Chapter 222: "The Most Beautiful Painting"

The gallery was strangely quiet when Aren returned.

Only a few hours earlier, its immaculate halls had been filled with some of Borgata’s most distinguished people.

Now, broken champagne glasses glittered across the marble floor, bidding paddles lay beneath overturned chairs, and expensive auction programs had been trampled into the dirt.

The guests were gone, along with the security personnel.

Even Jordan had returned home, leaving Aren to wander alone through the exhibition halls.

Fortunately, the artworks displayed outside the auction room had escaped the evening’s violence. Aren walked slowly from one painting to another, trying to decide where she ought to wait.

Jeremiah’s instructions had been simple enough. He’d told her to meet him beside the most beautiful painting in the gallery.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be less simple than he’d made it sound.

Nearly every piece drew her attention in some way. She stopped before one painting, studied it, moved on, then found herself pausing again only a few steps later.

After several minutes of this, she found herself standing before a quiet seascape.

There was nothing particularly dramatic about the scene. No grand historical moment, no tortured expression frozen forever on someone’s face.

The sea simply stretched toward the horizon beneath an open sky, its surface rendered in gentle variations of blue.

After the evening she’d just experienced, however, Aren found that simplicity soothing. She wasn’t certain it was objectively the most beautiful painting in the gallery, but she liked looking at it.

’This one, then.’

Decision made, she folded her hands loosely before her and settled down to wait. She had been standing there for only a few minutes when footsteps sounded from the adjoining hall.

"Ariana, darling!"

Jeremiah appeared around the corner, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

Apparently, publicly humiliating House Bellini, infuriating some of Borgata’s wealthiest collectors, and smashing a sixty-million-dollar sculpture had done wonders for his spirits.

"See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it? I knew you’d find exactly the right place."

He stopped beside her and looked at the painting.

"Oh, now that’s an interesting choice! Tell me, sweetie, how did you know I’d choose this one?"

Aren glanced at him, then looked back at the painting.

"Well, you told me to wait beside the most beautiful painting in the gallery."

She gave a small shrug, as though the explanation should have been obvious.

"This one looks like the most beautiful painting here to me."

The faintest smile touched his lips.

He looked at the canvas for another moment, then his gaze shifted to her profile.

"The most beautiful, indeed."

He said it softly enough that Aren turned toward him, wondering whether she’d heard some change in his voice, but Jeremiah was already admiring the painting again.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Since you’ve decided to come after all, may I assume you found my little spectacle satisfactory?"

Aren considered the question.

"I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching it. I personally dislike Lady Lucilla, and if her family has really been deceiving people for that long, I think she deserved what happened."

She paused, then studied him more closely.

"But, Mister Castellano, did you actually purchase all those authentic works of art just to arrange that demonstration?"

"Ah, my lady." Jeremiah placed a hand over his heart. "How heartbreaking that you’ve forgotten. Didn’t I already explain this during our little Primavera date? Whatever I choose to do, darling, I believe in giving it nothing less than my very best."

Aren regarded him in silence.

She had, in fact, forgotten that particular statement. More troublingly, she couldn’t remember when the brief bakery visit Jeremiah had inserted himself into had been promoted to a "date."

"Perhaps I should leave."

She turned and began walking away.

"Nooooo! My lady, wait!" 𝚏𝗋ℯⅇ

Jeremiah reached after her with one hand while pressing the other dramatically against his chest.

"How could you abandon me so abruptly after everything I’ve done for you? Such cruelty! Such heartlessness! I may never recover!"

Aren stopped and looked over her shoulder.

"Are we going to discuss serious business now?"

"Yes, yes, absolutely!"

He nodded with remarkable enthusiasm, although his eyes were still bright with amusement.

"Serious business only. No more dreamy dates! I promise."

Aren sighed.

There were people whose behavior became easier to understand with familiarity. Jeremiah Castellano seemed determined to prove that the opposite was also possible.

Nevertheless, she returned to him.

When she stopped in front of him, he was still dabbing at imaginary tears.

"Mister Castellano, I want to make something clear. I still don’t entirely trust you. I don’t agree with your desire to kill your parents, and I don’t understand what’s happening between you and them."

She hesitated, remembering the conversation they’d had in the corridor of the Castellano Club.

"But... you did what you said you would. So I’m willing to listen."

Jeremiah’s imaginary distress vanished. He looked at her with undisguised satisfaction.

"Is that a yes?"

"It’s a yes to helping you become Don," Aren corrected. "Nothing more. What you choose to do afterward is your own responsibility. I won’t participate in killing your parents, and I want my involvement in your succession kept confidential."

She waited until he appeared to be listening before continuing, "Most importantly, if we’re going to work together, I need to know why you’re doing this."

Jeremiah sighed.

"Ah, darling. The reason again."

He looked almost weary.

"Must we? Doesn’t that make our charming little arrangement rather too personal?"

"I want to understand the nature of an agreement before I enter into it."

"How very sensible."

"And since this particular agreement is rather unusual, I’d also like to understand the person I’m working with."

That seemed to give him pause.

He regarded her thoughtfully, his expression settling into something quieter as he considered what she’d said.

"Well, then," he said at last, releasing a quiet breath. "If you’re so determined to know, my dear, I suppose I have no choice."

The seriousness lasted only until the corner of his mouth began to curl again.

"Why don’t we take a trip to my private residence, darling? It would be the most discreet place for our conversation. And, more importantly, I think it would be the simplest way to explain."

─ •?• ─ ? ─ •?• ─

The white car passed through the gates of Jeremiah’s private mansion sometime after ten.

Even from the driveway, Aren could see that the house was magnificent, although magnificence hardly seemed an adequate explanation for the amount of money that had been spent on it.

Warm lights illuminated the elaborate fa?ade.

Flowers spilled from enormous arrangements beside the entrance.

Every detail appeared to have been considered, purchased, and arranged with the intention of impressing anyone fortunate enough to be invited inside.

Yet when Aren stepped out of the car, she noticed something peculiar. For all its grandeur, the place was remarkably quiet.

’Oh? Where are all the staff and security?’

No servants waited to receive them, and nobody emerged from the house at the sound of their arrival. As far as she could tell, the chauffeur was the only employee present, and he was already driving away.

"Ah, here we are at last!"

Jeremiah came to her side, looking perfectly at ease amid the extravagant surroundings.

"What a shame I didn’t know I’d be bringing you over tonight. Otherwise, I would have decorated the place a little more." He turned to her with an apologetic look. "I hope you don’t find my humble home too shabby and empty, my dear?"

Aren looked at the mansion, then back at Jeremiah. Apparently, "shabby" and "empty" meant something quite different in his personal vocabulary.

"No..." she said, uncertain how best to answer. "I don’t find it empty. Actually, I think it’s a little... um, huge. For just one person, I mean. Living here alone."

"Ah. I see what you mean." Jeremiah brightened with understanding as he led her toward the entrance. "You find it strange that there aren’t servants everywhere, correct?"

"Well, yes." Aren followed him inside, glancing around as they walked. "At the Sartori estate, there are usually people everywhere. It’s the same at the Lombardi estate. I think most private residences in Borgata are like that."

"Naturally, I have people who come and go to take care of things," Jeremiah explained. "And you’ll certainly find plenty of servants at my parents’ residence. But you see, darling, as open as I may appear, I’m actually a man with a very sensitive heart. Most of the time, I prefer a little privacy."

Walking a step behind him, Aren gave the back of his head a skeptical look.

Considering that he was currently plotting to murder both his parents, she wasn’t entirely convinced by the "sensitive heart" part.

The preference for privacy, however, made considerably more sense. She kept that observation to herself as Jeremiah guided her upstairs.

The interior was every bit as extravagant as the exterior. The furnishings were immaculate, the surfaces polished, and the floral arrangements downstairs filled the air with a pleasant fragrance.

Yet as they climbed higher, that fragrance gradually faded. By the time they turned into another corridor, Aren had noticed a different smell.

Something faintly nutty lingered in the air, accompanied by a sharper, more penetrating scent with an almost pine-like quality.

Aren slowed.

’This is... linseed oil and turpentine?’

She had encountered similar smells in museums before, particularly around areas where paintings were being restored. Her knowledge of the subject was limited, but she knew that both substances were commonly used by painters.

What puzzled her was that she hadn’t seen a single painting since entering the mansion.

At Castellano Club The First, artworks had lined the reception hall leading toward the Pit. Here, despite the expensive furnishings and elaborate decoration, the walls were conspicuously bare.

’That’s strange.’

She breathed in again.

’Then where is the smell coming from?’

Curiosity took hold.

As she followed Jeremiah, she examined doorways, corners, anything that might explain the increasingly distinct scents, but found nothing.

She was still doing so when Jeremiah stopped in front of a large set of closed wooden doors at the end of the corridor.

"Here we are, my dear."

He turned toward her with a smile.

"My apologies for making you endure all those tedious stairs, but there’s no room in this house more suitable for welcoming a guest like you."

He reached for the handle and opened the doors.

"Come in."

Aren stepped across the threshold.

Then she stopped.

"This is..."

The room bore almost no resemblance to the rest of the mansion.

A cart crowded with tubes of paint stood near one wall, its shelves packed with colors in every imaginable shade.

Several worktables were covered with brushes, bottles of linseed oil and turpentine, and the assorted materials of someone who painted regularly enough to have stopped worrying about keeping everything in order.

Canvases were stacked against the walls, some large enough to dominate a room, others small enough to carry beneath one arm.

The space felt messy.

Used.

But none of that held her attention for long. Her focus narrowed to a single painting hanging on the wall.

The instant she saw it, everything else in the room disappeared from her awareness.

The colors.

The way they had been mixed.

The handling of shadow and light.

It had the same distinctive quality she’d noticed in the paintings at Castellano Club The First.

That resemblance alone would have made her look more closely, but it was the young woman in the portrait who held her still.

She wore a gorgeous white dress adorned with feathers, with ribbons wound elegantly around her legs.

Poised on what appeared to be a performance stage, she held a ballet pose of extraordinary grace.

There was an almost angelic softness to her features, but Aren barely registered any of that. Her attention had locked onto the woman’s eyes.

’No way...’

Aren stared harder.

’...Her eyes are teal.’

Very slowly, she turned toward the man standing behind her. Her gaze went straight to his eyes, searching for a difference that might undo the connection forming in her mind.

She couldn’t find one.

Her lips parted.

"...Mister Castellano."

She glanced toward the portrait, then back at him.

"May I ask... the lady in that painting... who is she?"

Jeremiah met her bewildered gaze with a small smile. It wasn’t the brilliant, effortless smile he usually offered her, nor the mischievous expression he’d worn when inviting her into the room.

"Must be rather confusing for you. I can see that."

His voice, too, had changed.

"But I couldn’t think of a better way to satisfy your curiosity. So here we are."

He walked past her toward the portrait, and for a moment, he simply stood before it, quietly admiring the woman on the canvas.

When he finally turned back toward Aren, the smile had disappeared.

"Miss Lombardi," he said quietly, "I’d like you to meet my mother, Dorothy."