Read Chapter 7: The Old Debt

The message came at 7:14 AM, while Elise was still in bed, the Paris dawn a pale strip of grey between her curtains. Her phone buzzed once, then again, and she reached for it with the half-awake dread of someone who had learned to fear notifications.

The sender was unknown. No name, no number she recognized. Just a subject line that made her sit up straight: *I have something you lost.*

She opened it.

There was a photograph. Her, three years ago, at a private club in Ibiza. She remembered the night—vaguely, in flashes of vodka-clear regret. She was laughing, her head thrown back, a bottle of something expensive in one hand and a plastic bag of white powder in the other. It wasn't hers. That was the truth. It had been handed to her by a DJ who thought it would be funny, and she'd held it for exactly six seconds before dropping it. But the camera didn't capture the drop. It captured the laugh, the bottle, the bag.

Below the photo, a single line of text: *Call me. Marcus Webb. You remember the name.*

She did. Marcus Webb, the former editor of *The Daily Scandal*, a man who had built his career on ruining others. He'd been fired two years ago for fabricating a story about a British footballer's affair—but the damage had been done before the retraction. He was freelance now, a ghost haunting the margins of the industry, selling secrets to whoever paid most.

Elise's hands were shaking as she dialed the number. It rang three times, four, and then a voice, smooth and unhurried, like a predator stretching in the sun.

"Miss Moreau. I was wondering how long it would take you."

"What do you want?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt.

"A conversation. You're doing so well now, I hear. The Ashford story is very good for you. Very good indeed."

"What do you want?"

The voice sighed, theatrical. "I want to make sure that story doesn't end badly. You see, I have this photograph, and I have a few others. And I have a professional obligation to my creditors. I need a hundred thousand euros by Friday."

Elise closed her eyes. "I don't have that."

"You'll find it. You're about to sign a contract with La Mer Blanche, aren't you? I heard a little bird. That deal must be worth—what? Five hundred thousand? A million? A hundred thousand is nothing to you, Miss Moreau. A rounding error."

"That's not—"

"Friday, Miss Moreau." The line went dead.

She sat in the silence of her apartment, the photograph still glowing on her screen. The powder wasn't hers. She'd never touched cocaine. But the camera wouldn't tell that story. The camera would tell the story of a disgraced actress, once again proving she was exactly what the tabloids had always said she was.

Her mother's earring was sitting on her nightstand, recovered, returned. She picked it up, thumbed the cool metal, and thought about how far she'd come. And how little distance that actually was.

---

Vivienne arrived twenty minutes later, summoned by a single text: *Emergency. Come now.*

She swept into Elise's flat in a trench coat and heels, her face already set in the hard lines of a woman who had seen too many fires to panic. She looked at the photograph on Elise's phone, then at Elise sitting on the couch, still in her pajamas.

"Who else has this?"

"I don't know. He said he had more."

"He does." Vivienne's voice was flat, certain. "Men like Webb don't gamble their whole hand. He'll have negatives, backups, copies in envelopes to friends. He's been doing this since before you were born."

"Can we go to the police?"

Vivienne laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "The police. In your industry. You know what happens when you go to the police with a tabloid editor? The story becomes the story. 'Elise Moreau Flees to Authorities Over Scandal Snaps.' Even if they prosecute him, you lose. You always lose."

"So I pay him."

"Do you have a hundred thousand euros?" Vivienne asked, and the question was a door closing.

"Simon—"

"Doesn't know. And he can't know." Vivienne sat down across from Elise, her eyes sharp. "If Simon finds out, he'll want to control the story. He'll bring in crisis teams, legal advisors. He'll tell Theo's people. And Theo might be pragmatic, he might be willing to spin this, but Elise—this is the kind of story that ends a contract. He's got his own career to protect. A fake girlfriend with a drug scandal? He'll drop you faster than he picked you up."

"So what do I do?"

Vivienne was quiet for a long moment. "You pay him. Quietly. From your own money, if you have it. Cash, untraceable."

"I don't have that kind of cash. Most of my liquid assets are tied up in lawyers from the last scandal."

"I can lend you some." Vivienne said it without hesitation, and Elise felt a swell of gratitude so strong it nearly choked her. "But not all of it. I've got my own debts, contracts, people to pay."

"Then what—the deal with La Mer Blanche. If I sign tomorrow, the advance would cover it. But the money won't clear before Friday."

Vivienne's jaw tightened. "There's another way. You could tell Theo. He's got money. He might see it as a business expense—protecting the investment."

"No." The word came out harder than Elise intended. "I don't want him to know. He already controls the narrative, the dates, every move I make. If he pays my blackmail, he'll own me completely. I'll be his prop forever."

"Then I'll figure something out." Vivienne stood, pulling out her phone. "I have some contacts. People who move money quietly. Give me until tonight."

Elise nodded, though she didn't feel the certainty she projected. She watched Vivienne leave, the door clicking shut, and then she was alone again with the photograph.

She thought about Theo. About the way he'd made her laugh that night at the restaurant, the photographer's flash catching her genuine amusement. It had been a false moment—he'd manufactured it for the cameras—but the laugh itself had been real. That was the strange and terrible thing about their arrangement: the performances were fake, but the feelings underneath them were edges of something true.

She couldn't let him see this. The powder, the partying, the reckless girl she'd been—she'd spent three years trying to bury that girl, and Theo Ashford's careful, scandal-free image had been part of that burial. If he knew she came with this baggage, he might still help her out of obligation. But he'd never look at her the same way again.

She was sliding back into her own dress to go find Vivienne when her phone buzzed again. This time, it wasn't Marcus. It was an unknown number, but the message was different.

*I saw the photograph. I know what he's doing to you. Meet me at Le Café du Musée, 4 PM. Don't tell anyone.*

No name. No signature. Just an address.

Elise stared at the screen, her heart hammering. It could be a trap. Another layer of Marcus's scheme. But it could also be someone offering help—or a way out.

She looked at her mother's earring, still on the nightstand, and made a decision.

She had one hour.