If I know one thing, it's that she's not getting away this time.

I leave Dante mid-sentence and stumble through the crowd, trying to find her.

Red dress, dark, flowing hair―how hard could it be?

I manage to chase her out into an empty hallway of the museum. I can hear the click of marble heels echoing down a corner, and I rush towards her, gathering my skirt and pulling it down my hips so it doesn't slide up.

"Hey!" I cry out. "Hey, wait!"

I don't even have a name to call her. Does she even want to see me? No, it doesn't matter―even if I have to hunt her down, I don't care. I just want to see her once more, this woman I spent the night with, who gave me her helmet and drove me on the back of a motorcycle. Who has the infamous painting Desperate Dancer in her room.

Who claims that I planned a heist. And we stole it together.

I find myself in the middle of an empty gallery. The lights are closed, save for small spotlights, and it gives me the feeling of being alone in an abandoned work of art. There are paintings on the walls, beautiful pieces that I've never seen before.

Caught in a trance, I can't help but stare at the art. I could lose myself in this magic, this beauty. I could spent the whole day here, staring into the soul of some work done hundreds of years ago.

The artwork I'm looking at is a haunting portrayal of two naked bodies, tangled together. By the way it was done, it's impossible to tell what gender they are, but it's clear that they're engaged in something intimate.

Something sensual, raw.

I grow warm at the thought of those golden paint strokes, the tender depiction of skin and flesh and heat. Great―I'm turned on by a painting.

Before I can turn away, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Hello."

It's the woman. Her hair falls down her back in glossy, luscious curls. Her dress looks like it has come straight out of a movie centuries ago, an elegant gown of hundreds of scarlet folds, twisted around her like she's a princess, or a queen. It's so different from the sleek, sexy clothes everyone else is wearing that I gaze openmouthed for an amount of time that is unbearably awkward.

"What―" I try to collect myself. "What are you doing here?"

The woman grins, her red mouth curving into a slow, delicious smile. "I think the better question is why you followed me."

I step back. Tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. I feel undone, out of breath. "I just . . . wanted to see where you're going."

I wanted to see you again.

I don't say it. I can't say it.

Suddenly, I stammer out, "Thank you, by the way."

Her mouth quirks into a small smile. "You're welcome. But for what?"

I love that lush Italian accent. I don't think I could get enough of it.

"For driving me to university, that day," I say. "And lending me your helmet. That was . . . kind of you."

"Well, I am ever the gentleman."

I know how we must look: two girls, five feet apart in an empty gallery, the lights dimmed low. There is art all around us, and there's art in her―in the way she smiles, in the way she steps closer. Bridging that distance.

"I wanted to know . . ." I can't say it. How can I say it? I want to know you. I want to . . . I look down, trying not to focus on the gathering of her bodice, the way it lifts her breasts to the light. The smooth, warm skin looks like it would be soft. I want to trail my fingers over that edge, to plunge them between the valley of her breasts.

"I wanted to know your name," I say, looking away. "So I would know who to give my thanks to."

The woman blinks, as though caught in headlights. The questions looks like it has thrown her off, left her speechless. Her eyes gleam tawny, almost like liquid honey.

"My name is . . . Violetta."

It sounds like music. It sounds like art.

It also sounds like a lie.

I step closer to her. I could reach out and touch her, drag my fingers down that slender shoulder. Cup her jaw in my hand.

"My name is Cade," I breathe.

I don't care if her name is a lie. In this moment, all I want to do is feel her against me.

"Hello, Cade," she says, but I'm having a conversation with her mouth. That supple, crimson-painted mouth. I wonder what her lipstick tastes like.

She leans closer to me. I can feel her breath. Lemon and verbena. I want to kiss the scent off of her.

The tension is thick enough to touch. I can't breathe.

"Do you want to see something?" she says, and the moment is cut as though by the knife of her voice.

I nod, and turns, her dress swishing around her like the unfurled petals of a rose. She goes deeper into the museum, twisting down hallways, until we come to a single room. Although it's blocked by yellow tape, Violetta ducks beneath it.

I hesitate. But she looks back at me, her smile wry, and I sweep myself under the tape.

The room is white, lit by thin rectangular lights. For a moment, they flicker.

But I'm not looking at the art. I'm looking at Violetta.

I watch the gentle curve of her nose, the point of her smile. The thick edge of her eyebrow, sharply cut.

"Do you see that? Right there?"

That is when I notice the blank space. Next to it, there's a silver slate with the words Desperate Dancer engraved it. The details―Corinthe Alexandria, twenty-six years old, 1716. But the painting itself, the artwork is gone.

Missing.

Stolen.

I reel back, gasping for breath. "We . . . really did. We got drunk and we stole a painting. How?"

Violetta doesn't look panicked at all by this information. In fact, she is glowing with a smirk. I can't help it when my eyes dart wildly around the room, looking for security cameras. Will they see me? Will they know?

I can't go to prison. I can't be charged with theft in Italy.

"Relax, mia cara," Violetta says. "They're disabled for tonight. They're stuck on a loop―playing feedback from two weeks ago."

This knowledge is terrifying . . . and dangerous.

I step back. "What did you do?"

Because the only way she could know this is if―she did it herself.

"Relax, Cadenza," she says. "I wanted to show you. The proof. Look at what you did."

"I couldn't have." But the words are weak, lifeless. Because I can feel the flashes of that night, and I remember enough. Giggling. The weight of a painting. Telling a woman―Violetta―how to hold the canvas so it would be preserved.

How did I know how to steal something? How did I know how to pull off a heist?

I back away. "I'm sorry. I have to go."

Violetta's eyes harden. "Is that your answer? Running away? Like you did at the apartment?"

For a moment, I pause. Somehow, I feel that this time, if I leave . . . I won't be able to find her again. Even if I spent the rest of my life hunting for her, this chance, this woman would be gone.

So I stay. But I can't stop my racing heart, my shaking hands.

And then I have a question. A thought.

"Why . . . would you tell me the security is down in the museum tonight?" It wasn't just to show me proof that we stole a painting . . . it was to steal one again. "Are you . . . you're trying to . . ." I can't say the words.

"I need your help." Violetta's voice is almost apologetic, her caramel eyes darkened.

"I can't help you. I'm sorry."

But I already know what she wants. The value of these paintings is inaccessible to the general public. To steal one, it would be to pick at random. There is no way for common citizens, without an art degree or a specialist, to know what is worth what.

What she wants . . . is for me to help her find the most expensive painting.

I can do that. But how can I help her?

"It's too dangerous," I add, stepping back once more. "I could get expelled. Or put in prison. Or deported back to Los Angeles."

Violetta's thick, black curls bounce over her shoulders as she moves closer to me. "But what if I offered you half of the stake?"

If I let her known which paintings were valued at a million dollars . . .

My student debt. Gone. And I wouldn't owe anything to my mother, to Nathan―

If I accepted her offer, Nathan wouldn't be able to hold anything against me.

My breath comes in harsh gasps. Before I'm even conscious of what I'm doing, I say, "Deal. I'll help you."

She breathes out a sigh of relief. I feel a prickle of apprehension.

What would have happened if I had said no?

Instead, I duck back under the yellow tape, not waiting for her to follow me as I show her a painting done by Marai Clair. Nine hundred thousand dollars, starting point.

"It's called the Rogue Sailor," I say, motioning to the stormy red sea, the vague depiction of a ship frothing on the waves. For a moment, the moral part of me drags me back under. I'm taking paintings away from artists like me, who love to live and breath artworks, who worship this testament to beauty.

But the artwork isn't being destroyed. Just . . . stolen. And auctioned. And sent away to whoever pays the most money.

It's the thought of Nathan that tethers me to my confidence. Because if I can get this money, if I can escape him, I can be free.

I help Vittoria lift the Rogue Sailor off the wall. For something so valuable, it isn't very heavy. But I know better―the value lays in the passion of the brushstrokes, the gift of the artist's soul that was bestowed into this canvas.

As we sheathe the painting in a black bag―I'm wondering how exactly we can walk out of the museum, suspiciously carrying a rectangle-shaped garbage bag―a man appears behind Violetta.

His eyes are dark, hot. He is dressed in black . . . a uniform.

And he has a gun―pointed at my forehead.