Grand Theft -

“Then what do you want?”

“Mr. Nazarov,” the tall man said. “My name is Dante. I represent the Duchessa’s family.” grand theft

“I spent them researching the real Caravaggio,” Marcus said. “The one that was stolen from Palermo in 1969. The one that was never recovered. The one that the Duchessa claimed to have bought at a private auction in Geneva in 1985. Except she didn’t. Because the painting in that vault—the one you just stole—is not Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps . It’s a copy. A very good copy, made in the 1920s by a forger named Elmyr de Hory. The Duchessa bought it knowing it was a fake. She used it as collateral for loans, as a tax shelter, as a way to launder money for half a century. The real Caravaggio is still missing.” “Then what do you want

Viktor understood then. The Duchessa had known about the fake. Or rather, she had known that someone would eventually try to steal the Caravaggio, and she had decided to let them. Because a theft would trigger an investigation. And an investigation would expose her family’s crimes. The only way to prevent that was to ensure the painting was never stolen at all. I represent the Duchessa’s family

He had spent fifteen years dreaming of grand theft. And now he had stolen something that was never worth stealing in the first place.

“Now,” he said, “we commit a different kind of grand theft. We steal the truth.”

“Hold her still,” she said.