Read Chapter 15: Following the Watcher

The harbor lights of Larvotto painted the water in smears of gold and silver as Camille pressed herself against the rough plaster of the building's corner. Salt hung in the air, mingling with diesel exhaust from a nearby tender, and somewhere above them a satellite dish hummed with an electrical whine that set her teeth on edge.

Henri had led them on a winding path from the yacht's service gangway—not to a car, as she'd expected, but through the warren of streets that climbed the hillside behind the Grimaldi Forum. He walked with the unhurried cadence of a man who believed himself invisible, pausing at shop windows, checking his phone at intervals. Twice he'd doubled back, and both times Victor had tugged her into a doorway or behind a delivery crate, his hand firm on her elbow, his breathing even and controlled against her neck.

She hated how natural it felt to be steered by him again.

"He's going to ground," Victor murmured now, his voice barely a vibration in the dark. "Third apartment building he's passed. He'll stop at the next one."

"How do you know?"

"Because he just checked his watch twice in ninety seconds. He's close, and he doesn't want to miss his window."

Camille didn't ask what window. She'd learned that questioning Victor's instincts rarely yielded answers she could trust.

The building before them was one of Larvotto's quieter outliers—a mid-century block that had somehow avoided the developers' wrecking balls. Its facade showed peeling stucco and rust-streaked balconies, and its lobby light flickered with the arrhythmia of a dying bulb. Henri paused at the entrance, keyed something into a keypad, and slipped inside.

Victor moved immediately, crossing the street with a fluid grace that made Camille's pulse spike. She followed, heels clicking softly on the pavement, and caught up to him as he pressed himself against the building's side. He gestured upward.

Fourth floor. A window had just bloomed with light.

"Service stairwell," he said. "Fire exit around back. We go in quiet."

"Or," Camille said, reaching into her clutch for her phone, "we watch from here and don't give him any reason to know we're here." She raised the camera, adjusted the zoom. "The balcony. If he's packing that case, he'll do it somewhere he can see the room. He's a security man. He'll want sightlines."

Victor studied her for a long moment, something unreadable shifting behind his eyes. Then he nodded and stepped back, giving her the angle.

She focused the lens.

Henri moved through the apartment with a purposefulness that confirmed his training. He crossed the living room, drew the curtains—but only on one side, leaving the balcony window exposed to the harbor side, where no one would think to look. Then he disappeared from view for a long, agonizing minute before reappearing with a black metal case.

Camille's breath caught.

The case was the kind Bellamy had always favored—reinforced carbon fiber, custom-fitted interior foam, a locking mechanism with three points of articulation. It was designed for one specific object, and when Henri set it on the table and opened the lid, she saw the silhouette of a necklace cradled in the foam like a snake sleeping in its bed.

"I need a better angle," she said.

Victor was already moving. He led her through a gap in the hedge that bordered the neighboring property, then up a short set of concrete steps that gave them an elevated view through the window's undrawn half. Camille pressed her phone to the glass, snapped twice, then checked the images.

The first shot showed the case's interior, the necklace's stones catching the overhead light in a blaze of white and blue. The second—she zoomed in, sharpening the edges—showed something that made her stomach drop.

The necklace in Henri's hands was the real pendant. The one that Falk's crew had replaced with a forgery during the vault heist. The one the gala's display case contained was a copy, and here, in the grimy glow of a Larvotto apartment's standing lamp, the genuine article was being wrapped in acid-free tissue and nestled into a travel case stamped with the emblem of a private courier service.

"An inside job," she breathed. "It was always an inside job."

Victor was silent beside her. She didn't need his confirmation.

Henri moved again, turning toward a counter she couldn't quite see. He picked up something—a phone, by the shape of it—and held it to his ear. As he spoke, his free hand stroked the tissue-wrapped necklace with a possessiveness that turned her stomach.

"Who's he calling?" she asked.

"Watch."

Henri's lips moved. Too far away to read, even with zoom. But then he turned, and for a split second his face was caught full in the light, and she saw something she hadn't expected in his expression: not fear, not calculation, but confidence. The smug certainty of a man who was running the final steps of a plan that had been in motion long before she'd ever walked into that vault.

"He's not the underling," she said slowly. "He's the point man. The one who hands off to the network."

Victor shifted beside her. She caught the flicker of tension in his jaw before he masked it.

"You know something about this," she said.

"I know Henri worked for Falk for six years. I know Falk doesn't let his people run independent operations." He paused. "Unless the operation was his all along."

Camille lowered the phone and turned to face him fully. "Falk is the buyer, isn't he? The whole vault heist—the replacement pendant, Lidia's presence at the yacht, Henri moving the real piece now—it's an orchestration. Falk engineered it to acquire the necklace without anyone realizing it was ever missing. The forgery gives you cover. The gala gives you a crowd to hide in. The yacht gives you a closed system where the false pendant will be displayed and nobody will think to test it until after the real one has already left the country."

Victor didn't answer.

But he didn't need to. The silence confirmed it.

Henri finished his call and snapped the case shut. He lifted it with both hands and moved toward a door at the back of the apartment—presumably a bedroom, where he'd keep it until the courier arrived.

"Shipping case," Camille said, nodding at the emblem visible in her photo. "Private courier. Door-to-door signature. He's not keeping that necklace here longer than a day."

"Less," Victor said. "The gala ends at two a.m. The pendant needs to be displayed for the full duration, or questions get asked. So the real one leaves tonight, under cover of the party."

"Which means whoever's handling the transfer is already waiting."

Victor pulled out his phone, started typing something, then stopped. His thumb hovered over the screen. Camille saw the name on the message preview: *Falk.*

"You were going to warn him off," she said.

"I was going to ask a question." His tone was brittle. "But I don't think I'll get a truthful answer."

"Because you defected. Because he'll kill you for what you've done."

"Because I was never the only one." Victor pocketed the phone. "Falk's network is larger than I let on. I've only seen pieces of it. Clients, yes. But the operatives—I met a few in passing. I never saw faces. Just functions. Drivers. Lookouts. One person who handled logistics, who could move goods through customs without the usual flags." He met her eyes. "I always assumed it was a woman. The operating signature felt feminine."

"Lidia Vasquez."

"Or someone higher. Someone who's been pulling Falk's strings from the start." He gestured at the apartment building. "Henri reports to someone. That call didn't go to Falk—Henri wouldn't risk an open line to a known suspect during an active operation. So who does he report to?"

Camille looked down at her phone. The photo glowed back at her, the real necklace nestled in its foam cradle, Henri's face sharp in the background. She zoomed in on the counter behind him, where the edge of a shipping label was just visible next to the courier case.

It was addressed to a post office box in Paris.

Under a name she knew.

E. Bellamy.

"Victor." Her voice came out thinner than she'd intended. "Bellamy is dead. We confirmed it."

The look he gave her was the most dangerous she'd ever seen him wear. "Did we?"

Above them, the light in Henri's apartment snapped off.