Read Chapter 5: The Debt to Élodie

The conference room smelled of bad coffee and worse news. Camille had chosen the smallest meeting space in the office—the one with the cracked window and the radiator that clicked like a dying insect—because she wanted this to feel intimate. She wanted the weight of it to press down on her and her alone.

She'd failed at that already.

Five names sat on a printed sheet before her. Five lives. Five rent payments, five health insurance cards, five people who'd trusted her to build something worthy of their mornings.

Antoine stood by the window with his back to her, hands in his pockets. He'd been quiet all morning. That should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt like watching a fuse burn.

"You want to do the talking or should I?" he asked without turning.

"I'll start." Camille's voice came out steadier than she felt. "Stay behind me. Look supportive. Don't say anything unless I signal you."

"You have a signal system for firings?"

"I have a signal system for everything."

Paul had given them a folder at nine a.m. sharp. Five employees. Three infrastructure engineers, one data analyst, and—

Camille's throat tightened.

Élodie Kone. Twenty-eight years old. First engineer Camille ever hired at AlgoSens, back when the company was a coworking desk and a prayer. The one who'd stayed up three nights straight with Camille before the seed round demo, coding a workaround for a botched API integration that should have sunk them.

And now Élodie was on the list.

The others filed in one by one. Dubois, a backend engineer with twelve years of experience who'd joined for the mission and stayed for the commute. Marchand, young, promising, always eager, whose desk was decorated with sticky notes in seven colors. Kovač, a senior data engineer who'd moved from Zagreb for this job. And Thibault, the analyst whose weekly churn reports had been quietly getting worse for months—the ones Camille had ignored.

Élodie arrived last. She sat down across from Camille and smiled, small and trusting, and Camille felt something in her chest splinter.

"I know what this is," Dubois said before she could begin. His voice was flat. "You don't call five people to a room without the windows open to talk about quarterly objectives."

Camille didn't look at Antoine. She'd asked him to stand behind her, but he'd moved to her side instead, close enough that his shoulder almost touched hers. An act of solidarity she hadn't requested and wasn't sure she deserved.

"We're reducing headcount," she said. "Effective end of the week. Severance packages will be generous within our constraints. We'll provide references, support, and—"

"Generous within our constraints," Kovač repeated, almost admiring. "That's a beautiful phrase. I'll use it when I tell my wife we're going back to Zagreb."

"Is there anything we can say to change your mind?" Thibault asked. His voice cracked on the last word.

Camille looked at them. Marchand's colorful notes. Kovač's new haircut, probably for a date this weekend. Thibault's hands, folded like he was praying. And Élodie, who was looking at Camille with something worse than anger.

Understanding.

"Unfortunately not," Antoine said. His voice was unexpectedly gentle. "This isn't a reflection of your performance. It's a reflection of our failure."

Camille shot him a warning look. The script had been clear. We regret to inform you, the market has been difficult, we value everything you've contributed. Not *our failure*. Investors hated accountability almost as much as they hated churn.

But Antoine didn't look at her. He was looking at the five people she was destroying.

"AlgoSens is facing financial headwinds that are not your problem to carry," he said. "Which is the most corporate sentence I've ever said, and I'm aware it doesn't help. But Camille fought for each of you. For real. She spent an hour last night arguing with our CFO about alternatives before we ran out of them."

Camille blinked. She'd spent exactly zero hours last night arguing with Paul. She'd spent the night staring at her ceiling, listening to the building's ancient pipes groan.

"You want to know how I know?" Antoine continued. "Because I saw the list. Three of you were marked for termination on grounds of redundancy. Camille removed those notes and refused to justify herself. The other two—" He glanced at Camille, and something flickered in his eyes. "She fought hardest for the one who wasn't marked at all."

Élodie's eyes widened.

"Thank you for your transparency," Dubois managed, standing. "I'll clear my desk by lunch."

One by one, they left. Marchand last, pulling off his sticky notes so carefully it felt like surgery.

Élodie paused at the door. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Camille watched her walk down the corridor, and the splintering in her chest became a fracture.

---

Café de Flore was packed, so Élodie and Camille took a table at the back, tucked behind a column of dusty philosophy books. Élodie ordered a chamomile tea. Camille ordered an espresso she had no intention of drinking.

"You can't fire someone from your own boots, Camille," Élodie said, stirring her tea. "I saw what that cost you."

"It cost me nothing worth counting."

"You remember that night before the seed round? We installed speakers in the ceiling so we could listen to music in the bathroom? You cried when we hit the integration. You cried because you thought we'd finally made something real."

"I remember."

"I thought about that tonight. When you said my name." Élodie looked into her tea. "You didn't want to say it."

"It doesn't matter what I wanted."

"It matters to me." Élodie set her spoon down. "I'm pregnant. Due in nine weeks. I was going to tell you at the team dinner on Friday."

Camille's espresso cup stopped halfway to her lips. "Élodie, that's—that's wonderful. That's—"

"I'm not telling you for congratulations. I'm telling you because I need you to understand what you almost took away from me." Élodie's voice was calm, but there was an edge in it. "No coverage, no severance big enough to cover a baby in Paris. I would have been stuck."

Camille put the cup down. "You still are. The layoffs—"

"I wasn't the only one who fought for my name to stay, Camille. Antoine fought too. I don't know why. He barely knows me." Élodie paused. "But I know you. And I know why you kept me."

"I kept you because you're the best engineer I've ever worked with."

Élodie leaned forward. "Then let me ask you to be better than that. I need a promotion. Official, written, before the maternity paperwork starts. The kind that comes with a raise."

"That's—"

"I know it's a lot. And I know you have six weeks of runway." Élodie said it simply, without drama. "But there's something else."

Camille waited.

"My brother. He has a debt. Bad people. The kind who come at night and take things." Élodie's fingers tightened around her teacup. "I've been borrowing from the petty cash account to keep them at bay. Small amounts. Maybe forty thousand over the last three months. I always planned to pay it back, but then the layoffs happened, and my savings went to rent, and I got pregnant, and—"

"How small?" Camille's voice was hoarse.

"Small enough that nobody noticed. Small enough that if the investors audit us before Friday's payroll cycle, I'm exposed. And so are you."

Camille stared at her. Forty thousand euros. Gone. Maybe more by now. The petty cash account, a paltry slush fund she'd never once monitored. In the chaos of churn rates and runaway GPU jobs and Antoine's goddamn scarf, she'd missed it entirely.

"Camille." Élodie's voice broke for the first time. "I didn't come here to threaten you. You're the only person who's ever believed in me. But I don't know what to do. They came to my apartment last week. They talked to my brother through the door. He's sixteen, Camille. He doesn't understand what he owes or who he borrowed from."

Camille closed her eyes. Somewhere in her mind, the balance sheets recomputed. Payroll deductions. The escape of a funding round. Forty thousand euros of fraud, buried under her signature by someone she'd trusted since the beginning.

She opened her eyes.

"Who did he borrow from?"

"There's a man. Near the markets. He goes by Monsieur Blanc."

Camille's stomach dropped. She'd heard that name before. Whispered at networking events, in the corridors of startup incubators, always with fear.

Élodie looked at her with desperate eyes. "I'll accept the layoff tomorrow if you want. I'll disappear, and you can say you never saw the books. But if I go now, they'll come for my brother."

"No," Camille said. The word came out before she could think. "You're not fired. You're promoted. Same title I have, with a seat at the product table. And we're going to fix your brother's debt."

"How?"

Camille reached across the table and took Élodie's hand. The gesture surprised them both. "I don't know yet. But I'm going to figure it out before the audit. Before Friday. Before anyone touches you or your brother."

Élodie's eyes glistened. "You have six weeks of runway. You can't fix this."

"I have five names on a layoff list, a runaway AI job I didn't authorize, a rival investor holding my scarf like a sword, and a new co-lead who might actually be trustworthy." Camille squeezed her hand. "I've fixed worse before with less."

She smiled, thin and fragile.

"I'll fix this too."