Chap­ter 22 of The Art Thief explores the intense ten­sion between Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine as their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties spi­ral fur­ther out of con­trol. Four months after their last heist, the cou­ple vis­its a small art gallery in Lucerne, Switzer­land, dur­ing a hot sum­mer day, where they are drawn to a beau­ti­ful still life by the renowned artist Willem van Aelst. Despite their usu­al avoid­ance of steal­ing from com­mer­cial gal­leries, the paint­ing calls to Bre­itwieser, and he decides to steal it. Anne-Cather­ine, who has grown increas­ing­ly uneasy about their crim­i­nal path, urges him to recon­sid­er, but Breitwieser’s deter­mi­na­tion to pos­sess the art­work over­pow­ers her con­cerns. He moves quick­ly, using his Swiss Army knife to care­ful­ly extract the paint­ing from the wall, hid­ing it under his arm as he pre­pares to make his escape.

Their plan begins to unrav­el almost imme­di­ate­ly. As they approach the exit, a gallery employ­ee notices Bre­itwieser and accus­es him of steal­ing the paint­ing. Shocked by the sud­den con­fronta­tion, Bre­itwieser can­not offer a con­vinc­ing excuse, and soon both he and Anne-Cather­ine are detained by the author­i­ties. Anne-Cather­ine des­per­ate­ly pleads for their release, but despite her best efforts, they are both arrest­ed and tak­en to sep­a­rate hold­ing cells. The fear of being caught for their past crimes weighs heav­i­ly on Bre­itwieser, who now faces the pos­si­bil­i­ty of their entire crim­i­nal his­to­ry being exposed. His wor­ry grows even more intense as he fears that Anne-Cather­ine, under the pres­sure of inter­ro­ga­tion, might con­fess to their past thefts.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, both are trans­port­ed to court in sep­a­rate cages, the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion becom­ing more real with each pass­ing moment. They man­age to exchange a few words dur­ing the ride, reas­sur­ing each oth­er to stick to the sto­ry they’ve cre­at­ed. In the court­room, Bre­itwieser becomes emo­tion­al and gives a false con­fes­sion, claim­ing it was his first offense and assert­ing that Anne-Cather­ine had no involve­ment. Their clean records and lack of pre­vi­ous crim­i­nal activ­i­ty play in their favor, and they are grant­ed release on bail after the inter­ven­tion of Breitwieser’s moth­er, Sten­gel. How­ev­er, when they return home, Stengel’s ini­tial relief turns into anger and frus­tra­tion. She is dev­as­tat­ed by the shame Bre­itwieser has brought upon the fam­i­ly, and she hires a Swiss attor­ney to min­i­mize the dam­age. The lawyer frames the theft as a youth­ful mis­take, and as a result, the cou­ple receives sus­pend­ed sen­tences, though they are banned from Switzer­land for three years.

As the after­math of their ordeal sinks in, Anne-Cather­ine is hit by a wave of emo­tion­al tur­moil. She has been hid­ing a secret from Breitwieser—she is preg­nant with his child. After much con­tem­pla­tion, and with Stengel’s sup­port, Anne-Cather­ine decides that an abor­tion is the best course of action. They believe that they are not in a posi­tion to raise a child amidst their chaot­ic lives. Though the deci­sion is dif­fi­cult, Anne-Cather­ine holds onto a small flick­er of hope that, with the end of the preg­nan­cy, they might also find a way out of their crim­i­nal lifestyle. How­ev­er, Bre­itwieser remains unshak­en by their legal trou­bles and the impli­ca­tions of their actions. He feels embold­ened by the lack of real con­se­quences for his behav­ior, and this only deep­ens the rift between him and Anne-Cather­ine. She begins to ques­tion whether she can con­tin­ue down this path with him, real­iz­ing that while her hope for a future free from crime lingers, Bre­itwieser is more con­sumed by the thrill of steal­ing than by the pos­si­bil­i­ty of change. The future of their rela­tion­ship hangs in the bal­ance, marked by emo­tion­al dis­con­nect and an increas­ing sense of inevitabil­i­ty about the tra­jec­to­ry of their crim­i­nal lives.