PART 3
Sandrine’s phone vibrated hysterically on the marble countertop. The screen displayed Julien’s smiling face—a photo taken during their last vacation—but the ringtone now echoed like a death knell in the deadly silence of the living room.
Paralyzed by the sight of the armed men deploying across the lawn, trampling over her family’s beer cans, Sandrine answered with a trembling hand. She put it on speakerphone out of pure, panicked reflex.
“Sandrine!” Julien’s voice screamed, distorted by terror and shortness of breath. “Sandrine, listen to me! If you are at the Pyla house, take the kids and run through the beach! Right now! They know about the documents, they just broke into my office…”
Julien’s voice was brutally cut off by a metallic crash, followed by a muffled cry. Then, the line crackled, and a man’s voice—gravelly and calm—pronounced a single sentence before hanging up: “The straw-man heir has been neutralized.”
Sandrine dropped the phone, and it shattered on the tiled floor. Her mother, Mireille, let out a pitiful whimper, clutching her stolen nightgown against herself, while her father, Robert, backed away until he collided with the large oak table. Sandrine’s arrogant siblings, the mocking teenagers—all were suddenly petrified, like statues of salt.
The bay window slid open with a fluid murmur. Two men in dark suits entered first, sweeping the room with a cold, professional gaze. They paid absolutely no attention to Sandrine’s family, instantly dismissing them as an insignificant nuisance. They stepped aside to let an elegant woman pass.
Hélène, still standing perfectly straight near the kitchen, let a faint sigh escape her lips. The woman who had just walked in wore a flawlessly tailored pantsuit of a deep black that contrasted sharply with her ash-blonde hair, pulled back into a strict bun. Her eyes—an unfathomable storm-grey—were the exact replica of those of Marc, Hélène’s late husband.
“Hello, Hélène,” the woman stated in a smooth, authoritative voice. “Thirty years. You’ve barely changed. Still carrying that look of an harmless seamstress.”
“Éléonore,” Hélène replied in an even tone. “You’re early. The protocol stipulated that you were only to manifest yourself if Julien’s cover was compromised.”
“And it is,” Éléonore countered, casting a contemptuous glance toward Sandrine, who was shaking from head to toe. “Because of this greedy idiot and her little dealings with our old Parisian rivals.”
Sandrine fell to her knees, her hands clasped together. “I… I swear I didn’t know!” she gasped, her makeup running down her cheeks. “They just told me to reclaim the house! They paid me so Julien would forge the papers!”
“Shut up,” Éléonore ordered without even looking at her. One of the men in black stepped forward, his weapon discreetly lowered along his thigh, signaling Sandrine and her family to gather in a corner of the living room.
Éléonore walked slowly toward the center of the room, ignoring the pizza boxes and the dirt. She ran a gloved hand over the old oak flooring.
“You did a remarkable job, Hélène. Building this house piece by piece over eight years, justifying every expense with your meager savings as a seamstress… A perfect cover. No one would have ever imagined that Marc’s grieving widow was actually building the largest vault on the Atlantic coast.”
Sandrine’s family gasped. Their narrow minds struggled to process the reality unfolding before their eyes.
Hélène picked up her old leather bag and stepped forward. Her posture as a tired old lady had completely vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating confidence.
“The basement is intact,” Hélène confirmed. “The servers of the holding company, the compromising files of the Eastern Cartel, and your father’s personal fortune… Everything is exactly where we sealed it the night of his ‘death’.”
“Perfect,” Éléonore murmured with a predatory smile. “It’s time to dig up the ghosts. Especially now that Julien is starting to have flashes of that famous night. If he remembers what he did to his own father, we will have a major problem.”
Sandrine stifled a scream of horror. What Julien had done to his father?
“We’re going to have to eliminate him from the equation,” Éléonore continued, turning to Hélène. “And as for these parasites…” she said, gesturing toward Sandrine’s family, “they have seen our faces. They have desecrated our sanctuary.”
Hélène reached into her leather bag and pulled out a heavy, antique key, adorned with a blackened coat of arms.
“Do what you have to do, Éléonore,” Hélène said, her voice entirely devoid of mercy. “But remember our agreement. The truth about Julien’s origins remains my privilege. I will be the one to tell him who his real mother is.”
Éléonore bowed slightly, a flash of amusement in her eyes. “As you wish… Godmother.”
As the men in black approached Sandrine’s family with zip ties, Hélène turned toward the bay window, watching the ocean shimmer. The roses she had pruned three weeks earlier hid the entrance to the vault, but more importantly, they hid the body of the first man who had tried to uncover their secret. The peaceful Pyla retirement home had just closed its doors. The true empire was reclaiming its rights, and blood would soon be spilled.
