Betrayal by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online

big fist rose.
    “No!” Joseph’s left palm, sweaty with anxiety, slipped off the leather. “No!”
    Hendrik slammed his knuckles through the canvas, splitting the art from top to bottom, destroying its value, stealing it from Joseph with a single blow. Then he tore it from the wall and smashed it to the floor.
    While Joseph sat gasping, holding his chest, Hendrik turned to face him. Blood dripped from his split knuckles, but he still wore that offensive grin, and in a genial tone he said, “I’ll order Canadian bacon with pineapple, and a thick crust. Hope you like it, old man. It’s my favorite.” He swaggered out of the room, his big feet clomping in his black leather boots.
    Liesbeth watched him leave, anxiety and love clear on her face.
    Something about the two of them tugged at Joseph’s mind, a thought struggling to escape. It burst from his brain and into words. “He’s your son!”
    She laughed, laughed long and hard and spitefully, until Joseph shriveled in embarrassment. “No, he’s my nephew.” She waved a hand toward the interior of the house, where three men and two women lounged with their feet on Joseph’s furniture, eating and dropping crumbs wherever they wished, drinking and putting their cans down on his polished wood tables, scratching themselves and laughing—at him. “They are all cousins or nephews or nieces.”
    “Your gang is all family?”
    “Of course. Who else could I trust?”
    “They’re thugs!”
    “Don’t be silly.” She airily waved Joseph’s insult away. “We are not thugs. We contract for a job and we do it well. Each of us has a specialty. Each of us is highly trained.”
    Information. Information could help him. “Who hired you for this job?”
    Her smile faded. “This is personal.”
    “Personal? What do you mean? Why do you care about a bottle of wine?”
    “You know perfectly well why. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Her smile was back. “I care for the same reason you care.”
    He didn’t want to discuss what he knew or why he cared. They weren’t partners. By all that was holy, the bottle was his . “So you have a gang, and each of you has a specialty. What are you trained in?”
    “I’m the leader. I make the decisions. I make the plans.”
    “Lousy plans.”
    “Oh, I think this one is working out very well. Brigetta is our munitions specialist—she knows weapons. Grieta is our computer programmer—she can break throughany security system in less than five minutes. Klaas does disguises.” Liesbeth laughed. “He transforms himself and us, and not even facial recognition software can tag us. Rutger knows the worth of every piece of art and every precious stone, and he can spot a fake from a distance of one hundred yards.”
    Liesbeth gave up the information so easily, Joseph knew she considered him no threat. And that infuriated him more. But he was descended from the Borgias, and his legacy of shrewd cruelty would overcome this upstart. “Who’s the Incredible Hulk?” he asked.
    “Hendrik? Hendrik took his father’s place as my right-hand man.”
    “He’s the muscle.”
    “A good way of putting it.” She gestured at Joseph’s ruined painting. “His father had a terrible temper, too, and I’m proud of Hendrik for his restraint.”
    “His restraint?” Rage bubbled like acid in the pit of Joseph’s stomach. “He destroyed a priceless painting!”
    “Not priceless. Everything has a price. That painting is small, an early, lesser Klimt, a simple ink drawing without gold ornamentation, and unless a bidding war set up, at auction it would have gone for no more than one hundred thousand dollars, one hundred and twenty-five at the most.”
    At that cool, precise appraisal of his art, Joseph’s mouth opened and closed in silent shock. Fifty years ago he’d bought it from an Englishwoman. He’d paid a mere five thousand pounds and laughed at her ignorance. He’d had it appraised every year since, gloating as it gained value. He knew