Chapter 5 - THE BEST FRIEND WHO TOOK EVERYTHING
Julien remembered the day Gabriel Laurent met Élise.
She had been two hours old.
Julien had stood beside the hospital window holding a newborn badly enough that three nurses kept offering help.
Gabriel entered carrying champagne and a ridiculous pink stuffed elephant.
He had looked at Élise and cried.
Uncle Gabriel, he eventually called himself.
For three years after she disappeared, Julien believed Gabriel suffered too.
Now Élise remembered him inside the car that took her.
Julien sat on the floor beside his daughter.
“What else do you remember?”
Sophie looked worried.
“Don’t push her.”
“I won’t.”
Julien touched Élise’s hand.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
She nodded.
A long silence passed.
Then she whispered, “There was rain.”
The day she disappeared had been dry.
Renard noticed too.
“That might have been later.”
Élise continued.
“I wanted Mommy.”
Julien’s throat tightened.
Élise’s mother, Claire, had died eighteen months before the kidnapping from an aggressive cancer.
That loss had already nearly destroyed them.
“I know.”
“The man said Mommy was sleeping.”
“What man?”
“The scar man.”
Étienne.
“And Gabriel?”
“He came after.”
“You saw him?”
She nodded.
“He yelled.”
Julien’s hope flickered.
Maybe Gabriel had been trying to stop it.
“What did he say?”
Élise frowned.
“Too much.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘This is too much.’”
Renard leaned closer.
“Anything else?”
She squeezed Mr. Bun.
“He said Papa would sign.”
Julien went still.
“Sign what?”
“I don’t know.”
Of course she didn’t.
She had been three.
But Julien did.
At least he knew what happened after Élise disappeared.
Within six weeks, shattered and unable to work, Julien signed temporary executive authority over Morel Atelier to Gabriel.
Nine months later, Gabriel persuaded him to authorize the sale of a large waterfront development portfolio.
The buyer was a Luxembourg fund.
Julien had barely read the papers.
He had not cared.
He would have signed away every building in France if someone had promised his daughter back.
“What was the waterfront portfolio worth?” Renard asked.
“At sale?”
“Yes.”
“About seventy million euros.”
“And today?”
Julien thought.
“Maybe two hundred million.”
Renard whistled softly.
Sophie looked at him.
“Who bought it?”
Julien opened company records from his phone.
The fund had been called Bellamy Capital.
Ownership hidden behind layers.
Renard sent it to financial investigators.
Twenty minutes later, they had a name.
Gabriel Laurent.
Julien laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes betrayal became so enormous the mind refused to hold it normally.
“He took her so I’d collapse.”
Sophie went pale.
Renard said nothing.
“He knew exactly what losing Claire did to me.”
Julien’s voice became quieter.
“He knew Élise was all I had left.”
“And once she was gone,” Renard said, “you gave him control.”
Julien looked toward the window.
“He didn’t need me dead.”
“No.”
“He needed me broken.”
The old Morel construction site on Quai Rambaud had been abandoned for two years.
Once, Julien planned to build a cultural center there.
After Élise vanished, funding stopped.
Concrete skeletons remained beside the Saône like unfinished tombs.
Renard arranged surveillance.
Julien wore a concealed microphone.
Sophie stayed with Élise under armed protection.
Before Julien left, Élise ran to him.
“Papa.”
He crouched.
She placed something in his palm.
Her broken shoe buckle.
The silver one from the bakery.
“For luck.”
He closed his fist around it.
“Thank you.”
“Come back.”
“I will.”
This time he meant it differently.
Three years ago, he would have walked into any trap because he did not care whether he survived.
Now survival mattered.
Because someone waited for him.
At eleven that night, Julien entered the unfinished building alone.
Gabriel stood on the third floor.
Dr. Vautrin sat tied to a chair nearby.
Gabriel looked older.
Still handsome.
Still wearing the expensive coats Julien once teased him about.
“Julien.”
“Where’s Barrot?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You hired him.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened.
“You found Élise.”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
Julien stared at him.
“You don’t get to ask.”
Gabriel flinched.
“I never wanted her hurt.”
“You kidnapped a three-year-old.”
“I arranged leverage.”
The words made Julien’s vision narrow.
“Leverage?”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“You were destroying the company.”
“My wife was dying.”
“You stopped making decisions.”
“Claire had cancer!”
“And twelve hundred people depended on us.”
Julien stared.
“So you took my child?”
“It wasn’t supposed to last.”
Vautrin laughed bitterly from the chair.
Gabriel spun.
“Quiet.”
Julien looked at the doctor.
“What does that mean?”
Vautrin spoke.
“Tell him.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched.
“Tell me what?”
Vautrin continued.
“The girl was supposed to disappear for forty-eight hours.”
Julien’s heart stopped.
“Then what?”
“You were supposed to sign emergency voting control to Gabriel.”
Julien looked at his former friend.
“And then?”
Gabriel whispered, “She was supposed to come home.”
The concrete building seemed to tilt.
“But Sophie took her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Barrot panicked.”
“So instead of telling me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t?”
“Do you understand what would have happened?”
Julien crossed the distance between them and punched him.
Gabriel fell against a concrete column.
Blood appeared at his mouth.
Julien grabbed his coat.
“Three years.”
“I looked for her too!”
“Liar.”
“I did!”
Gabriel shoved him away.
“When Sophie vanished with Élise, Barrot lost her. I spent millions looking.”
“For my daughter?”
“For both of us!”
“You mean for the evidence.”
Gabriel went silent.
That was enough.
Julien looked at Vautrin.
“What evidence?”
The doctor smiled grimly.
“Sophie didn’t only take Élise.”
Julien froze.
“She took the clinic ledger.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Vautrin continued.
“It documented everything. Payments. Sedation. Fake patients. Barrot’s jobs.”
Julien thought of Sophie’s cheap apartment.
“Does she still have it?”
Gabriel answered.
“If she did, she could bury everyone.”
A gunshot exploded below.
Gabriel spun toward the stairwell.
Another shot.
Then Renard’s voice shouted through Julien’s earpiece.
“Barrot is inside!”
Gabriel went pale.
“I didn’t bring him.”
Julien understood instantly.
Étienne Barrot had spent three years cleaning up everyone else’s mistakes.
Now he had come to finish the job.
Julien ran toward Vautrin.
The lights went out.
In the darkness, Gabriel whispered:
“He’s going after Sophie.”
Julien’s blood turned cold.
May you like
Because Sophie knew where Élise was.
And if Barrot found Sophie first, Julien could lose his daughter all over again.
