Teaser : “METS-TOI À GENOUX OU DÉGAGE !”
Le froid me glaçait les os. La pluie torrentielle de cette nuit parisienne traversait ma chemise de nuit, collant le tissu à mon ventre rond de huit mois. Je tremblais de tout mon corps, incapable de me relever dans la boue du jardin.
Derrière la baie vitrée du salon, Julien riait. Il tenait un verre de vin d’une main, et elle de l’autre. Léa. Ma propre belle-sœur. Ils me regardaient comme si j’étais un déchet, un divertissement cruel pour leur soirée.
“Regarde-la,” a-t-il crié à travers la vitre. “Tu n’es bonne qu’à ça, Camille ! À ramper !”
Je pensais que c’était la fin. Je pensais que j’allais perdre mon bébé, là, seule dans le noir, abandonnée par l’homme pour qui j’avais tout sacrifié. Mon cœur se brisait plus fort que le tonnerre.
Mais soudain, le faisceau aveuglant de phares au xénon a déchiré l’obscurité.
Non pas une voiture de police. Ni une ambulance. Mais trois SUV noirs, aux vitres teintées, avançant avec une précision militaire dans l’allée.
Le rire de Julien s’est éteint instantanément. Parce que les hommes qui sont sortis de ces véhicules ne venaient pas pour discuter. Ils venaient pour reprendre ce qui appartenait à l’une des familles les plus puissantes de France… et Julien venait de commettre l’erreur de sa vie.
Partie 1 : L’Illusion brisée
Je m’appelle Camille. J’ai grandi dans un monde de soie et de silence, celui de la haute bourgeoisie française. Mais par amour, j’avais tout quitté. J’avais choisi Julien, un homme que je croyais simple et aimant, préférant une vie modeste à la fortune froide de mon père. Quelle erreur monumentale.
Tout a commencé par des retards. Des parfums qui n’étaient pas les miens. Et ce soir-là, alors que la pluie battait les vitres de notre pavillon en banlieue parisienne, le masque est tombé.
Il était 1h du matin. J’ai entendu la porte s’ouvrir, puis des rires. Julien n’était pas seul. Je suis descendue, mon ventre de huit mois me pesant lourdement. Dans le salon, Julien était assis avec Léa. Léa, que je connaissais. Léa, que je pensais être une amie.
— “Julien ? Qu’est-ce qu’elle fait là ?” ai-je demandé, la voix tremblante.
Léa a souri, un sourire de prédateur. — “Oh, la petite épouse est réveillée. Dommage, on s’amusait bien.”
Julien ne m’a même pas regardée. Il a posé des papiers sur la table basse. — “Signe ça, Camille. C’est la cession de la maison. Je veux qu’elle soit à mon nom exclusif avant l’arrivée du bébé.”
J’ai cru mal entendre. — “Quoi ? C’est ma maison, Julien. Je l’ai payée avec mes économies. Et pourquoi Léa est là ?”
Il s’est levé brusquement, ses yeux noirs de colère. — “Parce que j’en ai marre de jouer au mari parfait pour une femme ennuyeuse ! Léa me comprend. Toi, tu n’es qu’un boulet. Signe, ou tu sors.”
J’ai reculé, protégeant mon ventre. — “Tu es fou. Je porte ton enfant ! Il pleut des cordes dehors !”
Il m’a attrapée par le bras, me tirant vers la baie vitrée avec une violence qui m’a fait crier. Il a ouvert la porte coulissante. Le vent et la pluie se sont engouffrés dans la pièce chaude.
— “Je m’en fous,” a-t-il craché. “Si tu ne signes pas, tu ne vaux rien. Allez, dehors !”
Il m’a poussée. J’ai trébuché sur la terrasse glissante et je suis tombée lourdement dans l’herbe boueuse. Le choc a été brutal.
— “Julien, pitié !” ai-je hurlé, la boue glacée pénétrant ma chemise de nuit. “J’ai mal ! Le bébé !”
Pour toute réponse, il a ri. — “Mets-toi à genoux ! Reste là et réfléchis à ta situation précaire, espèce d’incapable.”
Il a claqué la baie vitrée. J’étais seule. Dans le noir. Sous la pluie battante.
PART 2: THE ARRIVAL OF THE GUARDS
The cold was not a gradual thing; it was an assault. It didn’t just touch my skin; it invaded it, biting through the thin, soaked fabric of my cotton nightgown and settling deep into my marrow. I was kneeling in the mud of the garden I had planted myself just last spring. The hydrangeas were thrashing in the wind, their heavy heads bowing under the torrent, much like I was bowing now.
Rain in Paris in late autumn is not romantic. It is grey, industrial, and unforgiving. Tonight, it felt like judgment.
I tried to push myself up, my hands sinking into the slick, wet earth. The mud oozed between my fingers, cold and gritty. A sharp, cramping pain radiated from my lower back around to my abdomen—a tightening band that stole my breath. I gasped, the sound lost in the roar of the wind tearing through the suburban trees.
Not now, I begged silently, my teeth chattering so violently my jaw ached. Please, not now. Stay inside, little one. Just stay inside.
I lifted my head, wiping a matted lock of wet hair from my eyes, and looked back at the house. My house. The modest, two-story pavilion in the Yvelines that I had paid for with the inheritance from my grandmother—the only money I had kept when I walked away from my father’s empire. Through the sliding glass doors, the living room glowed with a warm, amber light. It looked like a painting of domestic bliss, a sanctuary against the storm.
But the figures inside distorted the image into something grotesque.
Julien was standing near the fireplace, the bottle of Bordeaux—a vintage I had saved for our anniversary—dangling loosely from his hand. He was laughing. I couldn’t hear the sound through the double-glazing and the storm, but I saw his head thrown back, his chest heaving. Next to him, Léa, the woman I had called a sister-in-law, the woman I had comforted through her own “breakups,” was pouring herself a glass. She said something to him, gestured toward the window where I was freezing, and smirked.
They were toasting. They were toasting to my destruction.
“Julien!” I screamed, though I knew it was useless. “Open the door! Please!”
He didn’t look. Or perhaps he did, and simply didn’t care. He had thrown me out like a unwanted dog, all because I wouldn’t sign over the deed. All because I wouldn’t disappear quietly so he could replace me with her.
The cramp came again, harder this time, doubling me over. My forehead touched the wet grass. I was going to die here. Me and my baby. We were going to freeze to death in a suburban garden while my husband drank wine ten meters away. The absurdity of it was almost as sharp as the cold. I had left the De Valois legacy—the billions, the security, the power—because I wanted “real love.” I wanted a life that wasn’t transactional.
And here I was, realizing that the man I chose was the most transactional of them all. He didn’t love me. He loved the safety net I provided. And now that he wanted to upgrade, he was cutting the net.
I closed my eyes, the rain plastering my eyelashes to my cheeks. I am sorry, Papa, I thought, the memory of my father’s stern face rising in my mind. You told me he was weak. You told me he had the eyes of a starving wolf. I thought you were just being cruel. I didn’t know you were just being observant.
I was slipping. The darkness at the edges of my vision was creeping inward, narrowing the world down to the throbbing pain in my belly and the rhythmic drumming of the rain. I was losing consciousness.
Then, the ground vibrated.
It wasn’t the thunder. It was a low, mechanical hum that resonated through the wet earth against my palms. It grew louder, a deep, guttural growl of heavy engines approaching.
I forced my eyes open.
Lights. Blinding, high-intensity xenon beams cut through the sheet of rain like lasers. They weren’t coming from the street; they were coming up the long, gravel driveway that led to the back of the property.
One set of lights. Then a second. Then a third.
The sheer luminosity turned the night into a stark, washed-out day. The raindrops looked like falling needles of glass in the beams. I shielded my eyes, confused. Police? Had a neighbor called the police?
But police cars in France scream with sirens and flash with blue lights. These vehicles were silent predators. They moved with a terrifying synchronization.
The lead vehicle, a massive black SUV that looked more like a tank than a car, crunched to a halt on the gravel path, less than twenty feet from where I knelt. The grille was imposing, a wall of black chrome. Behind it, two identical vehicles fanned out, flanking the first, effectively creating a steel barricade between me and the rest of the world.
The engines didn’t cut off. They idled with a menacing purr.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The scene was suspended in time—the rain falling, the lights blinding, the engines humming.
Then, the doors opened. Not one, but four doors simultaneously.
Men stepped out. They were not police officers. They were not paramedics. They were giants dressed in immaculate black suits that seemed to absorb the light. The rain hammered against them, but they didn’t hunch or run. They moved with a fluid, lethal precision that I recognized instantly. It was a walk I hadn’t seen in three years.
The walk of the De Valois private security detail.
The man from the front passenger seat of the lead car moved toward me. He was fast, covering the distance in long, purposeful strides. He carried a large black umbrella, which he snapped open with a sharp thwack that echoed louder than the rain.
He reached me and dropped to one knee in the mud. He didn’t care about his suit. He didn’t care about the slime coating the grass. He positioned the umbrella over me, instantly cutting off the deluge. The sudden absence of the rain hitting my skin was shocking.
“Mademoiselle Camille,” he said. His voice was deep, calm, and utterly controlled.
I blinked, water dripping from my nose and chin. I looked up into a face carved from granite, with eyes that missed nothing.
“Bastien?” I whispered, my voice cracking.
Bastien Da Silva. My father’s head of security. The man who had taught me how to throw a punch when I was twelve. The man who had driven me to school every day until I was eighteen. The man I had cried in front of when I told him I was leaving the family.
His expression, usually impassive, twitched with something that looked like rage—not at me, but at the state of me. He looked at my soaked nightgown, my blue lips, the mud caked on my legs. He looked at the way I was clutching my stomach.
“I am here, Mademoiselle,” he said softly, a contrast to his imposing size. “We have you. You are safe.”
“How…” I stammered, my teeth clattering. “How did you find me?”
“Your father never stopped watching,” Bastien replied simply. He reached out, his large hand hovering near my shoulder. “Permission to touch, Mademoiselle?”
“Please,” I sobbed. “Help me up. I can’t… my legs…”
“Easy now.”
He didn’t just help me up; he practically lifted me. One arm went around my back, solid as an iron bar, supporting my weight. He signaled to the other men. Immediately, two more guards moved in, forming a human wall around us, their backs to me, facing the house.
The house.
Inside, the party had stopped.
Through the rain-streaked glass, I saw Julien. He was no longer laughing. He was standing pressed against the glass, his face pale, staring at the convoy of black armored vehicles parked on his lawn. He looked like a child who had accidentally set fire to the curtains and was now watching the fire department arrive.
Léa was behind him, clutching her chest, her mouth moving in silent panic.
Julien slid the glass door open. The sound of the storm rushed back in, but he ignored it. He stepped out onto the terrace, still holding his wine glass, though his hand was shaking so hard the red liquid was sloshing over the rim.
“Hey!” he shouted. His voice was thin, reedy against the wind. “Who are you? What is this?”
Bastien didn’t turn around. He was busy wrapping a thick, dry cashmere coat around my shoulders. It smelled of cedar and my father’s cologne. The scent broke something inside me, and I started to weep.
“I asked you a question!” Julien yelled, finding a shred of his usual arrogance. He stepped off the terrace, marching toward us across the wet lawn. “Get away from my wife! You are trespassing! I’ll call the police!”
Bastien finished buttoning the coat around my neck. He looked at me, his eyes checking my pupils. “Can you stand for a moment, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Bastien turned.
Slowly. Deliberately.
He stood to his full height—six feet four inches of trained muscle. He turned to face Julien, who was storming toward us in his expensive Italian loafers, slipping slightly on the wet grass.
The two guards flanking me didn’t move, but their hands drifted subtly to their waists, beneath their jackets.
“Get back!” Julien spat, stopping three feet away. He pointed a finger at Bastien. “I don’t know who you think you are, but this is private property. Get off my lawn and leave that woman here. She needs to learn a lesson.”
The silence that followed was terrifying. The wind seemed to hold its breath.
Bastien looked at Julien’s finger. Then he looked at Julien’s face. He looked at him with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining a bacteria sample.
“Mr. Leroux,” Bastien said. His voice didn’t need to shout to be heard. It carried a weight that vibrated in the chest. “You have three seconds to lower your hand and step back.”
“Or what?” Julien sneered, though his eyes darted nervously to the other guards. “You’re going to hit me? I’ll sue you for everything you have. Do you know who I am? I am the owner of this house!”
“You own nothing,” Bastien said. “And you have assaulted a protected member of the De Valois family.”
Julien blinked. “De Valois? What are you talking about? Her name is Camille. She’s nobody. She’s a broke little—”
“Her name,” Bastien interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, becoming dangerously quiet, “is Camille Marie-Claire de Valois. Daughter of Henri de Valois. And you, Mr. Leroux, have just made the last mistake of your free life.”
Julien froze. The name hit him. Even in his ignorance, he knew the name De Valois. Everyone in France did. It was on buildings, on vineyards, on banking conglomerates. It was a name that meant untouchable power.
He looked at me, peering past Bastien’s shoulder. His eyes were wide, confused, searching for the submissive, quiet wife he had tormented for months.
“Camille?” he stammered. “What… what is he saying? Your dad… your dad is the vineyard guy? The investor?”
I stared at him. The man I had loved. The man I had washed socks for. The man I had cooked dinner for every night while he complained about his ‘stressful’ job. He looked so small now. So pathetic in the rain.
“He’s not just an investor, Julien,” I said, my voice hoarse but steadying. “He is the man who is going to make sure you never hurt anyone ever again.”
Léa appeared at the edge of the terrace. She was smarter than Julien; she realized the danger faster. “Julien!” she shrieked. “Julien, come back inside! Call the police!”
Julien, emboldened by her voice or perhaps just stupid with panic, lunged forward. “You’re lying! She’s lying! Camille, get back in the house right now!”
He reached for me. He actually reached past Bastien to grab my arm.
It happened in a blur.
Bastien didn’t punch him. That would have been crude. Instead, he intercepted Julien’s wrist in mid-air. With a movement too fast to track, he twisted the arm and swept Julien’s legs out from under him.
Julien hit the mud with a wet, sickening thud.
Face down. Arm twisted behind his back. Bastien had a knee on Julien’s spine before Julien could even gasp for air.
“Aah! My arm! You broke my arm!” Julien screamed into the grass.
“It is not broken yet,” Bastien stated calmly, applying a fraction more pressure. Julien howled. “But if you struggle, I will snap the radius and the ulna. Stay down.”
The other two guards stepped forward, creating a perimeter. One of them spoke into a wrist microphone. “Target secure. Hostiles neutralized. Prepare the extraction vehicle. Medical is needed immediately.”
Léa screamed from the terrace. “I’m filming this! I’m filming you!” She was holding up her phone, her hands shaking violently.
One of the guards turned his head toward her. He didn’t move toward her, he just looked. “Madame,” he said, his voice projecting clearly. “I suggest you put the phone down and pack a bag. The authorities will be here in ten minutes to process the eviction.”
“Eviction?” Julien wheezed from the ground, spitting out mud. “This is my house!”
Bastien leaned down, bringing his face close to Julien’s ear. “This house was purchased with funds from a joint account, was it not? Funds that originated from Camille’s personal savings? Savings that, legally, belong to the De Valois estate trust which she never formally dissolved.”
Bastien stood up, hauling Julien up by the collar of his expensive shirt like a sack of potatoes. He shoved him backward. Julien stumbled, slipping in the mud, falling onto his rear end. He looked ruined. Covered in slime, holding his wrist, staring up at the wall of men in black.
“You are done,” Bastien said. “Do not follow us. Do not call her. Do not look for her. If you come within one kilometer of her, the police will be the least of your problems.”
Bastien turned his back on him—the ultimate insult. He looked at me, his face softening instantly.
“Come, Mademoiselle. The car is heated.”
He guided me toward the lead SUV. The rear door was already open. The interior was a sanctuary of cream leather and soft amber lighting. I climbed in, my movements stiff and painful. The warmth hit me like a physical blow, thawing the numbness in my fingers and toes.
A woman was sitting in the backseat—a medic. I recognized the uniform. She immediately moved to help me, sliding a warm blanket over my lap and placing a sensor on my finger.
“Blood pressure is spiking,” she murmured into a headset. “We need to get to the estate. Dr. Laurent is on standby.”
I leaned my head back against the headrest as Bastien slid into the front passenger seat. The heavy door thudded shut, sealing out the wind, the rain, and the screams of my husband.
The silence inside the car was absolute. The glass was bulletproof and soundproof. I watched through the tinted window as we began to roll.
I saw Julien standing in the middle of the yard, the rain soaking him to the bone. He was shouting something, his arms flailing, but he was nothing more than a silent pantomime. A ghost. A bad memory fading in the rearview mirror.
As the convoy accelerated down the driveway, leaving the muddy hell of my marriage behind, I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. Then another. Then I was sobbing, great heaving sobs that shook my entire body.
“It’s okay,” the medic whispered, rubbing my back. “Let it out. You’re safe.”
“Why?” I choked out. “Why did he do it? I loved him.”
From the front seat, Bastien didn’t look back, but his voice drifted over the divider, low and filled with a grim kind of wisdom.
“Some men do not know the value of a diamond, Mademoiselle. They only know the value of the glass they can break. He was a small man trying to make himself feel big by breaking you.”
I closed my eyes. The car was smooth, floating over the road. We were heading south, toward the Sologne, toward the forests and the silence of my childhood.
Toward my father.
The father I had called a tyrant. The father I had sworn never to speak to again because he told me that Julien Leroux was a fortune hunter. You are just paranoid, Papa! You think everyone wants your money! I had screamed at him in the grand foyer three years ago. Julien loves me for me!
Oh, Papa, I thought, clutching my belly as the baby kicked—a strong, defiant kick. You were right. You were right about everything.
The drive took two hours. I drifted in and out of a restless doze. Every time I woke, the medic was checking my pulse or offering me water. Bastien was on the phone constantly, speaking in low, rapid-fire French, coordinating something massive. I caught snippets of phrases: “Freeze the accounts,” “Contact the magistrate,” “Security team Alpha to the hospital.”
They were going to war. And for the first time in my life, I was glad to be on the side of the De Valois army.
Eventually, the smooth hum of the highway tires changed to the crunch of gravel. I opened my eyes. We were passing through the massive wrought-iron gates of Château de Valois.
The estate was lit up. Not just the porch lights, but every window in the massive stone structure was glowing. It looked like a beacon in the night. The floodlights illuminated the ancient oaks lining the driveway, trees that had stood since the revolution.
The convoy slowed, circling the large fountain in the courtyard, and came to a halt at the foot of the grand stone staircase.
Before the car had even fully stopped, the massive oak front doors of the château flew open.
Servants poured out with umbrellas, but one figure stood alone at the top of the stairs, ignoring the rain that blew under the portico.
Henri de Valois.
He looked older than I remembered. His hair, once a steel grey, was now fully white. His posture, usually rigid as a soldier’s, looked slumped, heavy with worry. He was wearing a suit, but no tie, the top button of his shirt undone—a sign of distress I had never seen in him.
Bastien opened my door. “We are home, Mademoiselle.”
I stepped out. My legs were weak, shaking uncontrollably. The medic supported my left side, Bastien my right.
My father saw me. He saw the mud on the coat. He saw the pale, drawn look on my face. He saw the heavy swell of my stomach.
He didn’t walk down the stairs. He ran.
Henri de Valois, the man who terrified boards of directors across Europe, the man who never ran for anyone, took the stone steps two at a time.
He reached me before I could even try to climb.
“Camille,” he breathed. It wasn’t a question; it was a prayer.
He didn’t care about the mud. He didn’t care about decorum. He pulled me into his arms, burying his face in my wet hair. He held me so tight I thought he might crack a rib, but I didn’t care. I buried my face in his shoulder, smelling the familiar scent of tobacco and old paper.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I wept into his chest. “I’m so sorry. I was so stupid.”
“Hush,” he commanded, his voice thick with emotion. He pulled back, gripping my face between his large, warm hands. His thumbs wiped away the tears and the rain. “Do not apologize. Not for loving. Never apologize for having a heart, Camille. The fault is not yours.”
He looked up at Bastien, his eyes hardening instantly into shards of ice. “Where is he?”
“We left him in the mud, Monsieur,” Bastien reported. “He is secured. The lawyers are already filing the motions. He has no access to the accounts as of ten minutes ago.”
“Good,” my father growled. “If he comes near her, break him.”
“Understood, Monsieur.”
My father looked back at me, his gaze softening again as it dropped to my stomach. He placed a hand tentatively over the baby.
“And my grandchild?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly.
“She’s kicking,” I managed a watery smile. “She’s a fighter.”
“A fighter,” he repeated, a fierce pride lighting up his eyes. “Like her mother. Like a De Valois.”
Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit me. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a crushing exhaustion and the return of the pain. I swayed.
“Get her inside!” my father barked, scooping me up into his arms as if I were still five years old. “Dr. Laurent! Now!”
He carried me through the massive foyer, past the portraits of our ancestors, past the marble statues and the silk tapestries. The house was exactly as I had left it—imposing, silent, grand. But tonight, it didn’t feel like a museum. It felt like a fortress.
He didn’t stop until he reached the master guest suite on the ground floor. He laid me gently on the bed, while maids rushed in with warm towels and fresh clothes.
“Rest now,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, refusing to leave my side even as the doctor approached. “You are safe. No one gets past the gates. No one touches you again.”
I grabbed his hand, squeezing it. “He said… he said he wanted the house. He said I was nothing.”
My father’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. He leaned in close, his voice a low rumble of thunder.
“He will learn what ‘nothing’ feels like, Camille. Tomorrow, we deal with the law. But tonight… tonight you rest. Because tomorrow, you take back your life.”
I closed my eyes, the warmth of the room finally seeping into my bones. The last thing I heard before sleep took me was my father’s voice, speaking to Bastien in the hallway.
“Find out everything. The mistress. The timeline. The messages. I want every dirty secret they have. I want to bury them so deep they will need a map to find sunlight.”
The storm raged outside, battering the stone walls of the château. But inside, for the first time in months, the fear was gone. I was no longer Camille the housewife, begging for scraps of affection.
I was Camille de Valois. And I had returned to my kingdom.
Scene Transition: The Morning After
The sun pouring through the velvet curtains was not the grey, sickly light of Paris. It was the crisp, golden light of the countryside. I woke up confused, my hand instinctively going to my belly.
It was still round. She was still there.
I sat up, wincing at the stiffness in my joints. The memory of the night before crashed into me—the rain, the mud, the headlights, Julien’s face.
The door opened softly. A maid entered with a tray. It was Marie, the woman who had practically raised me after my mother died.
“Mademoiselle Camille,” she smiled, her eyes crinkling. “Bonjour. Your father is in the library. He asked not to wake you, but the police are here to take your statement.”
“The police?” I asked, swinging my legs out of bed. I was wearing silk pajamas that felt like water against my skin.
“And…” Marie hesitated, setting the tray down. “There is something else. Your… husband… has been trying to call the main line of the estate since 6 AM.”
I froze. “What does he want?”
“He says it was a misunderstanding,” Marie said, her voice dripping with disdain. “He says he loves you.”
I felt a laugh bubble up in my throat—a dry, bitter sound. “He loves the bank account access he just lost.”
“Your father took the liberty of answering one of the calls,” Marie added, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Oh god,” I rubbed my temples. “What did he say?”
“He told him that if he called again, he would buy the telephone company and cancel his service personally.”
I actually smiled. It was a weak smile, but it was there.
I dressed quickly in the clothes laid out for me—soft wool trousers and a cashmere sweater, elegant and armored. I walked down the long hallway, my footsteps echoing on the parquet floor.
I found my father in the library, a massive room smelling of leather and old dust. He was standing behind his desk, looking at a wall of monitors that hadn’t been there three years ago.
“Papa?”
He turned. He looked tired, but energized. The table was covered in files.
“Come here, Camille,” he said, waving me over. “You need to see this.”
I walked around the desk. On the screen was a series of printed emails and text messages.
“Bastien’s team is efficient,” my father said grimly. “They cloned Julien’s phone while he was… incapacitated… on the lawn.”
“And?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.
“And it’s worse than we thought,” he said, pointing to a message thread dated six months ago.
I leaned in. The contact name was ‘Léa – My Soulmate’.
Julien: She’s getting suspicious about the late nights. Léa: Just play the victim. Tell her she’s hormonal. She’s weak, Julien. She’ll believe whatever you say. Julien: I just want the house signed over. Once the brat is born, we can file for divorce and I get half of everything plus the property. Léa: Don’t worry. The De Valois girl is stupid. She thinks you actually like her cooking.
I read the words. She thinks you actually like her cooking.
It was such a small, petty detail. But it hurt more than the plot about the money. It was the mockery of my daily life, of the love I poured into every meal, every gesture.
“They were laughing at me,” I whispered. “The whole time.”
“Yes,” my father said. “But look at the date on this one.”
He pointed to a message from three years ago. Before I even met Julien.
Léa: Target located. Camille de Valois. She’s at the Sorbonne. She’s playing ‘rebel’ against Daddy. Easy prey. Go get her, Julien. This is our ticket to the big leagues.
The room spun.
“He didn’t meet me by accident,” I gasped, clutching the edge of the desk. “The coffee shop… the spilled drink… it was all staged?”
“All of it,” my father confirmed. “He is an actor, Camille. A con artist hired by your sister-in-law to infiltrate our family.”
I felt sick. But strangely, the sickness passed quickly, replaced by a cold, hard clarity. The man I mourned didn’t exist. I wasn’t grieving a lost love; I was grieving a character in a play.
And now the play was over.
“What do we do?” I asked, looking up at my father.
He smiled, a shark-like smile that I had seen him use before destroying competitors in the boardroom.
“Now?” he said, picking up a file. “Now we destroy them. Legally. Financially. Socially. By the time I am done, Julien Leroux will be lucky to get a job sweeping streets in Marseille.”
He handed me a pen and a document.
“This is the formal complaint. And the restraining order. And the divorce filing. Sign it, Camille. Reclaim your name.”
I took the pen. My hand didn’t shake. I looked at the signature line.
I thought of the rain. I thought of the mud. I thought of my daughter, who would never, ever know a father like Julien.
I pressed the pen to the paper and signed: Camille de Valois.
“It’s done,” I said.
“Not quite,” my father said, looking at the security monitors.
On the screen, at the main gate of the estate, a small, battered car had just pulled up. A man was getting out, banging on the iron bars. It was Julien. And he looked desperate.
“He followed us,” my father noted. “Persistent cockroach.”
“Let me talk to him,” I said suddenly.
My father frowned. “No. You don’t need to—”
“I need to,” I interrupted. “I need him to see me. Not the girl in the mud. Me. The real me.”
My father studied my face. He saw the steel in my eyes—the steel he had given me.
“Very well,” he nodded. “But take the guards.”
“I don’t need guards for him,” I said, turning toward the door. “He’s just a man who broke some glass. And I’m the diamond.”
I walked out of the library, heading for the front door, ready to end this once and for all.
PART 3: THE GHOST AT THE GATE
The walk from the heavy oak doors of the château to the main gate was nearly a quarter of a mile. The gravel of the driveway crunched rhythmically beneath my boots—boots that belonged to my mother, pulled from a cedar closet that hadn’t been opened in a decade. They were a little tight, but they made me feel like I was walking in the footsteps of a woman who had never let anyone disrespect her.
The morning air was crisp, smelling of wet earth, pine needles, and the faint, metallic scent of the wrought iron fence that circled the perimeter of the estate.
Bastien walked three paces behind me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t offer to hold my arm, though I knew he was close enough to catch me if I stumbled. He understood what I needed right now. I didn’t need to be carried; I needed to walk. I needed to feel the ground under my feet to remind myself that I was still standing.
As the gate came into view, looming twelve feet high and topped with gilded spikes, the figure clinging to the bars became clearer.
It was Julien.
But it wasn’t the Julien I had married. It wasn’t the Julien who spent forty-five minutes on his hair every morning, checking his reflection in every shop window we passed. This man looked like a shipwreck.
His expensive suit—the navy blue one I had bought him for his birthday, putting it on my credit card because he said his bonus was “delayed”—was ruined. Mud stained the knees and elbows. The jacket was torn at the shoulder, likely from when Bastien had introduced him to the lawn the night before. His hair was plastered to his skull, and his face was a map of misery: pale, unshaven, with dark hollows under his eyes.
When he saw me approaching, his face transformed. He tried to compose himself, straightening his spine, smoothing down his ruined jacket. He attempted a smile, but it looked more like a grimace of pain.
“Camille!” he called out, his voice cracking. He reached through the bars, his hands grasping at the air as if he could pull me closer by sheer will. “Camille, thank God. I knew you would come. I knew you wouldn’t let your father do this.”
I stopped ten feet from the gate. Close enough to see the red veins in his eyes, but far enough that he couldn’t touch me. I wrapped my cashmere coat tighter around my pregnant belly, a subconscious shield.
“My father didn’t make me come out here, Julien,” I said. My voice was calm. It surprised me. I expected to scream, to cry, to rage. But the rage had crystallized into something cold and hard, like a diamond. “I came because I wanted to see you.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he stammered, nodding frantically. “To talk. We need to talk, baby. Just open the gate. It’s freezing out here. My car won’t start, and my phone is dead. Just let me in, we can sit down, have a coffee, and I can explain everything.”
I tilted my head, studying him. “Explain what, exactly?”
“The… the misunderstanding!” He let out a nervous, breathless laugh. “Last night… I was drunk. You know how I get when I drink red wine. It messes with my head. And Léa… she was provoking me. She was telling lies, Camille. She’s crazy. You know she’s jealous of us. Jealous of our love.”
“Our love,” I repeated flatly.
“Yes! I love you. You know I do. Think about the baby. Think about our little family. Do you really want to raise a child alone in this…” He gestured vaguely at the massive estate behind me. “…in this cold museum? We were happy, Camille. In our little house. We were happy.”
“I was happy,” I corrected him. “You were waiting.”
He froze. “What?”
“I read the texts, Julien.”
The color drained from his face so completely that for a second, I thought he might faint. His hands slipped from the bars, then gripped them again, tighter, his knuckles turning white.
“Texts?” he squeaked. “I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.”
“The texts to Léa,” I said, taking a small step forward. “From three years ago. ‘Target located.’ That was me, wasn’t it? I was the target. The girl at the Sorbonne with the old shoes and the secret bank account. You didn’t spill that coffee on me by accident. You didn’t ‘just happen’ to like the same obscure jazz records. You studied me. You memorized a script.”
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No, that’s not… that’s taken out of context.”
“And the ones from last month?” I continued, my voice rising just slightly, cutting through the morning wind. “‘She’s weak. She’ll believe whatever you say.’ Do you remember writing that, Julien? While I was massaging your shoulders because you said you were stressed? While I was cooking your dinner? You were texting my step-sister about how stupid I was.”
“Camille, please,” he began to cry now, ugly, desperate tears. “She made me. You don’t understand her. She’s manipulative! She threatened me! She said if I didn’t help her get the money, she would ruin me. I was a victim too!”
I stared at him. The sheer audacity of it took my breath away. Even now, with the evidence stripped bare, he couldn’t take responsibility. He was a parasite, shifting from one host to another, desperate to find a vein to tap.
“You aren’t a victim, Julien,” I said softly. “You’re a coward. And that is so much worse.”
I looked at his hands—hands I had held, hands I had kissed. They looked like strangers’ hands now.
“The divorce papers are being filed this morning,” I told him. “My lawyers will be in touch. Do not come back here. Do not go to the house in Yvelines—the locks have already been changed, and your things are in a storage unit. The key is in the mail.”
“You can’t do this!” he shouted, his sorrow instantly morphing into anger. He slammed his fist against the iron gate. The sound rang out like a gunshot. “We are married! Half of everything is mine! The house, the accounts, the baby! That baby is mine!”
Bastien moved. He didn’t run; he just stepped out from behind me, his presence sudden and overwhelming. He stood next to me, crossing his arms over his massive chest. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at Julien.
Julien shrank back, remembering the feeling of the mud against his face.
“That baby,” I said, placing a hand on my stomach, “will know her father. She will know he is a man who throws pregnant women into the rain. She will know exactly who you are, Julien. I will make sure of it.”
“Camille!” he screamed as I turned around. “Camille, don’t walk away! You need me! You’re nothing without me! You’re just a spoiled little rich girl playing house! You’ll fail! You’ll come crawling back!”
I stopped.
I turned my head, just slightly over my shoulder.
“I am a De Valois,” I said, loud enough for him to hear. “And we don’t crawl.”
I walked back up the driveway. Behind me, Julien continued to scream, hurling insults and pleas into the wind. But with every step I took toward the château, his voice grew fainter, until it was just meaningless noise, no more important than the cawing of the crows in the trees.
Scene 2: The War Room
When I stepped back into the foyer, the warmth of the house wrapped around me. My father was waiting by the library door. He had been watching on the monitors. He didn’t smile, but he nodded—a sharp, distinct nod of approval.
“You handled yourself well,” he said.
“I felt sick,” I admitted, handing my coat to a waiting maid. “I felt like I was looking at a stranger.”
“You were,” Henri said. “You were looking at the real him for the first time. The mask is gone.”
He gestured for me to follow him back into the library. The atmosphere in the room had changed. It was no longer just a study; it was a command center. Three other men were there now—lawyers, dressed in grey suits, their laptops open on the mahogany table.
“Gentlemen,” my father announced. “This is my daughter, Camille.”
They stood in unison. “Mademoiselle de Valois.”
I sat in the leather chair my father pulled out for me. I felt exhausted, my body heavy, but my mind was racing.
“Where do we stand?” I asked.
The lead lawyer, a man with silver spectacles named Maître Dubois, cleared his throat. “We have successfully obtained an emergency freezing order on the joint accounts. Mr. Leroux’s credit cards have been declined as of 8:00 AM this morning. The lease on the Audi he drives—which was in your name—has been terminated. The recovery team is tracking the vehicle now.”
“And the house?” I asked.
“The deed transfer he tried to force you to sign was fraudulent and under duress,” Dubois explained. “However, since the house was purchased with funds that we can trace back to the De Valois trust, we are asserting full ownership. He has been served with an eviction notice electronically and physically at his place of employment.”
“His employment,” I scoffed. “He’s a ‘consultant’. He barely works.”
“Not anymore,” my father interjected smoothly. “It seems the boutique consulting firm he worked for has some… overlapping interests with one of my holding companies. I made a phone call. They realized that employing Mr. Leroux was a liability they could not afford. He was terminated for ‘gross misconduct’ twenty minutes ago.”
I looked at my father. He was efficient. Terrifyingly efficient. For years, I had hated this power. I had called it manipulative, cold, controlling. But sitting here, pregnant and vulnerable, watching him dismantle the man who had tried to destroy me… I felt a fierce surge of gratitude.
“What about Léa?” I asked. The name tasted like ash in my mouth.
The room went quiet. My father’s face darkened.
“Léa is… complicated,” he said. “She is not just a greedy opportunist like Julien. She is family. Or she was. She knows how we operate.”
“She hates us,” I said. “She hates that her mother was divorced. She hates that she didn’t get a trust fund.”
“Precisely,” Henri said. “Julien was a pawn. Léa is the player. And she is not done.”
“What can she do?”
“She can control the narrative,” Henri said, pointing to the large screen on the wall. “Look.”
He clicked a remote. A video feed popped up. It was Instagram Live.
There was Léa. She was sitting in a car—her car—looking disheveled. No makeup, red eyes. She had perfected the look of the ‘wronged woman’. The viewer count was climbing rapidly: 5,000, 10,000, 15,000.
“…I just don’t know what to do anymore,” Léa was sobbing into the camera, wiping a tear with a trembling hand. “My brother-in-law… he called me for help. He said his wife, Camille, she just snapped. She has mental health issues, you know? The hormones… she attacked him. She threw him out of their house. And then… oh God, it’s so scary…”
She took a dramatic breath.
“Then her father’s goons showed up. The De Valois family… you guys know who they are. The billionaires. They think they own the world. They beat him up. They kidnapped Camille. Julien is terrified. He thinks they’re going to brainwash her. He just wants his wife and baby back. We are just normal people fighting a Goliath. Please… please share this. We need help.”
I stared at the screen, my mouth open. The comments were flying by in a blur of angry emojis and hashtags.
#SaveCamille #EatTheRich #DeValoisCorruption #JusticeForJulien
“She’s twisting everything,” I whispered, horror rising in my throat. “She’s making me the villain. She’s making us the monsters.”
“It is a classic move,” Maître Dubois said, adjusting his glasses. “DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. She knows she can’t win in court, so she is trying to win in the court of public opinion.”
“She’s lying!” I shouted, standing up. “We have to tell them! We have to show them the texts!”
“Sit down, Camille,” my father said gently.
“But Papa! Look at the comments! They’re threatening us! Someone just posted our address!”
“Camille,” his voice was firm, grounding me. “Do not engage with the circus. If you argue with a clown, you just become part of the act.”
“So we do nothing?”
“No,” Henri stood up, walking to the window to look out at the rain-soaked grounds. “We wait. Léa has played her card. It is a loud card, an emotional card. But it is a desperate card. She is betting on us panicking. She wants us to release a statement, to get angry, to look defensive.”
He turned back to me, his eyes gleaming.
“We will not give her that satisfaction. We will let her scream. And while she screams, we will prepare the dossier.”
“The dossier?”
“Bastien has been busy,” Henri said. “He didn’t just clone Julien’s phone. He accessed Léa’s cloud storage. We have the emails where she discusses buying fake followers. We have the bank transfers where she paid Julien to stage the ‘accidental’ meeting with you. We have the video… the video she took last night.”
I blinked. “The video she took of me in the mud?”
“Yes,” Henri said grimly. “But we also have the audio from inside the house before she started filming. The audio where she laughs. Where she tells Julien to ‘make her beg’. Where she calls your unborn child a ‘cash cow’.”
My stomach churned. “You have that?”
“We have everything. And when we release it… we will not release it to Instagram. We will give it to the Procureur de la République. And then, we will give it to the press.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Let them have their five minutes of fame, Camille. Because they are going to spend the next ten years in prison for extortion and conspiracy.”
Scene 3: The Escalation
The day dragged on in a blur of tension. The rain returned, lashing against the windows of the château as if the sky itself was angry.
I tried to rest, but my phone—which Bastien had returned to me after scrubbing it of tracking software—kept buzzing. Not with calls, but with notifications. Friends I hadn’t spoken to in years were messaging me. Some worried, some accusatory.
Camille, is it true? Did you really kidnap your husband? I saw Léa’s video…
I turned the phone off and threw it in a drawer.
By late afternoon, the stress began to manifest physically. It wasn’t just the baby kicking; it was a dull, throbbing headache that started at the base of my skull and wrapped around my forehead like a vice. My vision felt blurry at the edges, spots of light dancing in my peripheral view.
I was sitting in the solarium with Marie, trying to drink herbal tea, when the cup slipped from my hand. It shattered on the stone floor.
“Mademoiselle!” Marie gasped, kneeling down.
“I… I can’t see properly,” I whispered, clutching the table. “Marie, my head…”
Marie didn’t waste time cleaning up the tea. She grabbed her radio. “Medical! Solarium! Now!”
Dr. Laurent, the family physician who had been staying in the guest wing, arrived in under a minute. He took one look at me and started barking orders. He wrapped a cuff around my arm.
The pump hissed. He frowned. He pumped it again.
“170 over 110,” he said, his voice tight. “She has severe preeclampsia symptoms. The stress is triggering a hypertensive crisis.”
My father appeared in the doorway, breathless. “What is it?”
“We need to move her,” Dr. Laurent said, packing his bag. “The clinic here is good, but if she seizes, we need a full surgical team. We need to go to the American Hospital in Neuilly. Now.”
“Neuilly?” My father looked panicked. “That’s an hour away. The traffic… and with Léa’s video, there are reporters camping at the bottom of the hill.”
“We don’t have a choice, Henri,” Dr. Laurent said sternly. “Her life and the baby’s life are at risk.”
My father turned to Bastien, who was already on his radio.
“Prepare the convoy,” Henri ordered. “Decoy cars. I want the armored Mercedes for Camille. Police escort. Call the Prefect, tell him I am calling in a favor. I want the road cleared.”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
I felt detached, floating. The headache was blinding now. I felt hands lifting me, moving me onto a stretcher. The ceiling passed by in a blur of crystal chandeliers and painted frescoes.
“Stay with me, Camille,” my father’s voice was close to my ear. “Breathe.”
“It hurts, Papa,” I whimpered. “The light hurts.”
“I know. We are going to fix it.”
We burst out into the cool evening air. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The courtyard was filled with vehicles again. Engines roaring. Blue lights flashing—my father had gotten his police escort.
They loaded me into the back of a massive sedan. It was like a vault inside. My father sat beside me, holding my hand so tight his knuckles were white. Dr. Laurent sat on the other side, monitoring an IV line he had already inserted into my arm.
“Go,” my father commanded.
The convoy surged forward.
Scene 4: The Gauntlet
The drive was a nightmare of motion and sound. Even through the soundproofing, I could hear the sirens. We tore down the country roads, the trees blurring into a tunnel of green and grey.
“Papa,” I murmured, my eyes closed against the pain. “Julien… he said the baby wasn’t his.”
“He lied,” Henri said fiercely. “He wanted to hurt you. Don’t listen to ghosts.”
“But what if…”
“Camille, look at me.”
I forced my eyes open.
“That baby is a De Valois. I don’t care about DNA. I care about who carries her. She is yours. She is ours.”
I squeezed his hand.
We hit the outskirts of Paris. The traffic was dense, a river of red taillights. But the motorcycle outriders were cutting a path, forcing cars to the side. We were moving fast, weaving through the congestion.
Then, Bastien’s voice crackled over the intercom from the front seat.
“Monsieur, we have a situation.”
“Report,” my father snapped.
“Tail,” Bastien said. “Two vehicles. A grey sedan and a black SUV. They picked us up at the toll booth. They are aggressive.”
“Paparazzi?”
“No,” Bastien said. “Too reckless for press. And… I recognize the sedan. It’s registered to a shell company we linked to Léa’s associates.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “Are they trying to stop us?”
“They are trying to get footage,” Bastien said. “Or force an accident to stop the car so they can get a confrontation. They are live-streaming. I can see the phone on the dashboard of the sedan.”
“Do not let them near this car,” Henri growled.
“Understood.”
I tried to turn my head to look out the back window.
“Don’t look,” Dr. Laurent said, checking my vitals. “Keep your heart rate down.”
But I saw the reflection in the side mirror. A grey car was swerving through traffic, trying to cut between our escort vehicles. It was driving like a maniac.
“Hold on!” Bastien shouted.
The car swerved violently to the left. I gasped as the seatbelt locked, digging into my shoulder.
“They tried to pit the rear guard,” Bastien reported. “Alpha Two, engage.”
I heard a crunch of metal, dull and heavy.
“What’s happening?” I cried.
“Alpha Two just introduced them to the guardrail,” Bastien said, his voice devoid of emotion. “The sedan is disabled.”
“And the SUV?” Henri asked.
“It’s pulling back,” Bastien said. “They saw what happened to their friends. They are disengaging.”
My father let out a long breath. “You see, Camille? You are protected.”
But the fear wouldn’t leave me. They were insane. They were actually chasing an ambulance convoy through Paris traffic just to get a video for social media? Just to prove a lie?
“They are monsters,” I whispered.
“Yes,” my father agreed. “And monsters belong in cages.”
Scene 5: The Fortress of Healing
The American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine is a fortress of medicine. When we arrived, the entrance was already secured. Police officers stood at the gates. The press—alerted by Léa’s stream or police scanners—were swarming the sidewalk, cameras flashing like lightning bugs.
But they couldn’t touch us. The convoy swept into the underground ambulance bay. The heavy steel doors rolled down behind us, shutting out the world.
Silence returned.
Nurses and doctors in blue scrubs swarmed the car. I was lifted out, moved, transferred. Everything was white, sterile, efficient.
“BP is 180 over 120,” Dr. Laurent shouted. “She’s seizing! Get the magnesium sulfate! Get the OB team!”
The world tilted. Black spots swallowed my vision. I felt my body arching, uncontrollably, my muscles locking up.
“Camille!” My father’s voice was terrified, fading away.
“We need to deliver,” a new voice said. A woman’s voice. Authoritative. “The baby is in distress. Prepare OR 1 for emergency C-section.”
“No…” I tried to say. “I want to push… I want…”
“We don’t have time, honey,” the woman said, her face appearing above me. She had kind eyes above her mask. “We need to get her out now to save you both.”
I felt a mask placed over my face. A sweet, chemical smell.
“Count backward from ten,” someone said.
Ten… Julien laughing in the rain. Nine… The mud on my knees. Eight… My father holding my hand. Seven… Bastien standing at the gate. Six… My daughter. My Alice.
Darkness took me.
Scene 6: The Awakening
Waking up was slow. It felt like swimming upward through warm honey. There was a rhythmic beeping sound. Beep… beep… beep.
I opened my eyes. The light was dim. I was in a room that looked more like a hotel suite than a hospital. Flowers—white lilies, my favorite—covered every surface.
My stomach hurt. A sharp, burning line of pain. I reached down. Flat. My stomach was flat.
Panic surged through me like an electric shock. I sat up, gasping, ignoring the pain in my incision.
“The baby!” I rasped. My throat was dry as sandpaper. “Where is she?”
A figure stirred in the armchair in the corner. My father. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His suit was rumpled, his tie gone, a shadow of white stubble on his chin.
He stood up instantly. “Camille. Don’t move.”
“Where is she?” I demanded, tears springing to my eyes. “Did I lose her? Papa, tell me!”
“Shh, shh,” he soothed, coming to the side of the bed. He pressed a button on the remote in his hand.
The wall opposite the bed turned transparent. It was smart glass.
Beyond the glass, in a dimly lit adjoining room, was a bassinet. A nurse was sitting beside it, rocking gently.
“She is perfect,” my father said, his voice thick. “She is small—five pounds, six ounces. But she is strong. She has been breathing on her own for six hours.”
I stared at the bassinet. I couldn’t see her face from here, just the tiny bundle of pink blankets.
“I want to hold her,” I wept. “Please.”
“Soon,” Henri promised. “The doctors want you to stabilize. Your blood pressure was… it was very close, Camille.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand.
“You scared me,” he whispered. “More than when your mother died. I thought… I thought I was going to lose everything again.”
“I’m here,” I said weakly. “I’m okay.”
“You are a mother,” he smiled, a genuine, tired smile. “And she is beautiful. She has your nose. And unfortunately, my chin.”
I laughed, but it turned into a wince of pain.
“What about them?” I asked, the shadow returning. “Julien? Léa?”
My father’s face hardened. The protector was back.
“While you were in surgery,” he said, “things happened.”
“What things?”
“The police examined the wreckage of the grey sedan that tried to run us off the road. The driver—a friend of Léa’s—was arrested. He talked. He gave them up to save his own skin. He admitted they paid him to cause a crash.”
“Attempted murder,” I breathed.
“Exactly. The police raided Léa’s apartment an hour ago. And Julien’s motel room.”
“Did they catch them?”
My father hesitated.
“They got Julien,” he said. “He was crying in the bathroom of a Motel 6. He surrendered immediately. He is currently in custody, blaming everyone but himself.”
“And Léa?”
My father looked at the door. Bastien was standing there, looking grim.
“Léa was not in the apartment,” Henri said. “She escaped before the raid. We don’t know where she is.”
A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
“She’s out there?”
“We have the city locked down,” Bastien spoke up from the door. “Her accounts are frozen. Her face is on every news channel. She has nowhere to go.”
“She’s crazy, Bastien,” I said. “She’s not logical. She hates me. She blames me for her life.”
“She cannot get in here,” Bastien assured me. “We have guards on the floor, in the lobby, and at the elevators. This wing is a fortress.”
“Rest, Camille,” my father said, patting my hand. “Focus on your daughter. Leave the monsters to us.”
I nodded, leaning back against the pillows. I watched the nurse in the other room pick up my daughter. I saw a tiny hand wave in the air.
My heart swelled. I had won. I had survived.
But as I closed my eyes, a nagging thought scratched at the back of my mind.
Léa knew this hospital. Her mother—my father’s ex-wife—had died here years ago. Léa knew the staff entrances. She knew the layout.
And a desperate animal is the most dangerous kind.
“Papa?” I murmured, sleep dragging me down again.
“Yes?”
“Check the loading dock,” I whispered. “She used to smoke there… when her mom was sick.”
My father looked at Bastien. Bastien nodded once and turned on his heel, exiting the room fast.
I drifted off, dreaming of rain and wolves, and the tiny cry that would wake me into a new life.
PART 4: THE STORM INSIDE
Scene 1: The Shadow in the Basement
Bastien Da Silva did not run. Running caused panic, and panic caused mistakes. Instead, he moved through the sterile white corridors of the American Hospital with the predatory grace of a jungle cat. His earpiece was silent, a silence he had commanded until he had confirmation.
He bypassed the elevators. Too slow. Too predictable. He took the stairwell, descending three steps at a time, his hand resting instinctively near the holster beneath his jacket.
Camille’s whisper had chilled him. “Check the loading dock. She used to smoke there.”
It was a detail only a family member would know. A detail a security assessment might miss because security assessments looked for forced entry, not for ghosts walking through familiar doors.
He reached the basement level. The air here was different—heavier, smelling of laundry detergent, industrial trash compactors, and diesel fumes. This was the gut of the hospital, the place where the glamorous façade of the private clinics above gave way to the machinery that kept it alive.
Bastien drew his weapon. A standard-issue Sig Sauer, matte black. He held it close to his chest, scanning the long concrete hallway.
“Alpha Two, come in,” he whispered into his lapel mic.
“Alpha Two here. Sector B secure,” the voice crackled back.
“I am approaching the North Loading Dock. Hold position at the elevators. If anyone comes up without a badge, drop them.”
“Copy.”
Bastien reached the heavy double doors labeled LIVRAISONS / DELIVERIES. There was a keypad lock, glowing red. Locked.
He pushed the bar. The door didn’t budge.
He frowned. It seemed secure. Maybe Camille was hallucinating from the anesthesia? Maybe the paranoia was getting to all of them?
Then he looked down.
On the grey concrete floor, just near the door hinge, was a small, crushed object. He crouched to inspect it. It was a cigarette butt. Slim. White filter. A smear of lipstick on the end. Rouge Noir. The shade of dried blood.
Léa’s shade.
And the ash was still grey, not black. It was fresh.
Bastien stood up, his heart rate slowing as his combat focus took over. He inspected the door frame. There, barely visible, was a strip of clear tape placed over the latch bolt. The door wasn’t locked; the mechanism had been tricked.
She was inside.
“Control,” Bastien said, his voice dropping to a gravelly growl. “Code Black. We have a breach. The perimeter is compromised. Seal the VIP wing. Now.”
“Sealing now, Sir. Do you have a visual?”
“No. She is in the building. She knows the layout. She is not coming through the lobby. She is coming through the service elevators. Cut the power to the service shafts.”
“On it.”
Bastien kicked the tape off the latch, ensuring the door locked behind him, and turned back toward the stairs. He had to beat her to the third floor. He had to run now.
He took the stairs two at a time, his lungs burning, his mind racing through the floor plans. If she took the service elevator, she would come out near the linen closet, twenty meters from Camille’s room.
I will not fail her, Bastien swore to himself. Not again.
Scene 2: The First lullaby
In the recovery suite, the world was soft and quiet. The panic of the arrival, the chaos of the C-section, the noise of the outside world—it all faded into the background, muffled by the thick, soundproof glass and the hum of medical machinery.
I was sitting up, propped by pillows that felt like clouds. My abdomen burned with a sharp, precise fire every time I moved, but I barely noticed it.
Because she was in my arms.
Alice Victoire de Valois.
She was so small. Impossibly small. Wrapped in a white blanket with the hospital’s crest embroidered on the corner, she felt weightless, like holding a loaf of warm bread. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes sweeping against cheeks that were flushed pink with new life. She smelled of milk and soap and something ancient, something that smelled like the beginning of time.
“Hi,” I whispered, tracing the curve of her tiny ear with my index finger. “Hi, little one. I’m your maman.”
She shifted, letting out a soft, bird-like sigh, and her little mouth moved in a dream of feeding.
My father sat in the chair next to the bed. He had finally taken off his suit jacket, rolling up his sleeves to reveal forearms that were still strong, still capable. He was watching us with a look I had never seen on his face before. It wasn’t pride, exactly. It was awe.
“She looks like your mother,” Henri said softly, his voice catching on the last word. “Around the eyes. That shape… the almond shape.”
“Do you think so?” I asked, looking up at him. “I think she has your chin. Look at that stubborn little chin.”
Henri chuckled, a rusty sound. “Let’s hope not. The world doesn’t need another stubborn De Valois.”
“I think that’s exactly what the world needs,” I replied.
The moment stretched, golden and fragile. For the first time in months, I felt whole. The hole that Julien had carved out of my chest—the insecurity, the doubt, the feeling of unworthiness—was filled. Not by a man, but by this tiny, breathing creature who depended on me for everything.
“I won’t let her down, Papa,” I said fiercely. “I won’t be like… I won’t make the mistakes I made.”
“You made a mistake in trusting the wrong person, Camille,” Henri said, leaning forward. “That is not a sin. That is being human. What matters is that when the storm came, you didn’t break. You walked out into the rain and you survived.”
“I didn’t do it alone.”
“No one does it alone. That is the lie of independence. We all need an army.”
The door to the suite opened. It was Dr. Laurent. He looked calm, but there was a tightness around his eyes that set my nerves on edge.
“Henri,” he said, not using the formal title. “Can I borrow you for a moment? There is a… administrative matter with the insurance forms.”
My father frowned. “Insurance? I own the insurance company, Laurent. What is the problem?”
“Just a signature. Outside, please.”
My father looked at me, then at the doctor. He sensed something. He stood up slowly.
“I will be right back,” he told me. “Don’t let her go.”
“Never,” I promised, clutching Alice tighter.
Henri walked to the door. As he passed Dr. Laurent, I saw the doctor whisper something in his ear. My father’s back went rigid. He didn’t turn around to look at me—he didn’t want to alarm me. He just walked out, faster this time.
The door clicked shut.
I was alone in the room. Well, not alone. Alice was there. And the machines. And the silence, which suddenly felt less peaceful and more oppressive.
I looked at the window. The blinds were drawn, but I could hear the faint hum of the city outside. Neuilly was sleeping.
But someone wasn’t.
A feeling crept up my spine—the same feeling I had in the garden before the lights appeared. A primal sense of being watched.
I looked at the door to the hallway. It was closed. There was a guard outside. I knew there was. Bastien had said so.
Relax, Camille, I told myself. You are paranoid. It’s the hormones. It’s the trauma.
I looked down at Alice. “We’re safe,” I whispered to her, trying to convince myself. “Grandpa is just outside.”
Then, the handle of the door turned.
Slowly.
It wasn’t a brisk, medical entry. It was tentative.
The door pushed open.
A nurse stepped in. She was wearing the blue scrubs of the surgical unit, a face mask pulled up over her nose, and a surgical cap covering her hair. She was pushing a small metal cart with water pitchers and towels.
I exhaled. Just a nurse.
“Sorry to disturb you, Madame,” the nurse mumbled, keeping her head down. Her voice was muffled by the mask. “Just refreshing the water.”
“It’s fine,” I said, my heart rate settling. “Could you actually… could you check the thermostat? It feels a little cold in here.”
“Of course,” the nurse said.
She pushed the cart closer to the bed. She didn’t go to the thermostat. She stopped at the foot of the bed.
She stood there for a long second, staring at the bundle in my arms.
“She’s beautiful,” the nurse said. Her voice sounded strange. Strained. Familiar.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling that prickle of fear return. “You can leave the water on the table.”
“Is she healthy?” the nurse asked. She took a step closer. “Is she… yours?”
I froze.
“Excuse me?”
The nurse reached up slowly with her left hand. She grabbed the edge of the surgical cap and the mask.
She pulled them off.
Hair, dyed a violent shade of black but showing blonde roots, tumbled down. A face, gaunt and pale, with eyes that burned with a feverish, manic light.
Léa.
She smiled. It wasn’t a smile; it was a baring of teeth. Her lipstick was smeared, her eyes bloodshot. She looked like a ghost that had clawed its way out of a grave.
“Hello, sister,” she whispered.
Scene 3: The Wolf in the Room
For a second, my brain refused to process it. It was impossible. The guards. The lockdown. Bastien.
“How…” I breathed, pulling Alice up against my shoulder, shielding her with my body.
“Oh, Camille,” Léa laughed, a jagged, broken sound. “You always underestimated me. You thought I was just the greedy step-sister. You forgot I spent three months in this hospital when my mother was dying of cancer. I know every tunnel, every vent, every lazy security guard who takes a smoke break at 2 AM.”
She took another step. She was shaking. Her hands were trembling by her sides.
“Get out,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it was steady. The fear had vanished, replaced by a cold, murderous clarity. “Get out before I scream.”
“Scream,” Léa shrugged. “Go ahead. The room is soundproof, idiot. That’s why you rich people pay for it. Privacy.”
She reached into the pocket of her stolen scrubs. When her hand came out, it was holding a scalpel. The silver blade glinted under the fluorescent lights.
“Léa,” I said, my eyes tracking the blade. “Put it down. You’re making it worse. The police are already looking for you.”
“Worse?” She let out a screech of laughter. “Worse than what? My life is over! You took everything! You froze my accounts. You got me evicted. You put my face on the news! I can’t even buy a coffee without someone looking at me like I’m a criminal!”
“You are a criminal,” I spat. “You tried to have me killed on the highway tonight.”
“I just wanted to talk!” she screamed, the facade cracking. “I just wanted to make you listen! But no, the great Princess De Valois has to have her armored convoy. You think you’re so special. You think you deserve all of this just because you were born with the right last name?”
“I deserve it because I protect the people I love,” I said. “Something you know nothing about. You used Julien. You destroyed him.”
“Julien is a moron,” she sneered. “He was a tool. A pretty face to distract you while I did the real work. And he failed. He fell in love with being rich, and he forgot the mission.”
She took another step. She was at the side of the bed now. I could smell her—stale cigarette smoke, sweat, and cheap perfume.
“Give me the baby,” she said.
My blood ran cold. “No.”
“Give her to me!” Léa lunged, pointing the scalpel at me. “I need leverage! I need a way out of here! Your father won’t let the police shoot me if I have the heir to the throne in my arms.”
“You touch her,” I hissed, “and I will kill you. I don’t care about the knife. I will tear your throat out with my teeth.”
Léa blinked. She looked surprised by the ferocity in my voice. She expected the weeping, scared Camille from the garden. She didn’t know this new Camille.
“You’re bluffing,” she said, her voice wavering. “You’re weak. You’ve always been weak.”
“Try me.”
I pressed the call button on the side of the bed behind my back. I held it down. It wouldn’t sound an alarm in the room, but it would light up the nursing station board like a Christmas tree.
“Stop stalling,” Léa snapped. She reached out with her free hand, grabbing the blanket wrapped around Alice.
Alice woke up. She let out a sharp, startled cry.
That sound—my daughter’s cry of distress—snapped the last thread of restraint in me.
I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I reacted.
I grabbed the heavy pitcher of water from the bedside table with my right hand and swung it with every ounce of strength I had left.
It connected with the side of Léa’s head with a sickening crack.
Léa screamed, stumbling back, clutching her ear. The scalpel slashed through the air, missing my arm by an inch and slicing into the mattress.
“You bitch!” she shrieked, blood trickling through her fingers.
She lunged again, blind with rage. She wasn’t trying to take the baby anymore. She was trying to hurt me.
I curled around Alice, turning my back to Léa, using my own body as a shield. I waited for the bite of the steel.
But it never came.
Scene 4: The Takedown
The door to the suite exploded inward.
It wasn’t opened. It was kicked off its hinges.
Bastien Da Silva flew into the room like a cannonball. He didn’t shout. He didn’t hesitate.
Léa turned, the scalpel raised, her eyes wide with terror.
Bastien didn’t even draw his weapon. He hit her with a tackle that would have stopped a linebacker. His shoulder drove into her midsection, lifting her off her feet. They crashed into the wall opposite the bed, shaking the entire room.
The scalpel went flying, skittering across the floor.
Léa hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of her. Before she could scramble away, Bastien had her. He twisted her arm behind her back with a brutal efficiency, forcing her face into the linoleum.
“Do not move,” he roared, his voice shaking the walls. “If you twitch, I will break your arm!”
Léa let out a high, keen wail of pain and defeat.
My father ran into the room a second later, followed by two armed police officers and Dr. Laurent.
“Camille!” Henri rushed to the bed. “Are you hurt? Did she touch you?”
I was shaking now. The adrenaline was crashing. I looked down at Alice. She was crying, her little face red, but she was unharmed.
“I’m okay,” I gasped, checking Alice’s fingers, her toes. “She didn’t… I hit her. I hit her with the pitcher.”
Henri looked at the shattered plastic pitcher on the floor, then at Léa, who was pinned under Bastien’s knee, bleeding from a cut above her ear.
He looked back at me, his eyes shining with fierce pride.
“Good girl,” he whispered.
Bastien hauled Léa up. She was limp now, all the fight drained out of her. She looked at me, her eyes hollow.
“It’s not fair,” she mumbled, blood dripping down her chin. “It’s just not fair. You have everything.”
I looked at her. Really looked at her. I didn’t see a monster anymore. I saw a broken, pathetic woman who had consumed herself with envy until there was nothing human left.
“I have everything,” I said quietly, “because I know how to love. You only know how to want, Léa. And that is why you will always have nothing.”
“Get her out of here,” Henri commanded, his voice like ice. “And tell the Commissioner I want her charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, and breaking and entering. No bail. Solitary confinement.”
The police officers took Léa from Bastien, cuffing her hands behind her back. As they dragged her out, she didn’t scream. She didn’t fight. She just stared at the floor, muttering to herself, lost in the madness she had created.
Bastien stood there, straightening his jacket. He was breathing hard. He looked at me, then at the baby.
“Mademoiselle,” he nodded. “My apologies for the delay. The elevator was… slower than the stairs.”
I managed a weak laugh. “You were right on time, Bastien. Thank you.”
Dr. Laurent rushed over to check my incision. “You moved too much. You might have torn a stitch. We need to check.”
“I don’t care,” I said, kissing Alice’s forehead. “We’re safe. We’re finally safe.”
Scene 5: The Aftermath
The next few hours were a blur of police statements, medical checks, and finally, peace. Real peace.
The police commissioner came personally to assure my father that both Julien and Léa were in high-security holding cells. They would be arraigned in the morning. The evidence against them—the texts, the crash, the hospital break-in—was overwhelming. They weren’t getting out for a very, very long time.
Around 4 AM, the hospital finally went quiet. The guards were posted inside the room this time, at my father’s insistence.
I lay in the dark, watching the city lights of Paris twinkle through the window. Alice was sleeping in the bassinet right next to my head.
My father was asleep in the armchair, snoring softly. It was a comforting sound.
I picked up my phone. I hadn’t looked at it since the ambulance ride. I turned it on.
The notifications were different now.
The news had broken. The real news. Le Monde, Le Figaro, even the gossip sites.
“HEIRESS ATTACKED: De Valois Daughter Survives Kidnapping Attempt in Hospital.” “Julien Leroux and Step-Sister Arrested in Shocking Extortion Plot.” “The Texts That Exposed the Truth: How a Husband Betrayed His Wife for Billions.”
My father’s PR team had released the dossier. The audio of Léa laughing. The texts calling me “weak.” The video of the car crash.
The public sentiment had flipped instantly. The comments that had been attacking me hours ago were now flooded with apologies and support.
#StandWithCamille #SorryCamille #MonsterStepSister
I scrolled through them, feeling a strange sense of detachment. I didn’t care about their hate, and I didn’t care about their love. They didn’t know me. They were just an audience watching a play.
I put the phone down.
I didn’t need the world to understand. I had my father. I had Bastien. And I had Alice.
I closed my eyes and slept, dreamless and deep, for the first time in nine months.
Scene 6: Leaving the Fortress
Three days later, I was discharged.
The exit was nothing like the arrival. It was a military operation, but a celebratory one.
I walked out of the hospital (refusing the wheelchair, to the annoyance of Dr. Laurent) carrying Alice in her car seat. I wore a cream-colored wool coat and large sunglasses. My head was held high.
The press was there. Hundreds of them. Kept back by barricades and a line of police officers.
When I stepped out, the flashes erupted like a supernova. Shouts of “Camille! Camille!” filled the air.
I stopped at the top of the stairs. Bastien stood next to me, vigilant. My father was on my other side.
A reporter shouted, “Camille! Do you have anything to say to Julien?”
I stopped. I looked directly at the camera. I pulled down my sunglasses.
“No,” I said, my voice clear and amplified by the microphones. “I have nothing to say to him. He is my past. This…” I looked down at the baby carrier. “…is my future.”
I got into the car. The door closed. We drove away, leaving the noise behind.
As we merged onto the highway, heading south toward the estate, my father turned to me.
“Are you ready to go home?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Can we make a stop?”
“Where?”
“The house in Yvelines.”
My father raised an eyebrow. “Why? There is nothing there but bad memories.”
“I need to close the door,” I said. “Properly.”
We drove to the suburbs. The house looked different in the daylight. Smaller. Cheaper. The lawn was still torn up from where the SUVs had parked that night. The mud was drying into dirt.
I didn’t go inside. I didn’t want to smell his cologne or see the kitchen where I had cooked his meals.
I stood at the gate—the gate where he had screamed at me.
I looked at the garden where I had knelt in the rain.
“Bastien?” I called out.
“Mademoiselle?”
“Put it on the market,” I said. “Sell it. Cheap. I don’t care about the price. Just get rid of it. And donate the proceeds to a shelter for women. Every single cent.”
“Consider it done,” Bastien said.
I looked at the house one last time. It was just a building of brick and mortar. It held no power over me anymore.
I turned around and walked back to the car, where my daughter was sleeping.
“Let’s go home, Papa,” I said. “To the castle.”
Scene 7: Epilogue – The Harvest
One Year Later
The sun over the Sologne valley was warm, smelling of ripe grapes and damp earth. It was September—harvest season. The vines stretched out in endless rows of green and gold, heavy with the fruit that made the De Valois fortune.
I walked down the rows, wearing work boots and jeans, a clipboard in my hand.
“Sugar content is up 2% from last week,” the vineyard manager, Monsieur Renard, told me. “We should start picking on Monday.”
“Agreed,” I said, signing the order. “But let’s start with the Merlot on the north slope. It catches the frost first.”
“You have a good eye, Madame,” Renard smiled. “Just like your father.”
“I had a good teacher.”
I walked back toward the château. In the distance, on the expansive green lawn, a blanket was spread out.
My father was sitting there. The terrifying Henri de Valois, sitting on the grass in his shirt sleeves.
He was holding a toy rabbit.
And toddling toward him, on unsteady, chubby legs, was Alice.
She was one year old today. She had dark curls and eyes that missed nothing. She laughed, a bright, bubbling sound that carried on the wind, and threw herself into my father’s arms.
I stopped to watch them. My heart ached, but it was a good ache. A full ache.
A shadow fell over me. Bastien.
“The update came in, Madame,” he said quietly.
“Tell me.”
“The sentencing hearing concluded an hour ago.”
I looked out at the vines. “And?”
“Julien Leroux: Eight years. Fraud, extortion, reckless endangerment. No parole for at least four.”
“And Léa?”
“Twelve years,” Bastien said. “Attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy. And…” he paused. “She was transferred to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. She… did not take the sentencing well.”
I nodded. It was done. The book was closed.
“Thank you, Bastien.”
“Happy Birthday to Alice,” he said, a rare smile touching his lips.
I walked over to the blanket. Alice saw me and shrieked, “Maman!”
She ran to me—or stumbled fast—and I scooped her up, spinning her around. The world was a blur of blue sky and green vines.
“Happy Birthday, my love,” I whispered into her neck.
My father looked up at me. He looked younger than he had a year ago. The weight was gone.
“Is it done?” he asked.
“It’s done,” I said. “They’re gone.”
Henri nodded. He reached out and took Alice’s hand.
“Then let’s cut the cake,” he said. “We have a vintage to celebrate.”
I looked at my daughter, then at my father, then at the castle that stood strong against the sky. I wasn’t the girl who knelt in the mud anymore. I wasn’t the victim.
I was Camille de Valois. I was a mother. I was a survivor.
And as the sun set over the empire I would one day lead, I knew one thing for certain:
The storm could rage all it wanted. We were the stone that would not break.
