A beggar who became a billionaire

Chapter 9: The Harwick Gallery

The doorman barely glanced at Andre before waving him through.

That surprised him more than anything else that night. He had expected questions, suspicion, someone to look at his borrowed suit and see straight through it to the man underneath. Instead, the doorman simply checked a name off a list Andre had never given him, muttered "Mr. Reyes, third floor," and turned to the next guest.

Andre kept walking before his luck could change.

Someone else was already using his invitation. Someone had put his face, or a description close enough, onto that list before he even arrived.

The phone had done this. It had to have.

The third floor of the gallery was a wide, dimly lit room filled with quiet conversation and the soft clink of expensive glasses. Paintings lined the walls, though nobody seemed particularly interested in looking at them. All the attention in the room was aimed toward a raised platform at the far end, where a velvet curtain hid whatever the night's real business would be.

Andre took a glass of champagne from a passing tray, more for something to hold than any desire to drink it, and moved carefully along the edge of the room, studying faces.

That was when he saw him.

Claire's father stood near the platform, deep in conversation with two men Andre did not recognize. He looked older than Andre remembered, the lines on his face sharper, his usual confident posture replaced by something tighter, more strained. A man trying very hard to look like nothing was wrong.

Andre's chest tightened. He turned his face away quickly, angling himself behind a tall sculpture, his heart hammering.

He is here. Why is he here?

The Sterling family did not attend gallery auctions for entertainment. Andre remembered enough from his marriage to know that much. They attended events like this for exactly one reason.

Business.

Andre edged closer, staying in the shadows near the wall, close enough to catch fragments of the conversation.

"...cannot afford another delay," Claire's father was saying, his voice low and urgent. "The banks are already asking questions we cannot answer."

"Then you should not have come tonight without knowing the reserve price," one of the other men replied coolly. "This item alone could resolve half your problem, if you are willing to pay what it is worth."

Claire's father's jaw tightened. "I will pay whatever it takes."

Andre's mind raced. Half your problem. The Sterling family, drowning enough that a single item at a private auction could rescue them. He thought of the earlier reviewer's note about hidden debt, about an empire slowly collapsing behind a wealthy image, and felt something cold and sharp settle in his chest.

He had come here chasing Mara. He had not expected to walk straight into the beginning of his own revenge.

A soft chime rang through the room. Conversation quieted. The velvet curtain on the platform began to rise.

Andre's breath caught.

Sitting alone on a small pedestal, lit by a single spotlight, was a phone.

Black glass. No visible brand. No scratches, despite whatever journey had brought it to this room.

It looked exactly like the one resting in Andre's own pocket.

The auctioneer stepped forward, his voice smooth and practiced. "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's final item requires no description. Those of you who understand its value already know precisely what you are bidding for. Those who do not will simply have to trust the numbers about to be spoken in this room."

A ripple of tense laughter moved through the crowd, though Andre noticed only a handful of guests were actually smiling.

"We will begin the bidding," the auctioneer continued, "at two million dollars."

Andre's knees nearly buckled. Two million dollars. For a phone. A phone identical to the one he had pulled out of a restaurant trash bin four days ago.

Paddles rose around the room almost immediately. Numbers climbed fast, shouted calmly by voices used to spending fortunes without blinking. Two point five. Three. Three point two.

Claire's father raised his paddle at three point five million, his hand almost steady, almost confident.

Someone across the room immediately countered at four.

Andre stood frozen at the edge of the crowd, watching a war being fought over the very thing that had turned his entire life upside down in less than a week, wondering how many more of these devices existed, who was making them, and why people with more money than Andre could ever imagine were willing to destroy themselves financially just to own one.

Then a voice spoke quietly, directly beside his ear, close enough that he felt breath against his neck.

"You should not be here, Andre."

Andre spun around so fast he nearly dropped his glass.

Mara stood beside him, alive, dressed in a sleek black gown that made her nearly unrecognizable from the woman in the grey coat at the warehouse. Her eyes were sharp with warning, flicking briefly toward the crowd before settling back on his face.

"You are alive," Andre breathed, relief crashing through him so hard it nearly buckled his knees a second time.

"For now." Mara's expression stayed tight, controlled. "And you will not be, if you do not leave this room in the next sixty seconds."

"What? Why?"

Mara's eyes flicked toward the platform, toward the bidding war still climbing higher behind them, then back to Andre with something close to fear.

"Because the man standing three feet behind you," she said quietly, "has been staring at the outline of your pocket for the last two minutes."

Andre's blood turned to ice.

He did not need to turn around to know who it was.