LOVE UNDERCOVER

Chapter 8

Who is Olga Federova? That is a question you will find in almost every art think piece on the Internet. You can even find it on the cover of Vogue, The New York Times, and WSJ along with an inset of the artist or her work.

The question is usually followed by a detailed dissection of her meteoric rise in the art world, comparisons to her contemporaries Do Ho Guh and Lee Sueng, a list of her highest bid artworks, and inevitably a couple of lines waxing poetic about her beauty.

What no one will tell you is that Olga was born Olga Kuzentov. Yes, that Kuzentov. Russian cartel, drug magnates of the East.

At first, she wasn't really into the family business. Pilates and paint were her drugs of choice. But when it became clear that she didn't like the starving part of being an artist - Olga stepped back in and learned the ropes.

Besides, everyone knew art and money laundering went together perfectly- like butter and toast.

It was simple enough, Olga had a PR firm solely dedicated to hyping up their art trio, driving up the prices of their work. It was an easy sell as they were actually good artists and all three had enough charisma to power a planet. Then they auction off art pieces whenever necessary through a gallery and they anonymously buy them back. The cash is paid to the the gallery. The gallery then wires the artist's cut through a bank and voila! They have clean money plus artwork they can resell for millions. Of course, there are other steps and considerations- but you get the drift.

Usually, Olga played it safe and jumped from one gallery to another, from one country to another. This minimizes the paper trail so yes, the FBI, the Interpol, etc could stumble upon the gallery but they'd never be able to prove the gallery was laundering for the Kuzentovs.

But Kpop of all things have made Do Ho Guh, Lee Sueng and Olga popular beyond belief. Asian art was in demand and Olga needed an Asian gallery to handle her shit.

Enter Thyme. Handsome, rich, and owner of the biggest gallery in Thailand. He was good at his job and passionate about art but the best thing about him?

He was naive.

This boy knew nothing about money laundering or drug dealing. So there was no bribing, no further explanations, and no double crossing.

Olga could enjoy her media darling status and her clean money and the police would just keep running into walls.

Perfect.

Well, it was perfect.

Now, she's not so sure.
Was Thyme a double agent all this time?
Was this Kavin person really just the boyfriend? 

She has not heard of him at all in all the time she's had Thyme bugged and followed.

A quick investigation does show that the two knew each other since preschool and have been inseparable until the policeman left 5 years ago.

The timing of his return coinciding with one of Olga's most important auctions was very suspicious.

Olga sighs as she tries on yet another shoe. This one was white and gorgeous but she hated how prominent the Manolo Blahnik square was. She motions for a new designs to be brought over and at once all three sales ladies run to get new boxes.

Well, it's too late to move her auction now. She needed that money clean at end of the week to complete the purchase and sale of several nuclear warheads. In this line of work, you can't delay deadlines or you're the one who ends up dead. Surely, a woman such as herself can handle Thyme and his lover. But first, she'd have to meet him. Kill him then and there if she had to.