tower, trembling in horror at the broken flute now on the floor.

I become invisible in the collective distraction, and my movements are unhurried as I slip through the service door near the eastern corridor. No rushing. Rushing draws attention. Instead, I move with the purpose of someone who has permission to be where they shouldn’t be.

The staff pass card I duplicated earlier slides through the reader with a soft beep, granting me access to the private wing where my grandfather’s ghost awaits.

The upper floor holds a different air than the bustling chaos of the rooms below. The air is still, temperature-controlled to preserve what hangs on these walls.

My shoes fall soundlessly on the thick carpet as I count my steps, checking off the turns from the floor plan I memorized. Left at the second archway past the small bronze sculpture of a dancer. Right at the portrait of a stern-faced man whose fixed gaze watches my every move.

I pause at each corner, listening for footsteps, the crackle of security radios, any sign I’m not alone. Nothing but the distant murmur of the staff below, muffled by distance.

My heart holds a steady rhythm. This isn’t my first heist, and I won’t fall prey to the adrenaline high of an amateur. I’m a professional who will save that for after the job is done.

The private salon appears the same as my source described, intimate in scale with cream-colored walls and deep mahogany accents.

Far different from the grand rooms I’ve spent all day setting up for the party.

Three paintings hang on the far wall, each illuminated by its own discrete lighting. But I have eyes only for one.

Anatomy of a Ghost.

Two feet by four of Valenne’s tormented genius. From across the room, the painting appears to shift and breathe, the central figure both present and dissolving.

The longer I stare, the more I see, anatomical details hidden in shadow, expressions that change with each angle of light. It’s magnificent. It’s exactly as my grandfather depicted it, down to the faint aurora bleeding across the upper right corner of the thundercloud sky.

For a moment, I’m eight years old again, sitting on his lap as he describes the painting from memory, his hands moving through the air to trace invisible brushstrokes. “The secret is in how the figure both exists and doesn’t exist. That’s why it’s impossible to copy.”

Impossible for anyone but him. And now, me.

I cross the room, reaching to free the tube strapped to my back with a practiced motion, and set it at the base of the wall. Then I turn to the painting, studying the frame, the hanging mechanism, checking for alarm triggers or pressure sensors.

Nothing obvious. Either they’re very good or very confident.

When I lift the painting from the wall, its weight is lighter than I expected. The frame isn’t original, which works in my favor.

I set it face down on a nearby table and examine the backing. Standard conservation-grade materials, also not original. A quick scan with my phone reveals no embedded trackers in the frame.

With practiced fingers, I loosen the backing to check the authentication marks on the stretcher bar and find the tiny V carved into the wood, almost invisible unless you know to check for it. The mark my grandfather mentioned in his final letters from prison.

This is the original.

Footsteps in the hallway freeze my blood.

I freeze, controlling my breathing as they pass by the door without slowing.

Once they fade, I move faster, removing my own canvas from its tube.

The backing comes off the original frame, and I slide my forgery into place, securing it exactly as the original had been.

Every brushstroke, every shadow, nine months of work for this moment. Side by side, even I would struggle to tell them apart. The only difference is beneath the surface, in the materials themselves. Mine will pass any visual inspection, but the spectroscopic analysis will reveal its youth.

By the time that happens, I’ll be long gone.

I secure the backing with the same conservation tape, making sure the tension is identical, the corners perfect. The original slides into my tube, and I secure it in my holster.

Lifting the frame, a quiet rush of satisfaction fills me as it settles back on the wall. From three feet away, nothing has changed. Valenne’s ghost still unravels against his storm-dark background, anatomical sketches still peeking through the layers of oil.

As I adjust the angle to hang level, my finger brushes a small, irregular bump in the wall behind it.

Curious, I press it, and a soft click sounds from the bookcase to my left, so quiet I might have imagined it if not for the slight movement it triggers.

A section of the wall, disguised among leather-bound volumes and art catalogs, has shifted inward by half an inch.

I freeze, every instinct telling me to finish and leave. Get out while the path is clear. But my attention snags on the dark line between the books and the wall, a hidden slash in the pale room.

What’s so important that the owner would hide it while leaving priceless artwork out in the open? More paintings? More secrets?

The professional in me screams to leave, to secure my prize and vanish before anyone identifies the difference in the paintings. But the siren call of the unknown pulls at me, a curiosity that’s both my greatest strength and most dangerous weakness.

With one last look at the forgery hanging on the wall, I push the bookcase wider and peer into the darkness beyond.