Halo (K19 Security Solutions 8)

“I’m probably overreacting. You know how I get about our Catarina,” I said with a smile.

“How do you feel?” Pia asked Tara.

“I’d be very sad if I couldn’t be in the tasting room.” She turned to me, mouthing, “Thank you.”

“How much of a disruption would I be if I spent time there writing?”

Pia’s smile was broad. “You are incantato with my friend, sì?”

I wasn’t certain of the word’s translation, but if it meant infatuated with, crazy about, then, yes. I was. I had a feeling the next words to come out of my mouth might get me in a little trouble, but it was worth it. “Pia, were you aware Catarina is an artist?”

As anticipated, Tara glared at me.

“You are?” Pia asked, taking Tara’s hand in hers again. “What is your medium?”

“Painting. Oils and watercolor mainly, depending on the subject matter.”

I could see Pia’s face; she was just as in awe of Tara as I was.

“You amaze me,” she said. “You are a woman of the Renaissance.”

“I suggested she paint some of the Valentini landscapes that you might be able to sell at the winery.”

“That idea is fantastica. Do you have any I could see?”

“Knox’s—I mean Ben’s—suggestion is premature. I’ve only done a few sketches so far.” I winked when Tara looked at me with scrunched eyes.

“It relieves me that you are staying at the farmhouse with Ben as much as it saddens me that Valentini has not been a safe place for you.” Pia took a deep breath. “I will see you later, sì?”

“We were thinking of coming up to the villa for breakfast.”

“I would love that,” she said, breaking into one of her signature smiles.

“You are in trouble,” Tara scolded when Pia left.

I nodded. “I’m happy to take any punishment you want to mete out.”

“Even if it is that I refuse to paint?”

She had me there. “Except that.”

After breakfast, Tara and I went to the tasting room, where I settled with my laptop at a table tucked off to the side of the room. I had many emails to sort through but filtered those from K19 from the rest.

Doc reported that there was still no word on who the man I saw in Tara’s casina was. However, not surprisingly, there was an immediate hit on the man we’d seen in Florence.

Liborio Strollo was a mid-level enforcer for the ’Ndrangheta syndicate. “Il mento,” as he was known, meant “the chin.”

If Tara’s father did, in fact, have ties to the organization, it would be hard to predict his reasons for following her. Was he looking for Richard Emsworth like we were? Or was he looking for Tara on behalf of her father? Not knowing exactly what her father’s connections were, made it impossible to guess.

The next email I read, cleared some of that up for me. It also sent chills up my spine. According to Razor, the wire fraud charges against Emsworth were for art forgery as well as art fraud. As Money had said, to the tune of millions of dollars.

He was accused of selling forgeries of lesser-known masters throughout Europe, but in Italy primarily. Some of the same painters whose works Tara and I had seen at the two museums in Florence were mentioned on the list of forgeries.

In addition, Emsworth was accused of selling multiple shares of works that were higher in value. In one instance, it was said he sold more than forty ten-percent shares of the same painting. Each share sold was reported to be for a million dollars.

Tara hadn’t mentioned her father was an artist. Something made me doubt he was. So who had produced the forgeries he’d peddled all over the continent?

I reviewed the attachments Razor had sent on the indictments. Interestingly, no victims from the States had come forward. There was also no mention of a co-conspirator. However, the charge of enterprise corruption would indicate there should have been.