Read Chapter 33: The Last Debt

The call came at 6:47 in the morning, dragging Alex from a sleep so shallow it barely qualified. Hélène stirred beside him in the Beaune hotel room, her hand finding his arm as he reached for the phone. The screen showed an unknown number with a Geneva prefix.

“Moreau.” Victor’s voice, stripped of its usual oil-slick charm. Beneath it ran a current of something Alex had never heard there before: fear. “Don’t hang up. I know you want to. But listen.”

Alex swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “You have ten seconds before I end this call and call the gendarmerie.”

“They’re already looking for me. That’s not why I called.” A pause, a wet breath. “I have the original file. The one from the server in Dijon. The one with your father’s face on it.”

The words landed like a fist in his gut. He’d thought that file buried, encrypted, gone with the Bouchards’ network when Vichet fled. He could feel Hélène’s eyes on his back, waiting.

“I also have what your father said in the video,” Vichet continued. “The part they edited out of what you found. The part where he names the banker. All of it, Moreau. High definition. Sound clear as a bell.”

Alex pressed the phone harder against his ear. “The court already has my father’s testimony. A copy of that tape is in a gendarmerie locker right now.”

“No. You have what I *gave* you. What I chose to give you.” Vichet’s voice sharpened. “I kept the master. Deleting it was never an option—that was my life insurance. But now the Bouchards’ people have found my trail in Zurich, and my insurance policy is about to become a death sentence. So here’s my final offer. Two hundred thousand euros. Wired to an account I’ll send you. In exchange, you get the master file. Your father’s full legacy, whatever that means to you. And my silence about the parts that don’t flatter him.”

The words hung in the hotel room air, thick as Burgundy fog. Alex closed his eyes. His father, on that tape, had admitted to profiting from the smuggling—had admitted to being more than an informant. He’d bought his freedom with the Bouchards’ secrets while taking their money on the side. If Vichet released the full version, the world would know what Alex now suspected: that the man who raised him was not a hero who fell, but a man who played both ends until the game caught up with him.

“Why should I trust you?” Alex’s voice came out rough. “You’ve already tried to bury me once.”

“Because I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to do business.” A pause. “And because I know you’re not like him. You won’t let an innocent man rot to save your name.”

The implication was clear enough. Vichet might have been speaking of Alex’s father. But Alex heard his own name in the silence between the words. If he refused, and the Bouchards’ men found Vichet first, the file would end up in hands far more destructive than a desperate accountant on the run.

“Where are you now?”

“Somewhere public. Somewhere with cameras,” Vichet said. “I’m not a fool, Moreau. If the Bouchards find me, I want witnesses.”

“Send me the account details.” Alex heard himself say the words before he’d fully decided. “But I want proof you have the file first.”

“You’ll have it. Watch your inbox.” A click. The line went dead.

Hélène was sitting up now, her dark hair tangled against the white pillow. “Alex. What was that?”

He told her. All of it. The video, his father’s full confession, Vichet’s demand. When he finished, she was quiet for a long moment.

“You’re not actually considering paying him.”

“I’m considering not letting a man die because of what my father did.”

“He’s a criminal. He was laundering money for the Bouchards before you ever arrived.”

“And so was my father.” Alex stood, pacing to the window. Morning light spilled over the rooftops of Beaune, gold against the ancient tiles. “If Vichet is caught with that file, everything we’ve built these past weeks crumbles. The warrant, the seizure, the case against the family—all of it becomes evidence of a conspiracy involving my father. Delacroix’s argument to the magistrate was that my father repented, that he turned against the Bouchards. If the full video shows him doing business with them, profiting from them…” He shook his head. “The whole case could collapse.”

“So you pay him.”

“So I buy time.” Alex turned from the window. “And then I find another way.”

The account details arrived eleven minutes later. Alex stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the transfer confirmation. Two hundred thousand. It would bleed the estate’s reserves dry, but the midnight sale was already blocked. The property was no longer the Bouchards’ to claim.

He pressed send.

He didn’t tell Hélène until it was done. She looked at him with something between anger and understanding, then nodded slowly. “You did what you had to do.”

“I don’t know if I did.” The truth tasted bitter. “I don’t know if I just bought a lie.”

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The video arrived at 9:15.

Not as a file transfer, but as a link. A public link. Alex opened it with a sense of dread curdling in his stomach. The feed showed Victor Vichet standing in what looked like a pedestrian square in Annecy, the lake glittering behind him. He was holding his phone at arm’s length, recording himself.

“My name is Victor Vichet,” he said, voice steady. “Until recently, I served as the financial comptroller for the Bouchard family’s holdings in Burgundy. In that capacity, I personally oversaw the transfer of funds through shell companies, including Villa Nova Holdings. I also maintained the ledgers that documented the sale of rare and counterfeit wines to private collectors across Europe and Asia.”

He paused, drawing a breath. A small crowd had begun to gather, drawn by the camera and the odd spectacle of a man in a wrinkled suit recording himself in the square.

“The Bouchards—specifically Laurent Bouchard and his son Marcel—directed these operations. I have no evidence that Alexandre Moreau, the current owner of Château Moreau, was aware of any criminal activity before his inheritance. He was not part of the scheme. His father was not involved in the larger laundering operation.”

That’s a lie, Alex thought. But Vichet continued before he could dwell on it.

“I also wish to name the banker who facilitated these transactions from Geneva. That man is Antoine Frédric, senior account manager at Lombard & Cie, who held accounts for the Bouchards under false names and helped structure the transfers to avoid detection.”

He named the account numbers. He named the dates. He named the amounts—millions upon millions, filtered through layers of Swiss secrecy like water through limestone.

Then he lowered the phone, looked directly into the camera, and said: “I did not act alone. I acted under threat. I’m turning myself in to the authorities at the Annecy gendarmerie. My full statement has been filed with the public prosecutor’s office, along with all documents in my possession.”

The video ended.

Alex sat in silence, the phone still in his hand. Outside, the bells of a nearby church began to ring, marking the hour. He thought of the money he’d wired, the account now empty, the risk he’d taken. And he thought of Vichet, standing in that square, choosing to end his flight not with a bribe but with a confession.

He hadn’t paid for silence.

He’d paid for a man to find the courage to speak.

Alex let out a long breath. He wasn’t sure if he’d been played, or if he’d been part of something Vichet had planned all along. Either way, the file was public now, and Antoine Frédric’s name was out in the open where the law could reach him.

The Bouchards’ last card had just been burned.