The Picasso Heist

by James Patterson, Howard Roughan

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Financial Thrillers

Synopsis

Organized crime bosses, power-hungry government officials, filthy rich Manhattan art people, and a notorious forger all vie for control of a $100 million painting. 

A previously unknown Picasso—hidden for decades in the attic of a French villa—rocks the art world.
The momentous discovery is transported to a New York auction house. 
Whoever possesses this artwork will make an indelible mark. 
​But none of the power players are counting on a twenty-two-year-old art thief shrewd enough to steal the show.

Release date: October 13, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

TENNIS, ANYONE?

Growing up, I remember my mother really wanting me to learn how to play the sport. She never asked if it was actually something I wanted to do, and not once did I express even the slightest interest in setting foot on a court. Still, for my twelfth birthday, she handed me a pink envelope with my name, Halston, spelled out in rainbow-glitter glue, and inside was a card announcing that I’d been signed up for a dozen tennis lessons at the local YWCA.

Honestly, I think my mother simply liked the idea of having a daughter who played tennis. It conveyed normalcy, as if we were your typical upper-middle-class family living in Westchester, New York. (Spoiler alert: We weren’t.)

But that’s what most alcoholics do, and that’s why my mother used to bury her empty liquor bottles at the bottom of our recycling bins: They try like hell to hide the truth. Or, better yet, they construct their own reality. So whether or not I was having fun playing tennis didn’t seem to matter much to my mother. It looked good, like she was being a good parent. Who cared if I enjoyed it? (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.)

Still, I never missed a single one of those tennis lessons. I learned how to play, and that of course included learning how to keep score. It’s ten years later, I’m twenty-two, and I haven’t picked up a racket since then. But I still know how to keep score.

And that’s where this story begins.

“Skip, talk to me. How’s the volume?” I whisper, testing the level in my earpiece, which is hidden by the blond wig underneath my baseball cap. I’m in Queens at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, right next to Citi Field, where the Mets play, so I’m wearing a Mets cap. This whole operation is about blending in.

“Volume’s good,” I hear back in my ear, “although I’m getting a little static, and you broke up on me there for a sec—”

Skip’s voice suddenly cuts out, and I start dropping F-bombs, thinking we’re screwed. Skip laughs. He’s messing with me. That’s what older brothers do. He can hear me crystal clear in his hotel room at the W Hoboken over in New Jersey. The hotel has good Wi-Fi, over 100 Mbps. More important, at least according to Skip, it’s got a kick-ass bacon cheeseburger on the room-service menu.

“You logged in?” I ask.

“Yeah,” says Skip. “Are they done warming up?”

“Yep. They’re just about to start.”

It’s day two of the US Open tennis tournament, still the first round in a crowded field of over two hundred men and women. That means the most matches are being played on the most courts with the most chair umpires being used, including none other than the man of the hour, Lucas Montgomery.

Lucas is a very tall, lanky Australian in his late fifties who doesn’t so much sit in his umpire chair as fold himself into it, contorting his body so his bended knees are nearly as high as his chest. Perched above midcourt, he looks like a human accordion. I absolutely love Lucas. I’d follow him anywhere, and this summer, after graduating college, I literally have. The Mallorca Championships, Wimbledon, the Swiss Open Gstaad. What a great way to see the world, and all of it paid for with wagers placed and won in split seconds.

courtsiding

verb

Transmitting real-time information from a sports event (especially a tennis match) for the purpose of gaining a betting advantage

In other words, if we can place a bet online before the bookmakers adjust their real-time odds, we have the upper hand. Advantage us. All it takes is that certain chair umpire who officially updates the score after each point a teeny bit slower than I update Skip on his laptop at the hotel. Someone like Lucas Montgomery, aka Slow Hand Luke.

Is courtsiding against the law? Technically, no. Just don’t try telling that to the guys who run the online betting site offering the highest limits for live, in-match betting. That crew tends to have a slightly different opinion about courtsiding, one that they’d be more than happy to make me painfully aware of—and I do mean painfully—should they ever get the chance. Like today, for instance.

Because today I’m going to make a mistake. A big mistake. Huge. The kind that will forever change the rest of my life.

I’m going to get caught.

“FIVE, RED,” I whisper just loud enough so Skip can hear me over the cheering crowd.

Five as in five hundred dollars. Red as in the Russian. I never bet during the first few games of a match when the two players are feeling each other out. But once they settle into the first set, I pounce.

Red’s opponent is Green, a Brazilian. Flag colors are faster than names.

Lucas, snug in his umpire chair, maneuvers his long arm like a crane and taps his touch screen right as I relay the bet, but I’ve beat him by a breath. As he announces the score I hear back from Skip. “In,” says my brother. He got the bet in before the odds changed.

We’ve got five hundred bucks on Red, the Russian player, to win the game. He’s now ahead, 40–30, but our payoff reflects the longer odds of 30–30. Just like that, we’ve got a better chance of winning with a bigger payout.

Is it guaranteed? No. Green could win the next point, taking it to deuce, then win two more points in a row after that to take the game. But the chances of that happening are not nearly as good as the chances of Red prevailing. Gambling is about one thing and one thing only: Leverage. You have it or you don’t.

We have it. Red wins the game and our account gets credited $1,060—$500 back for the initial wager, plus $560 profit. And now it’s on to the next game and the next bet. That is, until I hear the voice to my right.

“Good match so far,” the man says, leaning slightly toward me. “Very entertaining, no?” He’s got a thick Eastern European accent. His breath reeks of cigarettes, two packs a day.

I know he wasn’t sitting there a minute ago. Now he is. That’s what I get for being so focused on placing my bet in time.

“Yeah. It’s pretty good tennis,” I answer, staring straight ahead. I don’t look at him.

“Who are you rooting for?” he asks.

It’s a harmless question but I know this guy’s anything but harmless. He’s not trying to be menacing. He doesn’t have to try. It clearly comes naturally. Keep it together now, Halston. Breathe in, breathe out…

“I don’t know who I’m rooting for,” I say. “I guess I don’t really care who wins.”

I can feel and smell him leaning in even closer. “Yeah, but if you had to bet,” he whispers, “who would you bet on?”

For the first time, I turn to him. He’s got greasy dark hair combed across his forehead in a guillotine-like slant. He’s smiling. He’s also big. No, thick is a better word. His forearms, folded tight against his chest, look to be the size of ham hocks. I’m guessing they’re covered in tattoos, but I can’t see them because he’s wearing a tragically ugly teal windbreaker. Never mind there’s not a cloud in the sky, we’re in late August, and it’s pushing ninety degrees.

“What do you want?” I ask.

What he wants first is to show me the gun he’s got tucked in his waistband underneath the windbreaker. The second thing he wants is my earpiece. He sticks out his palm. “Hand it over,” he says. “Along with your phone.”

The next game in the match has just gone to deuce on Green’s serve. I would’ve been placing another bet after the following point. How much of this are you hearing, Skip?

I glance down again at the gun the guy’s got tucked into his waistband and then back up at his eyes. I’m wearing sunglasses; he’s not. He wants me to be able to see his eyes. I could play stupid and ask, What earpiece? But stupid won’t get me anywhere. Coy is a different story, though. Coy buys me a little time.

“We both know you’re not about to shoot me in front of all these people, and you’re not going to throw me over your shoulder or drag me out of here kicking and screaming,” I say. “So what’s to stop me from standing up and heading for the first cop I see? There’s lots of them around here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

He laughs. “Such a clever girl, huh? But we also both know you’re not going to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we found you, that’s why. Now we’ll always be able to find you, Halston.” He really enjoys saying my name, showing me that he knows it. “Come with me now and we won’t hurt you,” he says. “But if you don’t come with me now? We’ll definitely hurt you.”

I think it over for a few seconds, or at least I act as if that’s what I’m doing. My mind’s been made up since the very second this guy sat down. Meanwhile, Red wins the next point with an overhead slam, the ball careening into the stands. I look up at Lucas, crammed in his umpire chair, as he methodically inputs the score change. Damn; I could’ve placed ten bets in the time that took.

But my courtsiding days are over for now. I’ve officially been caught.

I take out my earpiece and hand it and my phone over to my new friend in the ugly teal windbreaker.

“Okay, you win,” I say. “Let’s go.”

HE FOLLOWS ME out of the stands, staying a few steps behind me and talking only when he needs to tell me left, right, or keep going straight. I glance back over my shoulder just once, not at his lumpy face but down at his Gucci-wannabe shoes with inch-high heels that scrape on the pavement, first one, then the other, sounding like a rusted metronome.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks when I make a sharp turn that he didn’t instruct me to take.

“I’m thirsty,” I answer.

He looks and sees the water fountain against the wall to our left. What I don’t think he sees is the security camera about twenty yards away from it. He of course knows there are cameras everywhere at the tournament but he most likely doesn’t realize that this is how the police will know I didn’t leave alone. I had company, and it’s the guy cooling his cheap one-inch heels behind me while I bend at the waist and take a long sip. No one’s ever going to mistake the two of us for boyfriend and girlfriend. I turn around, take another glance at his greasy hair and that god-awful teal windbreaker. Ugh. At least I hope not.

He falls in step behind me again, definitely closer now. “Up ahead, just outside the gate,” he says. “The Uber lot.”

We leave the grounds, passing a couple of cops along the way. I don’t look at them, staring instead at the huge black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows that’s idling behind a couple of rows of late-model Nissan Sentras and Toyota Camrys doing pickups and drop-offs. The most unsurprising sentence of the day is when he announces that our destination is the Escalade. As we near it, he walks in front of me, then opens the back passenger door and points inside. The second I get in, I see another huge, hulking guy sitting by the opposite window; he tells me to slide over. He’s also got an Eastern European accent, although not quite as thick. I move to the middle seat, and Mr. Ugly Teal Windbreaker climbs in next to me and slams the door shut.

And just like that, I’m the meat in a goon sandwich.

Faster than you can say rodeo, my wrists are zip-tied tight together. My wig and sunglasses are yanked off, a black pillowcase is pulled over my head, and I officially can’t see where we’re going. The driver, who I didn’t get a good look at, takes off, but not before turning up the radio in case I decide to scream. Why they didn’t gag me too, I don’t know. Then again, who says a mob abduction has to be an exercise in airtight logic?

I’m not about to scream. There’s no point. Besides, it would only make it hotter underneath this pillowcase, the fabric of which likely possesses the thread count of industrial sandpaper. I remain silent, as do the other three, while Bruce Springsteen belts out “Rosalita.” Only when we speed up and merge onto what I’m guessing is Grand Central Parkway does the radio get turned down. Still, no one talks until about twenty minutes later when we veer onto an exit, slowing down. That’s when I make an announcement. “I have to pee,” I say.

I don’t really have to go to the bathroom but it’s the quickest way to figure out the pecking order among these guys. Whoever responds to me is a little higher on the organizational chart than the other two. He’ll speak up because he knows it’s his decision whether or not we stop for me to pee. Already, though, I can rule out the driver. Drivers are always entry-level. My money’s on the guy to my left, whose only job thus far has been to sit there and do nothing.

Sure enough: “Hold it in,” he tells me. “We’re almost there.”

No surprise, we’re actually not. We’re still driving after half an hour. By the time we’re done taking all the turns and exits, I don’t even know what borough we’re in anymore or even if we’re still in New York. Finally we come to what I think is another red light, only it isn’t. Wherever we are, we’ve arrived. I listen to the loud, mechanical cranking of a heavy garage door rising. We creep forward only a little farther than the length of the Escalade before the cranking resumes: the same garage door closing. The driver cuts the engine, and the pillowcase gets pulled off my head. Before my eyes can adjust, I’m being manhandled out of the back seat.

A couple of hours ago, I was on the pristine grounds of the US Open making my way through the champagne-sipping, upper-crust crowd gathered to spectate the sport of kings. Now I’m being dragged to a rusted metal folding chair in an empty warehouse that’s layered in dust and smells like a dumpster. I spot a second black Escalade, and for a moment, I think my eyes still haven’t adjusted and I’m seeing double. I’m not. There’re two of them. One was already here, waiting. A man steps out of the shotgun seat of this second Escalade and walks toward me as I get pushed down into the folding chair with my hands still tied. He’s wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a look of utter disgust.

Odds are he plans to kill me.

“DO YOU KNOW who I am?” he asks.

I do. He’s Blagoy Danchev, aka Blaggy, right-hand man and lead muscle for the Bulgarian mob that usurped all New Jersey–based online sports books due to their crypto prowess. I was courtsiding through their website, GameTime Wagers.

Blaggy repeats the question. “Do you know who I am?” Apparently, the higher up on the company ladder you are, the less prominent your Bulgarian accent is. It’s barely there.

“No,” I finally answer. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Are you sure?” He scratches his bald head. “Because I once read this story in a newspaper that said over eighty percent of murder victims know the person who kills them.”

Blaggy is trying to scare me so I’ll tell him everything about my operation, especially any and all partners I have. This is not to say that he won’t actually kill me. He might. Blaggy’s a cold-blooded murderer who makes people disappear faster than a Vegas magician. He’s capable of putting a bullet through me in a heartbeat. But he won’t. Not here. Not now.

Because I’m not dying today.

I look him square in the eye. “Can I ask you a question, Blaggy?”

He squints. “I thought you said you didn’t know who I am.”

“How did you guys catch me today?” I ask.

“You fucked up,” he says, shooting a look at the guys who brought me in. They’re surrounding me, but center stage belongs to Blaggy. “Two weeks ago, you gave the same wire instructions for six different accounts on our site to make a withdrawal. Your bank issued a fraud alert, and that’s how we figured you out.”

“But you didn’t freeze the accounts right away, did you?”

“No. We waited until—”

“Until I placed more tennis bets so you’d know which tournament I was at and precisely which match,” I say. “It’s crazy, right? I might as well have been wearing a neon sign over my head saying ‘Come and get me, boys.’”

Blaggy’s really squinting now. He hasn’t gotten where he is, second in command for the Bulgarian mob, by being slow on the uptake. I was able to angle them for a boatload of money without anyone catching on, so would I really be so sloppy as to give the same wiring instructions for multiple accounts opened under fake names?

Unless…

“You wanted to get caught?” he asks.

“What I wanted was this right here, this meeting. It was the only way to get your attention,” I say.

“For what?”

“I need your help.”

Blaggy laughs in my face. They all do. “My help? You take us for a hundred grand, and now you want my help?”

“It’s actually a hundred and fifty grand,” I say.

Blaggy stops laughing. The others do too. He reaches for the back of his belt and steps toward me. For the first time in my life, I have the barrel of a gun pressed against my forehead, and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I pushed the wrong button on the wrong guy at the absolute worst time. Don’t freak out now, Halston. Whatever you do, don’t freak out. Hold steady. Hold your ground…

“Give me one good reason I don’t put a hole in your head,” Blaggy says, grinding the barrel hard into my skin.

Life is a calculated gamble. Sometimes, so is death. If someone’s willing to kill you over money, they’ll be just as willing not to kill you if you can deliver even more money. Lots and lots of it.

I swallow hard, pushing down the lump in my throat. It’s the only way to get the words out.

“I’ll give you better than one reason,” I say. “In fact, I’ll give you fifty million.”

BLAGGY HOLDS OFF on killing me.

I’ve talked my way into another car ride, this time without the pillowcase over my head. It’s okay if I see where the big boss lives. Anton Nikolov, the big boss, hides in plain sight.

My hands are still tied but Blaggy doesn’t think I’ll do anything crazy. Or at least, not anything crazier than intentionally getting caught stealing from the notorious Anton Nikolov so I can pitch him the art heist of a lifetime.

I’m in the back seat of the other Escalade, the one Blaggy used to get to the warehouse. He’s riding shotgun, his own driver behind the wheel. The rest of the guys have been sent on their way, wherever that may be. “See you tomorrow,” Blaggy told them, which turns out to be three more words than he says to me during the entire drive to Nikolov’s home in Millburn, New Jersey. I’m taking note of everything; there’s no detail too small. They originally didn’t want me to know the location of the warehouse, but now I know it’s in Weequahic Park, near the Newark airport.

Blaggy’s silent treatment during the drive is a good thing, a confirmation that I’ve officially explained enough of my plan to him. He’s talking to his boss on the phone, and he’s not peppering me with follow-up questions. Does he trust me? Hell no. He doesn’t have to, not yet. Maybe not ever. But guys like Blaggy and his boss do plenty of business with people they don’t entirely trust. As they say, if you want absolute loyalty, get a dog.

Speaking of which, I can’t help noticing from where I’m sitting that the back of Blaggy’s bald head looks like the rippled coat of a shar-pei, albeit not in a cute way. Just saying.

Welcome to Millburn. It’s the wealthiest town in New Jersey, and Anton Nikolov is one of its wealthiest residents. The feds have tried to link him to organized crime for years, but he pays his team of lawyers extremely well. It helps that he doesn’t claim to be in “waste management.” A legit shipping-container business has helped Nikolov conceal a host of slightly less legit business endeavors. As for his gaming website, it’s fronted by a shell corporation, which is how the gaming license was obtained. Nikolov runs the show but his name isn’t on any piece of paper.

We’re here, no one says as we arrive at his house. No one has to. The giant gates do all the talking. Blaggy’s driver nods at one of the security cameras; the gates part, and we’re heading up a long driveway lined by tall trees that eventually opens up to a brick mansion with two humongous bear topiaries flanking the front door. It’s all as subtle as the security detail milling about, each guy openly carrying an AR-15. I count a half dozen men and there are probably a few more along the perimeter of the property.

As soon as we stop, Blaggy turns to me and gives me his one and only piece of advice for meeting his boss. What to do and what not to do in the presence of Anton Nikolov.

“You stay shut up until spoken to,” says Blaggy.

It’s not a question but he stares at me intently, waiting for a response.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay what?” asks Blaggy. My answer clearly didn’t cut it.

“I don’t speak unless spoken to.”

He nods. “Good. Now let’s go.”

I don’t get to walk to the front door between the two humongous bears. Instead, Blaggy takes me around to a back entrance and down a long, narrow hall. All the doors are closed, but if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in what was originally the servants’ quarters. Still, even the staff would need a bathroom.

“I have to pee,” I say.

Blaggy’s response is somewhere between a grunt and an exasperated sigh. He’s about to tell me no.

“I really, really have to,” I say, stopping. “I can’t hold it. . .