Read Chapter 20: Beneath the Casino

The tunnel smelled of brine and machine oil, a chemical perfume that clung to the back of Camille’s throat. She held the old blueprint close to her chest, the paper brittle enough that a wrong fold might turn it to dust. Bellamy had given it to her years ago, a gift wrapped in pride—the original architect’s schematic for the casino’s forgotten underbelly, a maze of service corridors built before the auction hall existed, sealed off when the new foundation went down.

“Here,” she said, tapping a narrow vein of ink that ran beneath the hall’s eastern edge. The beam of her flashlight traced the line. “Bellamy always said the old builders hid a shortcut. They poured concrete over it when the vault was added, but the tunnel itself was never demolished.”

Victor crouched beside her, his silhouette cut sharp against the low ceiling. He wore black, like her, and the blade of a crowbar hung from his belt like a threat. “And you just had this in your back pocket for eleven years?”

“I had it in Bellamy’s file.” She folded the blueprint carefully, tucking it into her jacket. “He kept copies of every commission he ever worked on. Old habits. When you described the tunnel layout, I remembered the drawing.”

“Remind me to thank him.” Victor’s voice was dry, but there was no mockery in it. He moved ahead, his flashlight sweeping the curved walls. They had entered through a rusted maintenance grate two blocks from the casino, a gap in the seawall that Victor had known about—had built, he’d claimed, for Falk’s original plans. The tunnel descended at a steep angle, water pooling in the joints of the old stones.

Camille’s boots splashed through a shallow puddle. She counted her breaths to keep her heart steady. Four hours until the pendant moved. Four hours until Lidia’s deadline. Four hours until the whole affair tipped one way or the other.

“Slow down.” She grabbed Victor’s sleeve. “The blueprint shows a junction up ahead. If we miss it, we end up in the old boiler room. Nothing but asbestos and dead rats.”

Victor stopped, his light playing over the wall ahead. There it was—a seam in the masonry, a break where the tunnel had been patched over. He ran his fingers along the edge. “This is where it splits off,” he said. “The auction hall’s service access is beyond this wall.”

Camille pressed her palm against the stone. It was cool, damp. She imagined Henri walking this same path, carrying the real necklace, moving like a ghost beneath the feet of a hundred tourists and gamblers. She hated him for it. She hated Lidia more.

“I need to tell you something,” she said.

Victor turned. His face was half in shadow, but she could see the question in the set of his mouth.

“Lidia approached me,” Camille said. “The night after the gala. She offered to sell back the necklace. She showed me footage of you in the vault.”

Victor didn’t flinch. “I told you. I was undercover.”

“She said you’re working for her. That your wife is dying in Geneva and you owe money to people who don’t accept excuses.”

The silence stretched. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. Victor’s jaw tightened, and for a moment Camille thought he would deny it all. Instead, he let out a slow breath.

“My wife was killed in Geneva,” he said. “Three years ago. She was an agent. She got too close to a smuggling operation, and whoever ran it put two rounds in her skull and made it look like a robbery.” His voice was flat, stripped of anything Camille could read. “Lidia knows this. She uses it because it’s the one story I can’t disprove without pulling up a grave.”

Camille wanted to believe him. That was the worst part—that even now, even with the ring burning in her pocket, she wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t square the math. “Then why did you give me a ring from Falk’s commission? That’s not undercover work. That’s a message.”

Victor’s eyes flickered. He looked away. “That ring was supposed to be sold years ago. It never made it to Falk’s client list. I didn’t know what it was when I gave it to you—just that it was yours the moment I saw you in that shop.”

“Bullshit.” The word came out harder than she intended. “You don’t hand a woman a piece worth ten thousand euros on a whim.”

“I didn’t,” Victor said. “I gave it to you because I knew you’d recognize it. Because I needed you to ask questions. Because I couldn’t tell you the truth without putting you in more danger than you were already in.”

Camille stared at him. The tunnel seemed smaller, the air thicker. “So you used me as a prop.”

“I used you as a lever.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the salt on his jacket. “Falk has a file on me. A file I don’t know the contents of. If I’d come to you and said ‘I’m the man who betrayed you, but I’m actually working for Interpol, and your old mentor is mixed up in a heist,’ would you have believed me?”

She thought about it. About the version of Victor she’d carried for eleven years—the charming thief who’d taken her work, her trust, her reputation in one smooth motion. She’d spent a decade painting him as a monster. Some part of her still wanted him to be one. That part was quieter now, but it hadn’t gone silent.

“No,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t have.”

“Then we’re clear.” He turned and slid the crowbar from his belt, wedging it into the seam of the wall. Stone groaned. Mortar crumbled. He pushed, and a section of the wall toppled inward, revealing a dark passage beyond.

The old service tunnel was narrower than the main route, barely shoulder-width. Camille ducked through first, holding her flashlight low. The floor was covered in a fine layer of dust, undisturbed for what must have been a decade. Except—

“Wait.” She stopped. Victor bumped into her, steadying himself with a hand on her shoulder. She swept the beam across the floor, then up the wall.

There, at knee height, a fresh scratch gouged the paint. A clean line, bright metal showing through the faded coat. Someone had moved something heavy through here. Recently.

Camille crouched. Beside the scratch, caught on a patch of rough mortar, was a strand of red silk. Thin, almost hair-like, but unmistakably woven. She pinched it between her fingers and held it up to the light.

“This wasn’t here a year ago,” she said.

Victor knelt beside her, his own light joining hers. “They staged it here. The swap. They brought the fake through before the gala—marked the route, rehearsed it.” He touched the silk, gentle, almost reverent. “Then they moved the real one out the same way.”

Camille’s pulse quickened. She looked down the length of the tunnel, where it curved away toward the foundations of the auction hall. The pendant had passed through here. Henri had passed through here. And somewhere beyond, in that forgotten dark, was the proof they needed.

She stood, pocketing the silk. “They’re not moving the pendant tonight,” she said. “They already moved it once. Lidia’s deadline is misdirection—she’s already sold the real one.”

Victor’s face changed. Something hard and cold settled in his eyes. “Then we’re chasing a ghost.”

“No.” Camille held up the strand of red silk. “We just found the ghost’s fingerprint.”