Chapter 3 - The Vault Behind the Velvet Curtain
The private salon in the west wing was warm, smelling of dried lavender, beeswax, and a roaring fire of split hickory.
Julian set me down on a deep leather chaise lounge beside the hearth, arranging a heavy cashmere throw over my shivering legs before stepping aside to allow Dr. Harris access.
Dr. Harris was a silver-haired orthopedic surgeon who had patched bullet wounds and broken ribs for the Vance syndicate for thirty years. He knelt beside my right arm with a pair of surgical shears, cleanly slicing away the torn sleeve of my linen blouse to expose the deformed shoulder.
He didn't need an x-ray.
The head of the humerus sat forward and down, bulging unnaturally beneath the bruised skin, flanked by a sharp, square contusion the exact size of the Roman pedestal’s plinth.
“Subcoracoid anterior dislocation,” Dr. Harris diagnosed grimly, his fingers probing the margins with clinical precision. “Ligamentous tear along the inferior glenohumeral band. It took substantial, violent force to knock this joint out of position. A trip on a carpet wouldn't do this unless she was hurled off a balcony.”
Julian stood by the mantelpiece, his overcoat discarded, his shirtsleeves rolled twice around his corded, scarred forearms.
He watched the doctor’s hands with terrifying, unblinking focus.
“Can you reduce it here, Arthur?” Julian asked.
“I can,” the physician answered, reaching into his leather medical bag for an ampoule of fast-acting local anesthetic. “It will be agonizing for about four seconds. Hold her steady, Julian.”
Julian walked over without hesitation.
He sat on the edge of the chaise lounge, his broad frame crowding out the shadows. He reached down, taking my cold, trembling left hand into his massive palm, while his other hand gently braced the uninjured side of my neck.
“Look at me, Clara,” Julian commanded softly.
I looked into his eyes—slate-gray, unyielding, carrying the weight of a man who had stared down firing squads without flinching.
“Breathe out,” he murmured.
I exhaled.
Dr. Harris gripped my wrist and applied sudden, precise external rotation and traction.
A sickening, hollow clunk echoed through the quiet room as the bone snapped back into its anatomical socket.
A blinding sheet of white agony exploded across my skull. I gasped, my fingernails digging instinctively into the meat of Julian’s palm, biting deep enough to draw blood through his skin.
Julian didn't flinch.
He didn't pull away.
He leaned closer, absorbing the shock of my pain against his own chest, his thumb smoothing over my temple as the black edges of unconsciousness receded into a dull, thumping ache.
“Good girl,” Julian whispered against my forehead. “It’s over. The joint is set.”
Dr. Harris quickly bound my arm against my torso with an elastic immobilization sling, taping the fasteners with practiced efficiency.
“Rest for forty-eight hours, Miss Vance—pardon me, Miss Clara,” the doctor said, wiping his hands. “Ice every two hours. I’ll write a script for the pain.”
The heavy oak doors of the salon swung open.
Frank walked in, his face dark with lethal certainty. In his hands, he carried an open wooden crate filled with excelsior packing straw.
Inside the straw lay eight heavy glass jars bearing German labels: Titanium White — High Molecular Acrylic Polymer.
Beside the jars lay three sliced canvases, their stretcher bars hacked away with a box cutter.
Julian slowly released my hand, rising to his full height like an executioner rising from his bench.
“What did you find in vault three, Frank?” Julian asked, his voice deathly level.
“The Dutch masters, boss,” Frank reported, his knuckles white against the crate wood. “The Vermeer landscape and the two Rembrandts your grandfather acquired in forty-eight. The originals were removed from their frames forty minutes ago and rolled into shipping tubes marked for Zurich.”
Frank set the crate on the low table before the hearth.
May you like
“And the courier manifest was signed by Charles Sterling. Miss Genevieve’s father.”
---
