Description:
With a deadline hanging over their heads, Morel must choose between negotiation and deception. As Sophie faces the ghosts of her past, a desperate plan takes shape — one that may save her son, but not without a cost.
Chapter 10: The Last Performance
The candlelight cast jagged shadows across the walls of the safe house. No one spoke for a long time.
The letter with the black wax seal lay open on the table, its words burning silently in the room.
“We found your pianist. You have 24 hours. After that, the child disappears.”
Julien sat beside Sophie, silent but alert, his eyes scanning every corner like he understood more than he should.
Morel leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “They’re bluffing.”
“They never bluff,” Sophie said. Her voice was low, her hand clenched around Julien’s. “If they know where he is, they’re watching him already.”
Clémence slid a map of Paris onto the table. “We need to move fast. Who signed the message?”
Morel tapped the bottom of the letter. “Just ‘M’. Could be anyone. Moscow. Metzger. Malraux. Hell, maybe even Mercier’s old contacts.”
Sophie stood slowly. “Then we give them what they want.”
Morel snapped his gaze toward her. “Absolutely not.”
She looked at him with calm defiance. “They want me. I’m the piece on the board they can’t control. So I walk into the room. Alone.”
Julien spoke up, quietly. “Mama…”
She knelt beside him. “I left once to protect you. I won’t run again.”
Morel stepped forward. “There’s another way.”
Clémence raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
Morel picked up the coded ledger. “They want this. But they don’t know we cracked it. We create a duplicate file — filled with false names, misinformation, bait. We make it look real, urgent, dangerous.”
He turned to Sophie. “You go. But not alone. You carry the decoy. We shadow the meeting. The real file stays here.”
Clémence smirked. “Now that… that sounds like the Lucien I remember.”
Sophie hesitated, then nodded. “Where?”
Morel looked out the window, the first rays of morning breaking through the fog.
“The only place they’d agree to meet,” he said. “Somewhere public. Grand. And fitting.”
He turned back.
“The Opéra Garnier. One night only.”