Read Chapter 36: The Reckoning

The eastern slope groaned like a dying animal. Luc sprinted through the dining hall, past overturned tables and shattered glass, the bank records pressed against his chest beneath his jacket. Camille was at his side, axe still in hand, breath fogging in cold plumes.

"He's going for Karine," she said.

"I know."

They hit the corridor leading to the sauna just as a muffled crack echoed from above. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and Luc felt the floor shift beneath his boots. The resort was coming apart.

He rounded the corner and saw them. Ali had Karine by the throat, her bound wrists raised uselessly between them. She was on her knees, face purple, eyes bulging. Ali held a pistol against her temple, but his focus was on the ceiling—on the fissure snaking across it like a black river.

"Belmont!" Luc shouted.

Ali turned. His calm mask had cracked. What remained was something harder, colder. "Moreau. You're persistent."

"Let her go. She's not a witness. She's a tool, just like you said. The real crime is up there." Luc pointed toward the ice cellar. "Frozen money. Frozen evidence. Gaspard's whole scheme. You know it."

Ali smiled. "I know exactly what's down there. I was sent to make sure no one ever found it." He pressed the barrel harder against Karine's temple. "Including her."

Karine made a strangled sound. Her eyes found Luc's—pleading, terrified, alive.

"You need to decide, Moreau," Ali said. "Are you the man who saves people? Or the man who watches them die?"

The words hit like a physical blow. Luc's climbing team. The faces he couldn't save. The same choice, the same impossible math.

But he wasn't the same man.

Luc let his hands rise slowly. "Okay. You win. I'm unarmed." He flicked his gaze to the floor near the overturned couch. "The flare gun's under there. You can take it. More leverage."

Ali's eyes flicked down—just for a heartbeat.

It was enough.

Camille moved first, swinging the axe in a low arc that forced Ali to step back. He released Karine, who collapsed forward, gasping. Ali raised the pistol, but Luc was already in motion, tackling him at the waist. The gun fired—a wild shot that punched through the ceiling and sent a shower of ice down on them.

They hit the floor hard. The corridor angled slightly downward, toward the sauna, and the impact sent them sliding across the slick tiles. Ali's elbow caught Luc's jaw. Luc tasted blood. He grabbed for Ali's wrist, slammed it against the floor until the pistol skittered away.

Ali bucked, twisted, and drove his knee into Luc's ribs. Pain flared white-hot. Luc's grip loosened, and Ali scrambled to his feet, lunging for the flare gun beneath the couch.

Luc got his feet under him, lunging too. Their hands collided on the metal tube. Ali wrenched it free, brought it up—

Camille's axe slammed into the couch beside them, splintering wood. Ali flinched.

Luc seized the moment, wrapping both arms around Ali's knees and driving forward. They crashed through the sauna door, wood splintering, steam billowing around them. Ali lost his grip on the flare gun. It spun across the floor and vanished into the mist.

They wrestled on the wet tiles, blows landing blind. Ali had weight and fury. Luc had rage sharpened by years of guilt. He got on top, pinned Ali's shoulders against the floor—

The floor cracked.

A sound like a gunshot. The tiles beneath them split, and cold, howling air roared up from below. Luc looked down and saw nothing but black. The glacier beneath the resort had fissured, and the sauna floor was its new mouth.

"Luc!" Camille's voice cut through the chaos.

Ali's eyes went wide. He clawed at Luc's jacket, pulling him down. "If I go, you go—"

Luc brought his head down hard. Forehead against nose. Ali's grip faltered.

Luc rolled, scrambling backward, fingers finding the shattered door frame. Behind him, Ali scrambled too, hands scrabbling at the wet tiles. For a moment, Luc thought he'd make it.

Then the ice gave way.

Ali fell, screaming, into the black.

The sound lasted longer than Luc expected—a long, falling diminuendo that ended in something Luc couldn't hear and didn't want to imagine. He lay flat on the threshold, chest heaving, staring into the crevasse that had swallowed his enemy whole.

Then the eastern slope spoke. A deep, bass-heavy crack that traveled through the foundation like a seismic wave. The floor tilted.

"Luc!" Camille was there, Karine's arm over her shoulder, dragging her up the corridor. "The whole wing's coming down. Move!"

Luc got to his feet. Pain lanced through his ribs. He grabbed Karine's other arm, and together they staggered toward the dining hall, toward the front entrance, toward the open air that smelled of snow and diesel.

Behind them, the resort screamed as the avalanche took it.

---

They made it to the helicopter pad—the one Ali had fired at—just as the rescue birds came back over the ridge. Three of them, heavy-lift, Swiss rescue insignia on the hulls. The pilot from earlier must have called it in before retreating.

Luc collapsed in the snow, head tilted back, watching the falling powder settle around them like a gentle end. Camille dropped beside him, her chest heaving. Karine lay on her back, crying soundlessly, tears freezing before they reached her ears.

"It's done," Camille said. "He's gone. We're alive."

Luc opened his mouth to confirm. But the words didn't come. Because he was thinking about what Ali had said—*I know exactly what's down there.* And about the records still pressed against his chest. And about the fact that Gaspard, the man who'd buried evidence and people with equal ease, was still out there. And Karine knew his name.

And Luc—Luc had killed a man.

Not in a slide. Not in an accident. He'd watched the floor crack and chosen to pull his head back and let Ali fall. He'd made it look like survival. But he knew the truth of it.

He'd wanted Ali dead.

Camille was watching him. Her hand found his, cold and steady. "Come on. Let's go home."

And Luc nodded, even though he didn't know where home was anymore, with Gaspard alive and his own conscience no longer clean.

The helicopter descended, rotor wash flattening the snow around them.