The painting had no name well not officially. In the ledger it was listed as Lot 17-B, "Private Acquisition." Eight figures wired through three shell companies, all of them dissolving like sugar in hot coffee by morning.
But Mateo never saw the money. He saw the crate.
They rolled it out of the climate corridor at the Geneva Freeport like it was a coffin for a saint. The warehouse swallowed sound. Steel rafters climbed into shadow. Cameras blinked red, indifferent and eternal. Somewhere beyond those concrete ribs lay Picassos, Modiglianis, looted antiquities and bloodstained history, all vacuum-sealed and tax-optimized.
The crate was matte white, seamless, a sarcophagus engineered by men who understood that art rots like flesh if you breathe on it wrong.
"Don't stop," the supervisor had told him. "Don't try to even think for yourself. You are courier, not a hero."
Mateo wasn't either. He couldn't wait to get this nerve wracking and spine breaking delivery off his hands. Thinking to himself he wondered how exactly Lucas talked him into throwing his life away. This fucking bastard, if I just had a running business or some money in my pockets, I wouldn't be here playing lackey and boss with there marshmallows for brains. Bambi... that fucking jinx bitch I don't even know what i'm still doing with her. Thinking about Bambi, his thoughts wondered to the last time he saw her, watch her touch herself; moaning and curling in self pleasure. The satisfaction he felt in realizing that he left her wanting more of him, his hands touching her skin that somehow retained its glow even after being touched by different men, how she breathes when his hard dick presses against her, how she touched him and especially her throat. Fuck he cursed in his head I could be fucking this bitch out of her mind, but here I am trying to put money on the dumb table. His dick twitched and his body shook a little as though he had a brief orgasm, his dick already forming inside of his trousers. "Hey, are you fucking gay?" the words of assistant to the supervisor shot at Mateo snapping him back to reality. It was the dead of night, but they were still inside the warehouse with lights bright enough to see properly. "What? Fuck no, I'm not gay" Mateo said with a mixture of embarrassment and disgust. The assistant directed Mateo with his eyes and when Mateo followed he saw that his dick had hardened and formed bulge, this was immediately after the supervisor had told Mateo not to become a hero but Mateo was lost in thought. Bashful, he used his hands to cover his dick print, apologised and ran towards his car, leaving the two men dazed.
The Ghost Van waited in Bay C. A Mercedes Sprinter, dull gray, blank panels, no logos. It looked like it delivered plumbing supplies. It didn't. It delivered absolutely everything but that.
He climbed into the driver's seat, still red from the embarrassment that just happened, still quite horny but not enough for the bulge to be visible. The cabin smelled faintly of leather and cold electronics. Behind him, separated by reinforced bulkhead, the real heart of the van pulsed.
The interior compartment was armoured and insulated with layered industrial foam that gave off a sharp, chemical scent—like ozone after a lightning strike. The crate was locked into a pressurized cradle, a rectangular altar surrounded by climate-control vents whispering at a constant 20°C. Micro-sensors blinked green: humidity stable, vibration dampened, internal atmosphere nitrogen-balanced.
Every fifteen seconds, somewhere inside the van, a silent GPS ping slipped into the ether. Not loud, not obvious. Just a digital heartbeat telling men in suits that the investment was still breathing.
Mateo checked the rear monitor. The crate sat like it had always been there, like it would outlive him.
He eased out of the Freeport's gates into twilight.
Geneva at that hour was a study in restrained wealth. The sky had the color of bruised steel, rain streaking across the windshield in diagonal lashes. Headlights smeared into elongated halos. The lake to his left—Lac Léman—was a sheet of gray glass disturbed by wind, its famous fountain lost in mist.
He merged toward the Pont du Mont-Blanc, and the city closed in.
Luxury watch advertisements towered above him, luminous faces promising immortality for the right price. Patek Philippe. Audemars Piguet. Time, commodified and worshipped. Geneva didn't flaunt its money; it suffocated you with it. He felt small as he drove constantly asking himself hoe and when he went wrong, why doesn't he have the wealth.
Traffic crawled across the bridge. Bumper to bumper, diplomatic plates. Black SUVs with tinted glass. Electric sedans humming like restrained predators.
Rain slicked the asphalt, turning brake lights into rivers of red.
Mateo felt the claustrophobia settle in his lungs. Too many cars. Too many eyes. The van's armor suddenly felt thin.
His phone vibrated once. A secure message. It read that that the route adjusted proceed towards Meyrin Tunnel.
He frowned. That wasn't the original path to the private estate outside the city, thats the location of the warehouse. But orders were orders. He signalled and drifted right, slipping off toward the arterial road that led north.
The Meyrin Tunnel yawned ahead, concrete mouth swallowing traffic whole.
As he approached, the dashboard flickered.
Just once not enough to cause panic for Mateo.
The radio died mid-static. GPS screen froze. The silent ping indicator—steady green since departure—blinked red. There was no signal.
Mateo's fingers tightened on the wheel, trying so desperately not to panic and kept repeating thesame words over and over in his head Orders are orders.
Inside the tunnel, the world narrowed to sodium lights and damp concrete. Rainwater dripped from seams above, tapping the van's roof like impatient fingers.
Then the lights went out. Not all of them, Just enough.
A patchwork blackout swallowed the center section of the tunnel, plunging several dozen vehicles into a disorienting half-darkness. Engines coughed. Drivers braked instinctively. Horns blared, confused and muffled. This made Mateo think back to his days at Lagos, Nigeria before the trio left the country in search of greener pastures.
The van's systems rebooted with a soft electronic whine. The GPS screen remained black.
He realized, with a clarity that made his scalp prickle, that this wasn't an accident.
Ahead, a maintenance truck had angled itself across two lanes. Hazard lights blinking. A man in high-visibility orange stepped out, waving traffic to slow.
Mateo's earpiece crackled. Static.
"Hold position," a voice tried to form, then dissolved into noise.
A black sedan slid in behind him. Too close.
The maintenance worker approached his window, visor down, face obscured.
"Problème électrique," the man said, tapping the van's hood lightly. Electrical issue.
Mateo nodded, heart hammering. His hand drifted toward the pistol taped beneath the steering column.
Then he saw it.
On the man's wrist, under the cuff of fluorescent fabric, a small tattoo—three interlocking crescents. A rival family's mark? Thugs? Petty thieves? Mateo's mind spirraled into endless possibilities he couldn't drive forward without crashing into people and causing an uproar. He was still lost in thought when suddenly the van shuddered as something latched onto the rear doors.
Mateo twisted in his seat, staring at the monitor. The camera feed had gone to static. Snow and distortion.
He heard it then—a hiss.
Soft at first. Like a gas leak.
Then brighter.
The rear doors glowed faintly on the edges of the screen before the feed cut entirely.
Thermal lance.
The hiss became a hungry, focused roar as the lance bit into reinforced steel. Molten metal dripped like candle wax. The smell invaded the cabin—burning alloy, hot ozone, insulation cooking from the inside out.
Mateo tore his seatbelt free and grabbed the pistol.
The driver's door was yanked open.
Two men in matte black tactical gear stood there, faces hidden behind respirators. No insignia. No shouting. No theatrics.
One struck him across the jaw with the butt of a suppressed rifle. Pain exploded white across his vision. He tasted blood and rain.
He fired once. The shot went wide, deafened by the tunnel's concrete throat. The second man twisted his wrist with clinical precision, disarming him in one fluid motion. A knee drove into his stomach. Air left him.
He collapsed onto wet asphalt.
Around him, the chaos was strangely contained. Other drivers were boxed in by additional "maintenance" vehicles. More men in orange vests moved with rehearsed authority, redirecting, calming, sealing off sightlines.
This wasn't a smash-and-grab.
It was choreography.
Behind the van, the thermal lance cut a final seam. The doors fell inward with a metallic groan.
The pressurized compartment exhaled in a cold sigh as outside air rushed in. White vapor curled like a dying spirit.
One of the strike team members stepped inside. He carried a handheld device, scanning the crate's embedded chips. A quick nod.
Another man approached with a portable hydraulic spreader, biting into the crate's lock mechanism. The foam-lined walls muffled the cracking sounds.
Mateo tried to rise. A boot pressed his face back into the pavement.
"Stay down," a voice said in accented Spanish. Calm. Almost polite.
Through blurred vision, Mateo watched them open the sarcophagus.
The lid lifted with a hydraulic whine.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Even the tunnel seemed to hold its breath.
The team leader leaned in, gloved hands gripping the sides of the frame inside. He froze.
"¿Qué carajos...…" he murmured.
Mateo's pulse thundered in his ears.
The leader stepped back, slowly.
The painting inside was nothing short of breath taking.
It was infact the rumored lost masterpiece whispered about in smoky rooms. The revolutionary canvas that had ignited bidding wars across continents.
It was something that he now understood, a reason why his boss would go all out.
It's beauty was hard to explain, it looked simple but at thesame time, magnificent. A lake. Mountains in the distance. Brushstrokes that felt safe, too deliberate it was like being sucked into the painting. He moved the painting into another sealing and proceeded to putting it into his van. He brought out his phone from his pocket and speed dialled a number, it rang twice then picked, "Paquete extraído. Quedo a la espera del pago." the man said almost laughing, "Recibirás el pago una vez que el paquete sea entregado,¿Estamos? " the other end of the phone replied. "Copiado. En camino al destino." he said as the call ended.
Mateo tried his best struggling to break free and retrieve the painting but is taken out by a precise kick to his jaw making him loose consciousness.
They left Mateo there unconscious, the lights from other cars highlighting the blood running out of his body in trinkets. His phone buzzing inside the car, the notification showing the 6th missed call from Bambi.