Read Chapter 32: Allies at Last

The wet air off the harbor carried the sting of exhaust and salt as Camille stumbled onto the quay. Her heels clicked against the stone, too loud, too fast. Behind her, the soirée’s golden windows blazed like a struck match, but she couldn’t look back. Henri’s voice still rang in her ears—the cold, official cadence of a man who had played his part too well.

*Victor may not be as innocent as he appears.*

She pressed a hand to her ribs. The ledger was gone. Hours of proof, of names and numbers and Falk’s paper trail, now in an Interpol evidence bag. She had traded it for her freedom, and the weight of that trade had yet to settle.

Two gendarmes flanked a black sedan idling at the curb. Lidia sat in the back seat, her profile pale as parchment through the window. She didn’t look at Camille. She looked straight ahead, lips pressed thin, as if this were merely an inconvenience and not the end of her careful games.

Camille slowed. Her breath came shallow. The sting had been planned—Henri had been waiting for her, not for the necklace. And she had walked straight into it like a fool.

“Camille.”

The voice came from the shadows near a stack of crates. She froze, heart hammering.

Victor stepped into the lamplight. His arm was bound tight in a black sling against his chest, the pale collar of his shirt visible beneath a dark jacket. He looked pale, but his eyes were sharp, scanning the scene with the practiced stillness of a man who had spent years learning how not to show alarm.

“You’re supposed to be in the safehouse,” she said.

“I heard everything.” He nodded toward the sedan. “Through the channel. You didn’t answer.”

She hadn’t. She’d left her earpiece in the cloakroom sink, its little red light blinking like an accusation.

“Henri has the ledger,” she said. The words came out flat, like a confession.

Victor’s jaw tightened. “I know.”

“Then you know he thinks you’re not what you say you are.”

A pause. Victor glanced toward the sedan where Henri was closing the rear door, his posture official, unhurried. When he turned back to Camille, there was something raw in his expression—a crack in the polished surface she had only ever seen fragments of.

“He’s not wrong,” Victor said. “Not entirely.”

Camille’s stomach dropped. She stepped closer, lowering her voice to barely above a whisper.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have an old warrant.” He said it like a man confessing a sin he’d long since tired of carrying. “Ten years ago, Paris. A fraud case. I was young, and I was dirty. Not Falk-dirty—not even close—but I helped a man move money through a Swiss account, and I took a cut.” He held her gaze. “The Financial Crime Unit didn’t find out until after I’d been working with them for three years. By then, I was useful. They buried it. But the warrant was never cleared—it just went quiet.”

Camille stared at him. The months she had spent hating him, the betrayal that had curdled her trust, the sting of his absence in the empty spaces of her life—all of it now refracted through this new, murky light.

“You were never going to tell me.”

“I didn’t know how,” he said. “You made it very clear you didn’t want explanations.” He shook his head, a ghost of the charm she remembered flickering at the corner of his mouth. “And I didn’t want to give you a reason to run.”

“I did run,” she said. “You forced me to.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence for a moment. The harbor lights hummed. A gull cried somewhere over the rooftops.

Henri appeared at the sedan’s front door, his coat squared, his face unreadable. He spotted them—or rather, he spotted Victor—and his eyebrows climbed a fraction before he smoothed them down.

“Mr. Laurent,” Henri said, approaching. His tone was polite, but the air around him sharpened. “I didn’t expect to see you on your feet.”

“The bullet missed anything vital,” Victor said. His voice was light, but his good hand rested at his side, fingers curled and ready.

Henri’s gaze traveled from the sling to Camille, and a thin smile touched his lips. “You two have an interesting habit of finding each other in the wrong places.”

“We were having a conversation,” Camille said. “Private.”

“I imagined.” Henri folded his arms. “I’ll make this quick. Miss Marchand—Lidia—is in custody. The auction house is sealed. And the ledger you gave me will go a long way toward building a case against Thomas Falk, assuming he never surfaces again.”

“He’ll surface,” Victor said. “He’s not the type to disappear quietly.”

Henri studied Victor for a long moment. “No,” he said slowly. “He isn’t. Which is why I’m willing to extend the same courtesy I extended to Miss Laurent.” He reached inside his coat and withdrew a slim envelope, which he held out to Victor. “A copy of your file. Bureaucratic oversight, you understand. It never hurts to have backup.”

Victor didn’t move. Camille watched the muscles in his neck tighten.

“Why?” Victor asked.

“Because the case against Falk is bigger than one warrant,” Henri said. “And I’d rather have a man with your connections standing beside me on the right side of the line than spending the next decade watching him from the wrong one.” He glanced at Camille. “She vouched for you. I’m choosing to believe she isn’t a fool.”

Camille’s throat tightened. She hadn’t vouched for him—not out loud. But Henri had seen something in her face, and that was apparently enough.

Victor took the envelope. He didn’t open it, but his fingers closed around it like a lifeline.

“Interpol knows about the yacht?” he asked.

“The Aurelia is still at anchor,” Henri said. “Falk hasn’t moved. We’re waiting on a maritime warrant, but these things take time.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “How much time?”

“Twelve hours, if the magistrate cooperates. Longer, if he doesn’t.”

“He won’t,” Camille said quietly. She had seen Falk’s name on enough documents to know he had friends in high places—friends who might slow a warrant, who might tip him off, who might make a yacht named Aurelia vanish into the night without a trace.

Henri nodded slowly. “Then you understand the window we’re working with.” He looked at them both. “I have officers securing the perimeter. The gala is still scheduled for tomorrow night, and that’s where Falk will be—he won’t miss the chance to see the pendant presented to its new owner, not when so much depends on it.”

Victor’s lips pressed into a thin line. “The necklace isn’t on the yacht.”

Henri frowned. “Explain.”

“Falk is too careful,” Victor said. “He keeps his assets close, but he never keeps them in one place. The pendant is the centerpiece of a deal he’s been building for years. He won’t gamble it on a boat that could be boarded or burned.” He paused. “The necklace will be at the private collector’s residence, waiting for the final exchange.”

Camille stepped forward. “Then we go there.”

“You go nowhere,” Henri said flatly. “You’re both civilian witnesses now, and Miss Laurent, you have a history of turning up in the middle of my crime scenes with a hammer in your hand.”

“I have a history of solving your cases for you,” Camille countered. “The pendant is still out there. The collector—whoever they are—is still unknown. And Falk is still free.” She met Henri’s gaze, unflinching. “You need us.”

Henri’s jaw worked. For a moment, he looked like a man weighing a dozen different objections and finding all of them wanting.

“You give me everything,” he said at last. “Every name, every document you’ve kept hidden, every tiny detail you think might matter. You don’t hold anything back.” He looked from Camille to Victor. “And you follow my protocol to the letter. No freelance heroics, no midnight casino gambits. If I say we go in through the front door, we go in through the front door. Clear?”

Camille glanced at Victor. Something passed between them—a silent negotiation, old habits still alive.

“Clear,” they said together.

Henri shook his head, but there was the faintest ghost of a smile on his face. “Fine. Meet me at the precinct in one hour. Bring whatever you have, and we’ll see if we can’t build a case that holds.”

He turned and walked back to the sedan, his steps unhurried. The car’s engine rumbled to life, and Camille watched it pull away, its taillights carving a path through the dark.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Victor said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Make him think you trust me.”

Camille turned to face him fully. The sling, the pale skin, the shadows under his eyes—he was a man carrying more weight than he had ever shown her. And still, somehow, he had shown up. Wounded. Known. And ready to fight.

“I don’t trust you,” she said. “But I know when a man is telling the truth.” She took a breath. “And I know you’re the only person in this city who understands what Falk will do next.”

Victor studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“I won’t let you down again,” he said. “I give you my word.”

Camille looked out at the harbor, where the Aurelia’s lights gleamed faintly against the dark water. The gala was tomorrow. The collector was unknown. And somewhere, hidden behind layers of false gems and clever misdirection, the real necklace was waiting to be found.

“Keep your word,” she said. “And we might just live long enough to see morning.”

She walked toward the street, and after a heartbeat, Victor fell into step beside her. Side by side, they left the port behind—two people who had spent years learning how not to trust each other, finally walking in the same direction.