Read Chapter 29: The Legal Battle

The forest at dusk had become their war room. Evie sat on a fallen log, Julien pacing before her, the last light bleeding through the canopy like watered wine. The plan was simple enough—steal the Baron’s ledger, free Lily—but simple plans had a way of dying on contact with the truth.

“We need more than the ledger,” Julien said, stopping mid-stride. “What you told me about Lucien’s contract—he owns half your future. The Baron owns Lily’s present. We’re fighting two men who hold legal documents, and we have nothing but nerve.”

Evie pulled her coat tighter. The evening chill had teeth. “So we find what they’re afraid of. The Baron—we know nothing about him except that he collects people. What else does he collect?”

Julien’s eyes narrowed. He’d been moving in Paris’s upper circles his whole life, and something surfaced now like a fish breaking water. “Antiquities. There was talk at my father’s table—Saint-Loup has a reputation for acquiring pieces that shouldn’t be legally obtainable. Egyptian relics, mostly, and some from Indochina.”

Evie’s breath caught. Indochina. Where her father had abandoned their mother. Where Lily had grown up. The connections were tightening like a snare.

“Where does he keep them?” she asked.

“A private gallery in Paris, I think. Off the Rue de la Paix.” Julien sat beside her, close enough that she felt the warmth of his shoulder through his jacket. “But we can’t just walk in and ask for a tour.”

“No.” Evie’s mind raced. “But we know people who can get us into rooms we shouldn’t be in.”

---

Two days later, they stood in a narrow alley behind the Baron’s Paris gallery, the rain beginning to fall in thin silver needles. Evie had called in a favor from Marguerite, the club singer who knew every back door in Montmartre—she’d arranged for the gallery’s night watchman to receive a bottle of particularly potent Calvados from a grateful admirer.

“He’s out,” Julien whispered, testing the service door. It gave with a soft click. “Alcoholism has its uses.”

They slipped inside. The gallery was a cathedral of stolen history—glass cases holding bronze statuettes, clay tablets covered in script Evie couldn’t read, and against the far wall, a series of framed documents that made Julien stop cold.

“These are export permits,” he said, lifting one to the dim light from the street. “Forged. Or rather, they’re real permits, but for different objects than what’s actually here.” He gestured at a case holding a golden funeral mask. “That’s from a tomb in the Valley of the Kings that was officially declared empty six months ago.”

Evie pulled out the small camera she’d borrowed from an American journalist friend. “Then we document everything.”

Click. The first permit. Click. The mask. Click. The Baron’s private correspondence—a letter to a dealer in Cairo referring to “discreet transportation arrangements” and “no questions from customs.”

They worked quickly, the rain drumming against the windows like impatient fingers. Evie’s hands were steady, but her heart hammered against her ribs. Every second in this room was a second closer to discovery.

“That’s enough,” Julien said finally, his voice tight. “We have to go.”

But Evie had stopped before one final display case. Inside lay a jade bracelet, exquisitely carved, the green stone glowing like captured moonlight. The label read: *Mekong Delta region, provenance unknown.*

Indochina.

“Lily mentioned something,” Evie said slowly, thinking back to their conversation at the café. “The Baron’s collection. She said he valued objects that carried secrets more than objects that carried beauty.”

Julien came to stand beside her. “Because both could be exploited.”

She lifted her camera again. But before she could press the shutter, a sound echoed from the front of the gallery—a key turning in a lock, a voice humming a tune.

They froze. The Calvados hadn’t been enough, or the watchman had found a second wind, or—worse—someone else had decided to visit the gallery at this impossible hour.

Julien grabbed her arm, pulling her toward a door behind the display cases. A storage room, dark and crowded with crates. They pressed themselves into the shadows, Evie’s back against his chest, her camera clutched against her stomach like a shield.

Footsteps approached. The humming stopped.

“Monsieur?” The watchman’s voice, thick with drink and uncertainty. “Is someone there?”

Silence stretched like wire being pulled.

Then another voice, smooth and cold as river stone: “I thought I heard something. Search the building.”

The Baron himself. In Paris, at midnight, in his gallery.

Evie’s hand found Julien’s and squeezed. Hard.

The watchman’s footsteps moved away, toward the front of the gallery. But the Baron’s did not. They came closer, slow and deliberate, stopping just outside the storage room door.

“I know these walls,” the Baron said, his voice carrying through the thin wood. “Every stone has ears. And I know when someone is listening.”

Evie’s breath died in her throat.

The door handle turned.

---

They escaped through a coal chute that Julien had spotted during their earlier reconnaissance, emerging filthy and gasping into the rain-slicked alley. The Baron had been momentarily distracted by the watchman calling about a window at the back—Julien’s doing, a stone thrown at precisely the right moment—and they’d slithered out like thieves in truth rather than disguise.

They didn’t stop running until they reached the river, collapsing against the stone wall of the Quai Voltaire, the Seine sliding past dark and indifferent.

Evie held up the camera, still intact. “We got it. Everything. The permits, the letters, the mask.”

Julien laughed, a raw, unsteady sound. “Nearly got shot for it, but yes.”

But Evie’s triumph curdled quickly. “The Baron knows someone was there tonight. He’ll tighten his security. He might suspect Lily.”

“Or he might think it was rival collectors.” Julien wiped rain from his face. “We have time. We have the photographs. We need to develop them, get them in front of the right people.”

“The police? The press?”

“Yes.” He stood, offering her his hand. “But first, we need to get out of these clothes and somewhere warm. My aunt’s apartment—she’s in Deauville for the season. We can develop the film there.”

Evie took his hand, letting him pull her up. They were so close now, she could see the rain beading on his eyelashes, the tension in his jaw.

“Julien,” she said. “What if this isn’t enough? What if the Baron has protection that goes beyond money?”

Julien’s expression flickered. “Then we find what he values more than his collection. And we threaten that instead.”

A boat passed on the river, its lights cutting through the mist. In its wake, a ripple spread across the water’s surface, reaching their feet like a question.

“Lucien knows we’re up to something,” Evie said quietly. “He has his spies. And he has that contract. If he finds out we’re going after the Baron—” She stopped. The thought was too large to hold all at once.

“He’ll try to destroy you first.” Julien’s voice was flat. “Use the rumors. Use your reputation.”

“He’ll succeed.”

“No.” He gripped her shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Not if we get to him first. We have photographs of the Baron breaking the law. Lucien works for the Baron, owns his club illegally, has God knows what else in his ledgers. One phone call, one letter to the right journalist, and Lucien’s empire crumbles around him.”

“But my name goes with it.” Evie’s voice cracked. “Lucien knows things about me. Things I can’t afford to have in the newspapers.”

Julien was silent for a moment, rain streaming down his face. Then he said, softly, “Then we make sure he never gets the chance to speak them.”

He released her shoulders, turning to look at the river. When he spoke again, his voice was different—harder, more certain.

“Evie, the Baron isn’t just in Paris tonight to check his collection. There’s a gala at the Opéra Garnier next week—a benefit for Franco-Egyptian cultural exchange. Every antiquities dealer in Europe will be there. Including Saint-Loup.”

Evie’s mind began to turn. “And Lucien?”

“Lucien will be wherever you are. He’s watching you like a hawk watches a field mouse.” Julien looked at her. “He won’t be able to resist showing himself if he thinks you’re about to do something rash.”

“So we draw him out,” Evie said slowly. “Make him think we’ve slipped up. Give him the chance to strike.”

“And when he does,” Julien said, his eyes alight with something between fear and excitement, “we strike back. With everything we have.”

Evie looked down at the camera in her hands, heavy with evidence of crimes committed in the name of beauty and power. Then she looked at Julien—this strange, brave man who had risked everything for her, for Lily, for a music they were still learning to make together.

“I have to sing at that gala,” she said. “Lucien arranged it—it’s part of my contract with Le Cercle. He’ll be there, watching. Expecting me to perform.”

“Then you’ll perform,” Julien said. “And when you do, the world will see exactly who Evelyn Hart really is. Not the story Lucien wants to tell. Not the scandal New York whispered about. But the woman who walked into a Baron’s gallery and stole his secrets from under his nose.”

Evie laughed—a real laugh, surprising herself. “That woman probably deserves a drink.”

“She does.” Julien extended his arm. “Shall we?”

She took it. Together, they walked away from the river, into the labyrinth of dark streets that led back to their lives, their secrets, and the war they were only beginning to understand.

Behind them, unseen, a figure stepped out from the shadow of a bookstall. He watched them go, a thin smile playing at the corners of his mouth, and pulled a silver watch from his pocket.

The Baron turned the watch over in his hands, reading the engraving on its case, and began to dial.