Read Chapter 20: Aftermath of Capture

The rain had stopped by the time Élise reached the shop, but she was soaked through, her dress clinging to her like a second skin. She stood in the doorway a moment, hand pressed flat against the wood, listening to the silence inside. No footsteps. No voices. Just the slow tick of the clock above the counter.

She turned the key and slipped inside.

The shop smelled of damp paper and dust. She didn't bother with the lights. The moon through the front window was enough to find her way to the back room, where she collapsed into the chair behind her desk and let her head fall into her hands.

Her hands were shaking. She watched them tremble in the half-light and hated them for it.

The officer's face was burned into her memory. Young. Scarred along the jaw. He had known her name before she gave it. He had held her brother's locket in his palm like it was already his. And when he'd smiled, it wasn't cruelty—it was certainty. He knew she would come back. He was waiting for her to make the mistake of trying to save Philippe.

She heard Antoine's footsteps before he reached the shop. The back door opened, clicked shut. She didn't look up.

"You shouldn't have followed me," she said.

"You shouldn't have gone alone." He came closer, and she heard him set something on the table—the forged credentials, perhaps. "You need to leave Paris. Tonight."

"I'm not leaving."

"Élise—"

She raised her head. "My brother is on a train in three nights. The Gestapo has his name, his face, and my locket. If I run, he dies."

"You staying doesn't save him."

"It buys him time." Her voice cracked. She pressed her lips together and looked away. "Time is all I have left."

Antoine was quiet for a long moment. Then he pulled the other chair from the desk and sat across from her, close enough that his knees nearly touched hers.

"Then we need a plan that doesn't end with you in a cellar on the Avenue Foch."

"We."

"You heard me."

She studied him. His face was drawn—he'd shed his dinner jacket somewhere, and his shirt was untucked, sleeves rolled. He looked less like a translator and more like a man who'd spent his evening running through occupied streets, lying to Gestapo officers with a forged seal and a steady voice.

"Why do you stay?" she asked. "You could walk away. You have papers that could get you anywhere."

"I told you before." He held her gaze. "I'm not going anywhere."

The clock ticked. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked—the building settling. Élise let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"The officer," she said. "Young. Scar on his jaw. Do you know him?"

Antoine's jaw tightened. "Hoffmann. Sturmbannführer. He runs the Rue des Archives desk. Efficient, ambitious. The kind of man who keeps a photograph of every target in his office."

"He has mine now."

"Yes." He didn't soften it. "He'll use your brother to draw you in. You need to assume your shop is watched."

She closed her eyes. "Then Gaspard's deadline—"

"Gaspard." Antoine's voice shifted, cooling. "You trust him?"

"I don't know anymore." She opened her eyes. "He gave us the address that led to the trap. And he knew Jean was at the shop before I told him."

"Then he's either the leak or the most careless forger in Paris."

"He's not careless. He's survived this long for a reason." She rubbed her temples. "But I don't have the luxury of suspicion. He's the only one who can get Philippe's papers."

"Not the only one."

She looked at him. Antoine's expression was unreadable, but something in it made her stomach turn over.

"Don't," she said. "I'm not asking you to do that."

"You didn't ask. I'm offering."

"Antoine." She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Forge a Wehrmacht transport release? That's—"

"Doable. If I have the right seals."

She stared at him. "You walked into the Ritz and stole a Gestapo raid list. Who are you?"

He smiled—thin, tired. "Someone who's been waiting a long time to use what I know for something that matters."

Before she could press further, a knock came at the front door. Both of them went still.

"Laurent?" Antoine asked quietly.

"He doesn't knock. He has a key."

The knock came again—three sharp raps, impatient.

Élise rose, moving through the dark shop toward the front. Through the curtain of the display window, she could make out a shape on the doorstep. Not tall enough for a German officer. Not broad enough for the police. The figure shifted, and lamplight caught the face.

Gaspard.

She opened the door a crack. He stood on the step, collar turned up against the damp, hair plastered to his forehead. He looked smaller than he had in his workshop, less certain—but his eyes were sharp, scanning the street behind him before they fixed on her.

"Let me in," he said. "Quick."

She stepped back and closed the door behind him. He shook rain from his coat, then noticed Antoine standing in the doorway to the back room. His expression flickered—surprise, then wariness.

"Company," he said.

"Antoine knows everything," Élise said. "He's the reason I'm not in a cellar right now."

Gaspard's eyes narrowed. "The translator who stole the Ritz list. Word travels fast when it has to." He paused. "So you both know."

"Know what?"

"That the address I gave you was a trap. That someone in your circle sold you." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "Someone's been feeding the Gestapo names for weeks. I traced it backward."

Élise's heart beat slow and hard. "Who?"

Gaspard looked at her. "Not me." He said it flatly, without defense. "I know you think it's possible. Three of my suppliers have been arrested in the last month, all at locations I'd given only one other person. So I stopped giving locations. Started testing."

"Testing?"

"A name. A false meeting point. A man who didn't exist." He paused. "Duras showed up at the rendezvous with two uniformed men and a complaint that the 'contact' never arrived."

The name hit her like cold water. Duras. He'd been part of Marcel's cell for longer than she had. Quiet, overlooked, always in the background of the briefings. He'd helped her move books from the basement to the safe house just last week.

"He gave me the address," she said slowly. "For the house on Rue des Archives. Said it was a last-minute change."

"Marcel's original safe house was on the Rue de Sévigné," Gaspard said. "Duras told you the decoy."

Antoine stepped forward. "How do you know this?"

"Because Duras is my cousin." Gaspard's face twisted. "And because when I confronted him, he told me it was 'for the cause.' That he was protecting his family—the Gestapo had his sister. He'd been trading names for her life." His voice hardened. "Her life is already over. They shipped her east two weeks ago. He knows it. He's still working for them."

Élise stood very still. The world around her felt like wet paper, thin and ready to tear.

"He gave them the shop," she said. "He gave them Philippe's name. He gave them the locket—" Her voice broke.

Gaspard watched her in silence. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a folded sheet. He handed it to her.

"What is this?"

"A transport release. Signed. Sealed." He met her eyes. "Philippe's name isn't on it yet, but the paperwork is real. You'll need a photo of him. Touch up the records. It'll hold up to inspection."

She took the paper, fingers trembling. "Your deadline."

"It's void." He looked away, jaw tightening. "I came to tell you it's void. I don't work with traitors. Not even family." He paused. "I also came to tell you that Duras knows you survived. He wants to make it right."

"Make it right?"

"He wants to bring you more names. Another safe house. Something to prove he's still loyal." Gaspard's mouth twisted. "He asked me to arrange a meeting. I told him I would."

Élise understood. "You want me to walk into another trap?"

"No." Gaspard looked at her with something close to regret. "I want you to walk into his. But this time, you'll know it's coming."

The rain started again outside, tapping against the window. Élise looked down at the release paper in her hands, then up at Antoine, whose expression was unreadable, and finally at Gaspard—this strange, compromised man who had sold her brother's papers and then brought her the means to save him.

"You're asking me to become bait," she said.

"I'm asking you to end this before he hands you to Hoffmann on a silver plate." Gaspard pulled his collar up. "Duras is arranging a meeting for tomorrow night. I can give you the location. What you do with it is your choice."

He turned toward the door, then paused.

"Your brother's locket," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. I tried to get it back, but Hoffmann keeps it in a locked drawer. There's a photograph folded inside—you and Philippe." He looked at her. "He stares at it before bed. He knows exactly who you are, Élise. Hoffmann is not a man who forgets a face."

He left through the back door without another word. The lock clicked behind him.

The shop was silent. Élise stood in the dark, the weight of Gaspard's forged paper in her hands, the name Duras burning in her chest.

Antoine came to stand beside her. "You don't have to do this alone."

She looked at him. His face was close, tired, honest in a way she hadn't allowed herself to notice before.

"Tomorrow night," she said. "I'll need someone to watch my back."

He nodded slowly. "Then you have me."

She didn't answer. She only folded the paper carefully, tucked it into the inner pocket of her coat, and let out a breath that felt like the first she'd taken in hours.