Harlow Sinclair - POV
I have fifteen minutes left to live. I'm spending them calculating how many lies I authenticated to get here.
The smoke tastes like metal. Like ash and something chemical that makes my throat want to turn inside out. I'm on my knees in Julian Vance's penthouse gallery. Surrounded by fifteen masterpieces. Two hundred million dollars worth of art that's supposed to transfer to Viktor Volkov at midnight.
Every single piece is fake.
I've known for three days. The Caravaggio on the north wall makes my skin feel like I'm touching ice. Not metaphorically. Actually ice. My fingers go numb when I stand too close. The Vermeer above the fireplace sends cold shuddering down my spine so hard my teeth chatter. The Rembrandt. The Monet. The entire collection I authenticated with my signature and careful language about "consistent with period techniques."
All forgeries. All making me so cold I can't stop shaking even though flames are eating through the east wall.
That's not smoke inhalation. That's my body screaming.
"Harlow." Julian's voice cuts through from the other side of the locked door. He's safe in the hallway. I'm burning. "You were always too rigid for this world. I'm just removing an obstacle to something beautiful."
I try to stand but my legs won't. The heat should be unbearable but I'm freezing, my whole body fighting against something, my gift, the thing Julian convinced me was wrong with me. Seven years of medication to dull the temperature shifts. Seven years of believing I was broken because authentic art made me feverish and forgeries made me want to crawl into a freezer.
He was scared I'd figure it out.
My body knew. My mind just wouldn't listen.
"Please." Catherine Webb sounds small. Far away. My mentor. The woman who taught me provenance research and how to network with collectors who actually matter. "Julian, we can still..."
"We can't. She found the workshop. She knows everything."
The workshop in Red Hook. I followed a hunch about paper stock three days ago. Found canvases in progress, chemical baths, forged documents using watermarked paper stolen from the Ashford family. The same paper that destroyed Marlowe Ashford's career five years ago when Julian framed him.
I threatened to expose him. Stupid. Julian doesn't get exposed.
He eliminates.
The flames are closer. I can see them now through the smoke, orange and hungry. The Caravaggio's canvas bubbles. The paint runs. I want to laugh but I'm coughing too hard, something dark coming up that I don't want to look at.
"Did you disable the security?" Julian asks.
"Yes." Catherine's voice cracks. "The cameras are looped. The sprinklers are offline. The paper trail shows Harlow accessed the system."
They're making this look like suicide. Guilt-ridden authenticator discovers she's been validating forgeries, can't handle the shame, burns everything including herself. They probably planted evidence in my apartment already. Financial records. Maybe a suicide note in my handwriting.
Julian is thorough. I'll give him that.
I crawl toward the window but it's twenty stories up and bulletproof glass. Even if I could break it, I'd just fall differently. The door is solid mahogany, locked from outside. My phone is in my coat pocket in Julian's office. No one knows I'm here except the two people who want me dead.
The cold is getting worse. My teeth won't stop chattering. I'm burning alive and my body thinks I'm in a freezer because these paintings are lies. All of them. Every piece I looked at and signed off on and smiled for photos next to while Julian kissed my cheek and called me brilliant.
Seven years I worked for him. Seven years building my reputation as the authenticator galleries trusted. I came to New York running from my family's museum dynasty in Charleston. Desperate to prove something. Julian saw that desperation the way sharks smell blood.
"You're special, Harlow. Your eye for detail is extraordinary."
Then later: "Maybe talk to my doctor. These episodes where you feel too hot or too cold, that's anxiety. Imposter syndrome. We can manage it so you can focus on the work."
The medication made everything duller. Made me easier.
Made me stop trusting myself.
I think about my mother in Charleston. Haven't spoken to her in three years because she said I was making a mistake. About my sister's worried emails I never answered. About every single moment I chose Julian's approval over my own screaming instincts.
The smoke is so thick I can barely see my own hands. My lungs are burning for real now. Not cold anymore. Just numb. This is it. This is how it ends. Alone in a gallery of forgeries, killed by the man I spent seven years trying to impress.
"I'm sorry." Catherine again. Distant. "I'm so sorry, Harlow."
Not sorry enough to unlock the door though.
I slump against the wall. Under the Rembrandt. The real one hangs in Amsterdam. This one was painted six months ago by someone talented but not talented enough to fool my body. I authenticated it anyway. Signed the papers. Let Julian tell me I was exactly what he needed.
He was right about that part.
Through the smoke I catch my reflection in the bulletproof glass. Hair matted. Face streaked with ash. Eyes that finally understand too late what I've been.
Not Julian's protégé.
His tool.
Useful as long as I validated his forgeries and destroyed anyone who threatened him. Like Marlowe Ashford, who I helped frame with my authentication. Like Isabelle Ashford, Marlowe's fiancée, who came asking questions two weeks before she killed herself.
Julian didn't just frame Marlowe. He drove Isabelle to suicide.
And I helped by being exactly what he needed. Desperate. Talented. Too afraid of rejection to ask hard questions.
The flames reach where I'm sitting. I can't breathe anymore. Can't think clearly. Just this one devastating clarity of understanding exactly how I got here.
I spent seven years being useful.
Never once being free.
The heat takes everything.
Everything goes black.
I gasp awake.
Freezing cold.
Staring at my office ceiling.
My phone shows November 22nd. 3:17 PM.
Forty days before I die.
I'm alive. Impossibly, inexplicably alive.
And I have no idea why.