Page 13 of Untamed Beast
All across the Bratva, the organized crime world, those deals are insured by Maksim Bryusov’s artworks.
An art dealer at the Ivanov Center had been to one of his fundraising dinners — the art foundation that is the “legitimate” side of the Bryusov business — and he’d seen a painting that he was sure was forged.He got shipped to Siberia when he started talking about it.
Yuri’s men, the Bratva enforcers at the docks, got us a sample of the merchandise that Maksim was importing and exporting.Then all we needed was an expert. Someone who could appreciate the finer details of art that all looks the same to an amateur like me.
All bullshit, if you ask me. But bullshit was suddenly critical to my business.
So I kidnapped a curator from the Met.
Funny that they say this kind of work can’t be rushed — when you put a gun to someone’s head, they work pretty fast.
“Forged,” the curator, a tall thin man with a ponytail, nodded after looking at the painting for twenty minutes.
“And you’re sure?” I gestured the gun at him loosely and he flinched. “You’re not just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?”
He shook his head, pointing out a detail near the ship’s bow which was apparently a sure sign. My eyes glazed over pretty quickly once he got on a roll.
“What about these ones?” I shoved him into the shipping container. There were about fifty paintings in there. Might take him a while, and I couldn’t really be bothered waiting around for it.
Art might get Maksim Bryusov hard, but it makes my eyes bleed. “Actually, we’ll leave you here overnight and you can tell us in the morning,” I drawled, flashing the gun so he got the message.
If all fifty haven’t been analyzed by the time I returned, the guy would be a dead man. Ponytail stood there stunned as he looked at the rows of artwork.
“These are… missing. No one has seen that painting in over 100 years.”
Yeah, buddy, this isn’t the Met.
“It’s your lucky day. I guess you found ‘em. Get to work.”
I don’t fucking understand art.
When we let Ponytail out in the morning — after a night of being locked in a temperature-controlled shipping container full of paintings and nothing else — he was buzzing.
He was certain half of the paintings in the vault were forged, while the others were real. He begged to come back to look at the real paintings. The one he was really obsessed with was by some French asshole with a forgettable name,and he tried to bore me with the details of how important it was.
“Please, let me come back and look at it.” He grabbed my jacket to make his case.
Bold move. I pulled my gun and waved it at him to let him know that I wasn’t running an art charity. He backed off real fast.
“This isn’t a fucking public gallery, buddy. Your work here is done.”
I nodded at my guards and they hauled the guy back to whatever dimly lit museum basement he inhabited.
All the records of deals involving these paintings, including signed statements from the curator, are in the files I’ve given to Maksim. It’s not like we’ve checked all of his paintings, either — this is the tip of the iceberg.
If the mafia got wind of this, the entirety of North America would erupt into mob wars. Years of truces that were painstakingly negotiated between rivals would go up in smoke.
Maksim’s face pales as he shuffles through the pages. He seems to be searching for something in particular.
I knock the butt of my handgun on the desk to get his attention.
“Here are my terms if you want to keep this quiet,” I gesture the gun at the pile of documents covering the table. “Non-negotiable.”
Maksim presses his hands together and turns to me with a cold stare.
“One. You can keep doing this art foundation bullshit, but the port is now our territory. You do not interfere, exceptfor the secure vaults where the art is stored. How anything gets in and out of New York is no longer your business.”
He gives a tense nod.
