After the waiter left, he asked, “How did you know he speaks Italian?” Sure, the menu was written in both languages, but the man had a Maltese accent and Italian was not an official language.

“I heard him talking to another table.” She nodded to an elderly couple seated behind him a few tables away.

Given the noise and their own intense conversation, she shouldn’t have been able to hear or pay attention to the other table’s chatter. But if there had been a lull in the music, the Italian words might have stood out. Or Kira was better trained in the ways of the Valkyries than she’d let on.

Chapter Sixteen

Rand wanted to take her hand as they descended the hill to their hotel. He had to remind himself they hadn’t been on a date. They weren’t really on vacation together. They were not about to become lovers.

It was far too easy to slip out of reality with her. To think this was the real world. Author and art historian. Not SEAL and Valkyrie.

Both contained truth and lies.

One was just more true than the other.

When they reached the hotel, Rand purchased a bottle of wine from the small bar by the concierge desk, and they went to the upper terrace to enjoy the view of the harbor while they talked.

Thankfully, the rooftop terrace was empty of other hotel guests, so they could speak freely, for now, at least. Rand poured them each a glass of wine. Instead of sitting at the table where he set the bottle, they stood side by side at the rail and looked out across the harbor. It was Friday night, and the jazz bar on the street below was in full swing. The music was lively and changing, an endless flow of swing and blues rhythms.

Across the water, the limestone walls of Fort St. Angelo glowed, as did a cathedral or two, along with mega yachts just visible at the edge of the harbor by the fort.

Every few minutes, fireworks popped, first to the left, then the right. Some erupted behind them. Kira laughed with delight at the sounds and displays.

It was a sultry evening, and he was with the woman who’d dominated his thoughts for six months. He sipped his wine and drank her in.

She caught him staring at her, gave him a crooked smile, and said, “What?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Her smile deepened. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for not kicking me to the curb.”

She turned to face the harbor again. “Well, you might come in handy.”

He chuckled. “You have no idea how handy I can be.”

“Riiight.” She let out a soft laugh. “I was thinking it might be good to have a buyer interested in acquiring art from a private collection.” All at once, she closed her eyes and sighed. “Shit. Freya planted the seeds for that idea yesterday on the phone. I’ve been manipulated again.”

“It was my idea to surprise you at the gallery, but it wasn’t meant to be manipulative. It was to cement my cover story. Get me by your side.”

“I’m not talking about that. I get that part. It’s just…Freya.” She ran a finger around the lip of her wineglass. “She’s never direct. Not with me.”

“Have you been direct with her, about why you’re here?”

“It isn’t really any of her business.”

He wanted to argue that point, given the assistance Freya was giving him, but Kira was right. Kira hadn’t asked for FMVs or even his help. She owed them nothing.

“Will you tell me? Please?”

She nodded.

He wondered if she’d ask him to not report back to Freya what he’d learned and was relieved when she launched into the story without making demands. “I’m here for the same reason as my dad. He had a contact in Malta helping him with his never-ending quest to find art seized by Nazis during World War II—art in general, but also his stepfather’s family’s lost art.”

“Is your family Jewish?”

She shook her head. “My mother wasn’t, and while there might be some Jewish ancestry on my father’s side, I’ve only been able to confirm my paternal step-grandfather’s Jewish heritage.” She shrugged. “My parents weren’t religious, but we celebrated Santa Claus. Mom grew up in East Germany but I’m pretty sure she was born in Russia. I believe her father was someone important, and the Communist Party sent him and his family to East Germany after the war.”

“Pretty sure. And believe?”

“My mom never talked about her childhood. I know she was fluent in German and Russian—she did Russian translation work for my father sometimes, but she refused to teach me Russian.”

“You speak German, though?”

She nodded.

Remembering her conversation with the waiter, he asked, “How many languages do you speak?”

“English, of course. German, Italian, Greek.” She ticked off each language on a finger, then held up her whole hand. “Plus, I can read Latin.”

He could see why she’d be a valuable asset to Friday Morning Valkyries. When he’d first met Kira, she’d come across as deeply shy, but when she was in her element, she blossomed. He’d seen that again in the classroom on Tuesday.

Here, she wasn’t that shy woman at all. She was confidence and sparkle.

He had to force himself to return to the subject at hand, which was disconcerting. He was an operator, and this, unfortunately, was a mission, not a date.

“So you don’t know if your mother had Jewish ancestry?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s possible. All I know for certain is her childhood religion was communism, which meant she was delighted to participate in American Christmas traditions. She loved all the lights and decorations.”

She sipped her wine, then continued. “But back to the original question. My paternal grandparents immigrated to the US right after World War II. They settled in Pennsylvania, and my dad—their only child—was born in 1951. After his father died in the mid-seventies, his mom returned to West Germany and a few years later remarried. My dad ended up doing postdoc work at a university there. According to my newfound cousin, it was so he could spend time with his mom and get to know his new stepfather and stepbrother.

“Naturally, with his studies being in art history, his stepfather shared the stories of the art his family had for generations that had been stolen by the Nazis. He asked my father to look for it. My father accepted the challenge and spent the last decades of his life not just searching for the Stoltz family art, but also other art that went into Russian hands at the end of the war.”

“And your father had a contact here, in Malta?”

“It’s all a bit vague, but my father received letters. I don’t know where the correspondent lives, but I think Malta was the meet point, given my father’s frequent trips here. The last letter, received before he had his first stroke, made it sound like the Stoltz family art might have been located and they needed to meet.

“I think…I think the man my father corresponded with for over thirty years is Russian, which fits with what we know about the art that remains missing after all these years. The Soviets kept the art they found in Nazi stockpiles after the war. It was probably gifted to their best generals, who later morphed into oligarchs after the fall of the Soviet Union. This person, if their communist ties go back far enough, could know where all those magnificent pieces went.”

Chapter Seventeen

A rush of nervousness shot through Kira as she waited for Rand’s reaction. She didn’t need to hear skepticism or doubt. She didn’t need to hear him say she was too emotionally invested in this to be logical, or something else that belittled her knowledge and expertise.