COMPLEMENTARY [GxG]

Chapter 25 | Guilty as Charged

"The Concert" by Johannes Vermeer - 1664

"Chez Tortoni" by Édouard Manet - 1875

"Are you going to tell me why your painting is there?" William is asking me.

But I've tuned everything out but the tiny phone screen with the photos of Johannes Vermeer's 1664 The Concert and Édouard Manet's 1875 Chez Tortoni, both classics missing for decades and valued at millions of dollars—and then there's my painting, worth nothing but a measly $500 prize at the art fair, lined up with the others as if I'm one of the greats.

The first tangible word I'm capable of thinking contains only four letters, two syllables—Eris.

The painting was in her art studio. How it got to a car loaded with guns and famous stolen artworks can only be her doing. Or her father's. Did he find my painting and sell it himself? His way of clearing my father's debt with my permission, his way of getting back at me for insisting on working with his daughter for the competition.

This can't be actually real. My disbelief stunts the inevitable rage that I'm not ready for in the slightest.

"Persephone?"

I look up at my uncle. How am I supposed to come clean? I promised Eris not to feed him more information, but any semblance of respect, any of the stupid little deals we made have been swiftly shattered.

So I tell William—everything but the one moment I can barely admit to myself.

A few years ago, I might've taken issue with how he remains perpetually detached as if interviewing one of his witnesses. But what I can appreciate now is the fact he doesn't judge. Doesn't lecture. Doesn't give me a list of all the ways I went wrong.

"And the painting they found is the forgery?" he asks.

"No," I say, cringing. "It's the original."

He runs a hand over his chin, closing his eyes for a moment. "We barely got off clean last time." A pause. "With Marcus."