Read Chapter 23: The Dilemma

The conference room of Château Belliveau smelled of beeswax and desperation. Julien sat across from a family that had, twenty-four hours earlier, been ready to bury him in lawsuits. Now Odile Belliveau’s hands trembled around a cup of cold coffee, and her son Pierre couldn’t stop glancing at the window where the media’s drone hovered like a patient wasp.

“The bank called again this morning,” Pierre said. “Forty hours left. Then the entire estate—the vineyards, the château, the cellar—belongs to a holding company none of us has ever heard of.”

Julien studied them. Béatrice, the youngest, had been crying. Philippe, the oenologist, hadn’t spoken a word, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on the mahogany table.

“You want me to what, exactly?” Julien asked. “Suppress a century-old murder to save your vineyards?”

Odile set down her cup with a clatter. “We want you to help us *understand* the debt. You were a detective, Monsieur Moreau. The loan’s origins are—opaque. Someone in this family signed for it. Someone’s signature is on a document we’ve never seen.”

Julien pulled the file from his satchel. It was thick with bank correspondence he’d gathered over the past two weeks, trying to find an angle that might buy time. “The loan was taken out in 2019. Five-year balloon. Original principal: eight million. It was structured as a private lending agreement through a Swiss bank—Compagnie Financière de Genève.”

Pierre leaned forward. “We know that. What we don’t know is who approved it. Odile was ill that year. I assumed Étienne—our Étienne—had handled it.”

Julien slid a single page across the table. “This is the signature page from the original loan agreement. The bank finally released it to me yesterday—they have no reason to protect your family, only to recover their funds.”

Odile put on her reading glasses. Her face drained of color. “This isn’t Étienne’s signature.”

“No,” Julien said. “It isn’t. I compared it against the estate records. The signature belongs to a person named Lucien Parmentier. He identified himself as the family’s financial officer. The bank never verified his authority. He received the funds in a numbered account, and the money was disbursed from there to various Belliveau operating accounts over the following year.”

Philippe stopped drumming. “Who is Lucien Parmentier?”

“That’s what I spent yesterday finding out,” Julien said. “I ran the name. There’s no record of anyone by that name in French financial services. No passport application. No social security number. He doesn’t exist.”

The room fell silent. The drone buzzed past the window again.

“The money,” Béatrice whispered, “where did it go?”

Julien pulled out a second page—a spreadsheet he’d built from bank statements retrieved from the numbered account before the Swiss froze access. “The bulk was transferred to a Caribbean shell company. But before that, smaller amounts were drawn monthly. Approximately one hundred and twenty thousand euros per month, over a four-year period.”

“That’s—that’s more than we spend on operations,” Pierre said.

“It’s almost exactly what your family’s private living expenses were from 2019 to 2023,” Julien corrected. “Private jets. A villa in Cap Ferrat. Your sister’s art collection. Your mother’s medical treatments in Geneva.”

Odile’s face tightened. “We didn’t know. We believed the estate’s profits could cover the expenses. Our accountants told us—”

“Your accountants were paid from that same account,” Julien said quietly. “Everyone who might have raised questions was on the payroll of the fictitious Lucien Parmentier.”

Philippe stood up, knocking his chair back. “This was designed. Someone built us a trap. The debt wasn’t a loan—it was a mechanism.”

Julien nodded. “A mechanism to acquire this estate at pennies on the euro when the balloon payment came due.” He paused. “I traced the shell company that bought the debt from the original lender last month, when the loan was bundled and sold. It took me eight hours of digging through Panamanian registries to find the final owner.”

He let the silence stretch. He looked at Odile, whose mask of composure had begun to fracture.

“The shell company is owned by another shell company, which is owned by a third, registered in Delaware. But the sole signatory on all three is a private equity firm headquartered in London called Venatrix Capital.”

No flicker of recognition crossed any face. “Should we know that name?” Pierre asked.

“It doesn’t matter if you know it,” Julien said. “What matters is who founded it. I recognize the structure. I’ve investigated it before. Venatrix Capital is the investment vehicle of Alain Delage.”

Now Béatrice went pale. Everyone in Bordeaux had heard of Alain Delage—the city’s former deputy police commissioner, who had been forced to resign in disgrace after an internal affairs investigation into his ties to organized crime. That investigation, Julien knew, was his own work. He was the one who had exposed Delage’s corruption and gotten him fired.

“The man who’s trying to take your estate,” Julien said, “is the same man who tried to destroy my career. He blames me for his fall. And now he’s discovered the perfect way to hurt us both.”

Odile’s eyes locked on him. “You knew this threat existed.”

“I knew I had an enemy,” Julien said. “I didn’t know he was the one pulling your family’s strings.”

The room was very quiet. The drone kept hovering outside, patient as a vulture.

“So you see,” Julien said slowly, “we have a real dilemma. I can still deliver the letters proving your family’s ancestor murdered mine. Or I can help you fight a man who cares nothing for the truth of 1903—only for the money your vines will make him.”

He folded his arms. “But I won’t do both.”