"The Concert" by Johannes Vermeer - 1664

"Chez Tortoni" by Édouard Manet - 1875

"Are you going to tell me why your painting is there?" William is asking me.

But I've tuned everything out but the tiny phone screen with the photos of Johannes Vermeer's 1664 The Concert and Édouard Manet's 1875 Chez Tortoni, both classics missing for decades and valued at millions of dollars—and then there's my painting, worth nothing but a measly $500 prize at the art fair, lined up with the others as if I'm one of the greats.

The first tangible word I'm capable of thinking contains only four letters, two syllables—Eris.

The painting was in her art studio. How it got to a car loaded with guns and famous stolen artworks can only be her doing. Or her father's. Did he find my painting and sell it himself? His way of clearing my father's debt with my permission, his way of getting back at me for insisting on working with his daughter for the competition.

This can't be actually real. My disbelief stunts the inevitable rage that I'm not ready for in the slightest.

"Persephone?"

I look up at my uncle. How am I supposed to come clean? I promised Eris not to feed him more information, but any semblance of respect, any of the stupid little deals we made have been swiftly shattered.

So I tell William—everything but the one moment I can barely admit to myself.

A few years ago, I might've taken issue with how he remains perpetually detached as if interviewing one of his witnesses. But what I can appreciate now is the fact he doesn't judge. Doesn't lecture. Doesn't give me a list of all the ways I went wrong.

"And the painting they found is the forgery?" he asks.

"No," I say, cringing. "It's the original."

He runs a hand over his chin, closing his eyes for a moment. "We barely got off clean last time." A pause. "With Marcus."

When his paintings started showing up in busts at drug lords' homes, and he was the one accused of dirty dealings. During the legal proceedings, he had no choice but to keep Iker's name out of his mouth, revealing only that he was the art dealer and nothing more. Iker and his spoiled family didn't suffer a fraction of the headache—he must've paid the best lawyers in the country to cover his ass.

The news didn't delve too deep into the story. Marcus' paintings were overshadowed by the gold bars, cocaine kilos, and other loot. The last thing Iker wanted was negative attention that would backfire on him. Despite putting us in debt, he did his best to protect Marcus from the consequences, even if it was out of nothing but self-interest. Either way, everyone important in the art world got word about the scandal.

"What I'm failing to understand..." William begins. "Usually contraband is found going into the US, not out. Any car can go through the border into Tijuana without so much as an ID check. So what made them suspicious of this one?"

"Maybe they were already tracking it," I suggest.

"The police will want to talk to you."

"And what am I supposed to tell them?" I ask, defeated, because now what? We don't have any money left. I'll have to flee to Canada, working a miserable retail job for the rest of my life because no one else will hire a delinquent.  "That Eris sold my painting without my permission?"

"If this was her idea, that was a mistake on her part," William says, putting it extremely lightly. "The best kingpins are the ones you've never heard of. She's going too fast too soon. She's going to burn out and get caught."

"She thinks she's untouchable," I say. "She thinks the cops won't get to her."

Thankfully, William helps me come up with what to say to the police, which won't be much. This is the type of situation where I fully take advantage of the right to remain silent, especially because I'm not sure how much they know. One thing's for sure—my full name is signed on the painting, meaning it won't be hard to dig into my father's history.

What neither William or I can pinpoint is why I wasn't interviewed as a witness for the L.A. warehouse party, where they found drugs and the other stolen paintings. It seems none of the drug lords playing cards and downing whiskey informed them about my presence, but why?

One word. Four letters. Two syllables.

Eris.

She said it herself, she "tells me everything", so wouldn't she mention it if the police went after her? She made a show of chopping off a man's fingers yet came out unscathed. It can only mean she—and Iker—hold more power than I thought. But how? They're supposedly part of the dying Tijuana cartel, their influence limited to that city whereas their rivals control thousands and thousands of kilometres across Mexico.

Could Iker have some kind of deal with the police? I was reading articles about narcos colluding with the CIA and FBI, giving them information on rivals for protection. It's no secret that the US government favors keeping a strong, centralized organization in their pocket to ensure their control. But most of what I read had to do with the Sinaloa cartel. Snitching on Eris would deliver another blow to Tijuana, and it wouldn't take a lot to wipe them off the map. What reason would the police have to work with them?

All I know... Eris protected me. I imagine her threatening the partygoers with death if the police found out she was also at the warehouse. And as her plus one, their silence had to extend to me in a twisted package deal.

Is she really so cocky and self-important she thinks she can threaten her way into ensuring everyone's silence? For someone of her caliber, she should know better than to hand out trust like candy.

And whether or not the police know we were there, Tijuana still has a spy on their hands. Someone secretly working for Jalisco or Sinaloa, who tipped the pigs off about the warehouse.

"We need a lawyer," William says, as casually as he would say we need to buy more milk, and then his expression darkens. He leans down, looks me in the eye, and with slow, precise words, instructs me: "But if the police want to talk to you before I get that figured out, here is what you do. You stay quiet. They're going to press you, they're going to read you, and all you'll do is smile and say you won't be speaking to them until your lawyer is present. If they think you're guilty, they've already made up their mind, and there's nothing you can say in that interrogation room that will help your case."

I nod obediently, committing every word to memory—I'll even repeat them to myself before bed like a nighttime prayer. We went through something similar with my father, and other than anything involving the likes of Eris Lugo, I don't fare so badly under pressure. I'll force myself to take it as another test to my unshakeable resolve. I'll accept this as the runaway consequence to me kissing the bitch. I'm not going to show up at her house and beg at her feet for her to pay my lawyer fees just like Marcus did with Iker.

May Nana Buluku's light illuminate the path, but even without any blessings, Persephone Baines always gets her way.

▴ ▴ ▴

William promises he'll keep my name out of the news, but it seems like several journalists have also seen the exclusive photos of the bust. My art is finally getting attention, but for all the wrong reasons. A high schooler's random painting was found with some of the most sought-after works in history, and nothing adds up.

Is this Eris' backhanded way of praising me? Selling my art as if it's on the same caliber as the missing classics?

While my father avoided the bad press for the most part, I won't. Here is my glory, served on Eris' golden platter.

I want to call her, scream at her for an explanation, but what if our phones are tapped? I text her, keeping it as vague as possible, but she predictably doesn't reply. Paranoia is wrapping around my throat—is this what she always feels? The more I think about it, how smug she must've felt at pulling this off, her audacity to ignore me for two weeks,  the more I fracture.

If I had a father like Iker, I wouldn't hesitate before ordering a hit on the bitch.

But my father is none other than Marcus Baines, a meek, introverted art teacher, and I have no choice to talk to him before he finds out from the news—or once the journalists inevitably start hounding us for an interview.

It's been months since I've seen him cry, but when I tell him the same thing I told William, he breaks down. A tsunami of regret floods our living room, and he acts like it's his fault for ever getting involved with Iker, for moving to San Diego, for not watching me closely enough while I ran off with Eris.

He sits on the couch and holds his head in his hands, crying. Fitz stands at his side, smirking a little as he shakes his head.

"Damn," he tells me. "Never thought both you and me would make it to the news in the same month."

"It's not something to be proud of," I say.

"You just gotta make it work in your favor. I went with Oscar to TJ that first time, but they don't know about that. Bin ich am Arsch if they ever find out. But you didn't commit a crime."

It's the only thing that helps unwind the knot in my stomach. Fitz knew he needed to take the opportunity to promote his song in the wake of his friend's murder. It goes against any ethical principle, but how else am I going to get back at Eris?

My main defense will be claiming the painting they found is the forgery. If not even I could tell the difference, they won't know any better. When analyzing copies of old paintings, there's ways to date the paint, to analyze the varnish and materials, but Eris and I's techniques were the same.

Which leaves the question—why would anyone take the time to forge something so irrelevant in the grand scheme? That's for the police to figure out, because snitching on Eris would be like signing my own death warrant.

And she knows it. She's oh so confident I won't spill, and I don't need her to text me back to feel her self-satisfied, gap-toothed smile mocking me from all directions.

But her talent will be the death of her. If the police discover Eris and her perfect forgeries on their own, that's simply not my problem.

I want to destroy the forgery now sitting under my bed, burn everything her hands have touched, eliminate all traces of her contagion.

Instead, I write my signature on the canvas to match the original. It's giving into her to the highest extent, accepting that it's possible to pass her work off as my own. With the same black ink and loopy letters, Eris' copy is officially mine.

▴ ▴ ▴

It happens too soon. Not even a day later, and here I am, plucked out of class to sit in a police station.

I haven't even met the lawyer William promised me yet, and now I have to give my premature testimony. The more I talk, the more holes they'll find in my fake story, and I muster all the silence and composure I'm capable of.

I hate how my family will have to spend even more money to get me out of this mess. I've fallen to a level I always forbade myself from, making the same mistakes as my father. Even worse, because I don't reckon Marcus and Iker ended up making out on a driveway under the moonlight.

Growing up, one never hears good things about cops. My father is a self-proclaimed communist, which clashed a lot with my mother's military career. And I've heard enough of Fitz's rants about police brutality to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The detective is Colin Price, special agent from the Drug Enforcement Association, white with a valley accent and an absurdly casual Hawaiian polo shirt.

He's recording the interview on a tape, has me sign a paper saying I won't lie to the police, and that my testimony could be used in a court of law. I repeat the words William told me in my head, knowing there's nothing anyone can do to make me break.

At first, he asks the basic questions. Where I go to school. Whether or not I work. Stuff I can't deny, but that's how they start, aiming to get me comfortable enough to admit my guilt as smoothly as I tell them my name.

And then he shows me the picture of the art bust.

"Can you confirm this is your painting?" he asks.

Can I? Can I tell him about it being a forgery?

"It looks like it," I say. "But the funny thing is, I have one at home just like it."

"A forgery?" he asks. "A forgery found among the pieces from Vermeer and Manet. A forgery of your painting, which you completed months ago as part of a contest. You, a completely unknown artist."

My eye almost twitches. Unknown artist. Does he really need to rub it in?

I need to strike the right balance between silence and honesty. Say too little, he'll get suspicious. Say too much, and I'm guilty as charged.

"I'm just as confused as you are, sir," I say, attempting to play dumb, but it just comes off as sarcasm.

How am I supposed to admit someone stole the painting? My only real enemy is Eris, and even though the last thing I want is to protect her name, she'll come for me if I deflect the attention onto her.

Colin folds his hands over the table separating us, his eye bags prominent in the harsh fluorescent light, and smiles with the fakest sympathy I've ever seen.

"And could this have anything to do with that party you attended?" he drawls.

My eyes shoot up to meet his. My first instinct is to fill my lungs with as much air as possible, but I keep my breaths slow and still, even as the stuffy air suffocates me.

"With your fellow artist friend, Eris Lugo," he continues. "Could that be... where you were seen talking to Ximena Leyva?"

I blank. He knows. They know.

Someone snitched.

I think of Javier, holding the bloody stumps of his fingers. I think of his drunk father, stumbling and blubbering apologies.

How am I supposed to feign innocence if Colin here knows I was at a party with drug lords? Does he know about Eris' status? Iker's? Is the only way out of this to come clean? Because I could.

Right now, I have the power to ruin their façade. I could destroy Eris completely, take her to fucking court. It would mean an all-out war with Iker. My family and I going into witness protection. The end of Fitz's music career. We'd probably have to move back to Europe.

"I was looking into your father's history," Colin says, pulling at as many strings as he can to test my reactions, but I've had plenty of practice swallowing my emotions and putting on a stony face. Now, though, I'm really starting to think I'll need an ancestral god's blessing to get out of this one.

"I have a lawyer," I blurt out, and Colin quirks an eyebrow. "I would like her present before continuing this conversation."

"Ah, yes, one of your uncle William's friends, I assume," he says. "Anyway, some... particularities about your resident status have come to my attention. If I have your cooperation, I'm sure I could do something about getting you settled here permanently."

What doesn't this man know about me?

The threat is too thinly-veiled for my liking: play nice, or get your ass deported.

Sucks for him, because I'm bolting back to Canada as soon as my diploma is in my hand. Who knew you could buy your way to a green card by being a snitch. Better than marrying a gremlin like Eris.

"How thoughtful," I say. "But I really need to consult with my lawyer first."

And then he starts to ask me about Eris. Where we met. The "nature of my relationship" with her.

It's uncanny—every time I think of her, he mentions her out loud.

"We are civil," I say simply. "We are currently working together for the Arts Olympiad."

"And that's it?"

He wants to know if I care about her. If I would lie to protect her.

"That's it," I affirm.

He smiles again, and I think of those conspiracy videos Fitz ironically watches sometimes about the world's Illuminati elites being part of an alien race of slit-eyed reptilians. Colin here sure fits the part.

And it's more than clear. Whatever bribery Iker is doing isn't enough.

They have Eris' scent.

▴ ▴ ▴

a/n: anyone miss eris already? don't worry, there will finally be a confrontation in the following chapter :o)

song for this chapter is "dilemme" by lous and the yakuza (as usual, it's linked in the header at the beginning), something out of persephone's playlist this time!

anyway, let me know what you think as the plot thickens. will eris and ef be able to come back from this one?