Meret Quinn walked into the gallery draped on the arm of a millionaire who liked the sound of his own voice a little too much. He had a talent for interrupting people mid sentence and making every conversation about himself… which made him perfect.
Meret wore nerdy glasses, a modest but elegant gown, and a soft expression that suggested she'd gotten lost on her way to a poetry reading. At first glance, she looked like the kind of girl who giggled too easily and apologized when someone else bumped into her. Harmless. Forgettable. Naive.
And that was exactly the point.
She let him talk—God, did he talk. About his hedge fund, his car collection, his ex-wife's new boyfriend. He was loud enough to draw attention, flashy enough to block suspicion. Meret smiled in all the right places, laughed when she was supposed to, and mentally counted the cameras lining the marble trimmed walls. Twelve visible. Two mobiles. One suspicious vent cover near the far sculpture and definitely wired.
That was the thing about rooms like this: they made a show of what they wanted people to look at. Spotlights. Placards. Dramatic angles.
But sometimes, the most valuable thing in the room wasn't the centerpiece.
Sometimes, it was hiding in the dark.
Like what Meret was here for.
It was a coin. Small, unassuming. Roughly the size of a half-dollar, coated in aged gold with an ancient crest etched into its surface. And unlike the other artifacts gleaming under spotlighted glass, the coin wasn't even on display.
It sat behind a roped-off alcove near the back wall, perched on a black velvet stand inside a pressure-sealed case. No placard. No description. Just silence and shadow. Two armed guards posted on either side, earpieces in, scanning the room with predator stillness. Behind them, a third guard paced slowly, eyes sweeping. Bored on the outside. Trained on the inside.
Meret counted at least four more stationed across the gallery with overlapping sightlines. All that muscle and silence for something they pretended wasn't worth noticing.
And that told her everything.
Where the other pieces begged for admiration, this one was being hidden in plain sight. No fanfare or announcement. It was like a secret no one was allowed to ask about.
But to a thief like her, that was as good as a flashing neon sign.
She didn't need a spotlight to recognize value. She'd seen enough black-market vaults and high-stakes auctions to know: anything protected this heavily, yet kept off the official list, wasn't just rare.
It was untouchable.
Which made stealing it all the more fun.
Her date excused himself to "network," which meant cornering a pair of old men by the wine bar and bragging about his off-market yacht. Meret slipped through the crowd unnoticed, her posture deliberately hunched to appear overwhelmed. She let herself brush past the exhibit's security perimeter just enough to feel the static of an invisible alarm. Close, but not close enough to trip it.
She ducked behind a column. Reached up. Pressed her fingers into the pin of her hair. A tiny flick released the micro tool hidden inside a mechanism custom built by her, because if you wanted something done right, you didn't outsource.
The cameras caught the feed they were programmed to catch. An intern in the security booth yawned as he glanced over the monitors. None of them caught the half-second disruption Meret's device caused just enough to swap the feed with a clean loop. Her loop.
She moved swiftly. The case opened with a soft click, no louder than a breath. The Coin sat on a velvet. Her gloved hand reached in and inspected it with a grin.
The coin she took slid into the lining of her clutch. She closed the case.
Reengaged the lock.
And walked away like nothing happened.
Just before rejoining the crowd, Meret reached into the lining of her clutch… not for the coin this time, but for her calling card. A black rectangle with a single silver symbol etched across it. No name. No number. Just a mark that had been showing up at high-profile thefts for years. A ghost's signature.
But she didn't leave it behind the case she had stolen from as she normally did.
She slipped it between her fingers instead, the cool metal edge brushing her palm as she walked back toward the noise.
Her date was right where she expected him: gesturing wildly at the bar, trying to impress a sharply dressed man with a glass of scotch in one hand and a predator's calm in the other. His name was Lucien Moretti. The man she'd just stolen from. And he didn't even know it yet.
Meret's heel caught on the marble.
She let herself stumble just enough to bump clumsily into her date's side.
"Bitch, get off me," he snapped, jerking his arm like she was something sticky clinging to him.
She let the momentum carry her; half-step back, half-spin… and exaggerated the fall straight into Lucien Moretti.
Her hand caught the edge of his jacket. Her shoulder brushed his chest. The contact lasted only a second, but long enough.
Lucien's glass didn't so much as tremble. But his gaze dropped first to her hand, then to her face. Assessing her.
Meret blinked rapidly, her face flushing as she pulled back. "I—I'm so sorry," she stammered, voice cracking, eyes wide with staged embarrassment.
Her date rolled his eyes. "Fucking hell," he muttered under his breath, already brushing himself off like her presence had soiled him. "Get lost, Anna. Go mingle with your mates or something."
"I don't think I want to be here anymore," she whispered, shrinking back, gaze cast low. "No one's talking to me… I feel stupid."
He didn't respond, just waved her off with a disgusted grunt before turning back to Lucien and mutttering something about girls being "Pick Me's".
Meret turned quickly, slipping through the murmuring crowd with her head down like she was trying to hide tears.
But Lucien's eyes stayed on her the entire time till she vanished from his line of sight.
Outside, the night air bit through the fake silk of her dress. She didn't stop until she reached the side street where her cab was parked. The second she slid into the backseat, her hands were moving—tugging off the wig, peeling back the silicone prosthetics along her cheekbones and jaw. Her entire face shifted in the rearview mirror. Her brows sharper, cheekbones higher, with a cheeky expression on.
From her inner jacket pocket, she pulled out a small velvet pouch.
Inside: the real coin.
The one Lucien Moretti had been patting in his coat pocket all night, over and over, as if reassuring himself it was still there. He'd never trusted the gallery to protect it. Meret had seen it in the way he kept touching that spot, even while sipping wine and pretending to listen.
She'd confirmed her theory the moment she bumped into him.
The fake coin she'd found in the display case now sat in his pocket—next to her calling card.