Read Chapter 25: The Ultimatum

Camille didn't knock.

President Moreau's office door swung open hard enough to bang against the wall, and she was inside before his secretary could scramble from her desk. Moreau looked up from his laptop, face settling from surprise into careful neutrality. The man had been handsome once, she thought—before the gambling had hollowed out his cheeks and put that permanent sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Camille." He closed the laptop. "We have a board meeting in—"

"I know exactly when your board meeting is." She planted her hands on his desk. "That's why I'm here now, before you go in there and bury Julien."

Moreau's jaw tightened. "Sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself." He leaned back in his chair, and she caught the flicker of calculation behind his eyes. He was weighing her—what she knew, what she'd risk. "Let me save you time. The board will decide the official position on Julien's knee and on the leaked documents. That decision is made. Nothing you say changes it."

"You're going to let him play." It wasn't a question.

"Julien has a contract. The contract requires him to be available for selection. If he refuses—"

"He's not refusing. He's physically incapable. Dr. Faure's report says—"

"Dr. Faure's report is a medical opinion." Moreau's voice hardened. "The club has its own medical advisors. They'll examine Julien and reach their own conclusions."

Camille felt heat rise up her neck. "You'll find doctors who say what you need them to say. I've seen it before. In Paris, at the top clubs, when a player's market value outweighed his cartilage."

Something flickered in Moreau's face—recognition, maybe. She'd spent years cultivating the calm, capable professional image that protected her from questions. What she hadn't counted on was someone else who knew the ugly machinery of elite sport well enough to see through it.

"Paris," Moreau repeated, almost softly. "You've mentioned that city before. Interesting place."

She ignored the probe. "Julien's knee is unstable. He could rupture the patellar tendon completely on that pitch. He'd never walk properly again, let alone play. You know this."

"And you know contracts." Moreau stood, walking around his desk to close the door. When he turned back, his face had changed—younger somehow, more vulnerable. She realized with a chill that she was seeing the man beneath the president, the one he kept hidden. "You know that if Julien walks away, the club can terminate his contract. The sponsors' clauses alone would destroy us."

"Destroy *him*."

"Destroy everyone." Moreau's voice cracked. "I've carried this club for eleven years. Through relegation battles, through the salary cap scandal, through the year we nearly lost our license to play in the Top 14. Do you know what that costs? Not just money. Everything."

Camille studied him. The calculation was still there, but beneath it something genuine flickered—desperation. A man holding up a collapsing ceiling with his own spine.

"Tell me about the debt."

Moreau froze. The word hung between them like a grenade with a pulled pin.

"What debt?" His voice had gone flat.

"The one that's driving all of this. Why you're willing to risk a player's career, invite lawsuits, leak confidential files—" She watched his face twitch at the word *leak*. "—all to keep the club solvent. Who do you owe?"

Moreau laughed. It was a short, ugly sound. "You think this is about the club? You think I'd risk everything for the *club*?"

"Then what?"

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he moved to the window, his back to her, hands clasped behind him. She watched his shoulders rise and fall with a breath he seemed to pull up from his boots.

"Seven years ago, I had a gambling problem." His voice was muffled, directed at the glass. "I thought I'd handled it. I'd sold players to cover the worst of it, refinanced, whitewashed. Got clean. Then last year, I—" He stopped. "I made a mistake. One mistake, a single weekend, and I was back in with people who don't accept installment plans."

"Bookmakers."

"Not bookmakers." Moreau turned. His face had aged ten years in the last minute. "Men who run bookmakers. Men whose collections department does not involve phone calls and threatening letters—not directly. They send men instead. And those men have already told me what happens to very public figures who fail to repay their hospitality."

Camille's throat tightened. She thought of the syndicate's messages. She thought of Vincent's letter. The pieces clicked together with sickening precision. "You're not just indebted to them. They're using you."

"They're patient, for now. I've given them access, which keeps them satisfied. A player here, a transfer decision there. But they want something bigger now, something structural." His eyes met hers. "They want him off the club. Broken publicly enough that—"

"That he can never be used again," she finished. "They want to own the outcome."

Moreau nodded, exhausted.

"Why Julien?" she asked. "Why not you, or the club itself?"

"Because Julien can win titles. He's marketable, he's French, he's young enough. And he's already damaged." Moreau's mouth set. "The syndicate sees a player like that as a multiplier. If he knuckles under and plays for them, they control the most valuable asset in Provençal rugby. And if he doesn't—if he breaks on the pitch—they've still got their investment, only now they own the narrative."

"His death wouldn't hurt them?"

"His death is a liability. His career ending, with the club disgraced, with you blamed? That's untraceable. That's clean."

Camille's hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against the desk to still them. "I'll go to the press. I'll tell them everything—your debt, the syndicate, the setup."

Moreau regarded her almost gently. "Will you? With your degree from Lyon? The one that suggests you studied medicine at a faculty that doesn't exist?"

Her blood went cold. She'd known, on some level, that the accusation was coming—Delacroix had hinted, Moreau had probed. But hearing it spoken aloud, in this room, with those stakes—

"Your degree is a forgery. Or a purchase, which is worse." Moreau's voice was sympathetic, which made it worse. "You think the press would care about my gambling debts when they find out the physiotherapist treating their beloved star is not, by any formal measure, a qualified doctor? You think the board would keep you for a second longer?"

Camille's throat was dry. "My work speaks for itself. Julien's recovery—"

"Will be credited to whoever is his official physio. Which, right now, is Lucas Moreau. And Lucas Moreau is *my nephew*." Moreau let that land. "Walk away, Camille. Let the board do what the board does. Keep your head down, finish your season, and collect your severance. That's the best offer you're going to get."

She should have been frightened. She should have felt the trap closing around her. But instead, she heard Julien's voice in her head—the one from earlier tonight, raw and pleading. *Can you fix me?* he'd asked. And she'd seen the fear in his eyes, the terror of a man who had nothing but his body, and that body was failing him.

"No."

Moreau blinked. "No?"

"You can expose my degree. You can destroy my career." She straightened. "But you do it, and I'll tell the same press about the men you owe money to. I'll tell them about your *hospitality*, as you call it. And I'll tell them about Vincent."

Something shifted in Moreau's face. "You don't know anything about Vincent."

"I know the syndicate sent me his letter." It was a bluff—partially. "I know he was a player who broke. And I know exactly what you're building toward with Julien, because Vincent showed you it could be done."

The silence stretched between them. Camille held her breath, watching Moreau's face cycle through emotions—fear, calculation, and finally, a strange, quiet respect.

"You would burn yourself down to save him," Moreau said. "Why?"

*Because someone has to,* she thought. *Because if I don't, no one will.*

But she said nothing, letting the question hang.

Moreau's shoulders dropped. When he spoke again, his voice was different—smaller, more human.

"The meeting will decide the club's position on Julien's injury. That decision is already made—they'll present the surgery option as the only path." He paused. "But there's a second agenda item. The board will also vote on the advisory physiotherapy staff. Those who've been involved in the recent—unfortunate—leaks."

Camille felt her stomach drop. "You're cutting me loose either way."

"I told you. Walk away." Moreau's eyes held hers. "That was the offer. It's still open."

The office clock ticked. Somewhere in the building, she heard the murmur of approaching voices—the board members gathering. In ten minutes, they would file into the conference room and decide the shape of Julien's future.

"Think carefully," Moreau said. "Before you set fire to everything you've spent years building."

Camille took a breath and measured the weight of every choice she'd made—the forged degree, the escape from Paris, the silent complicity that had carried her this far. She thought of Julien's face when he'd looked at her with suspicion for the first time, and knew the truth she'd been running from all along.

Some fires were worth setting. Some falls were worth taking.

She met Moreau's eyes. "I've thought."