Chapter 3 - The Man Who Never Died
Anaëlle heard the words.
But her mind refused to accept them.
“Say that again.”
Celeste Vale stood beneath the emergency lighting, her silver hair illuminated by the weak red glow.
“Your father is alive.”
Anaëlle stared at her.
“No.”
“He is.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
Dominic moved toward her.
Anaëlle backed away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Celeste’s expression softened.
“I know how impossible this sounds.”
“Then don’t say impossible things.”
“I saw Julien three months ago.”
Anaëlle’s knees weakened.
She grabbed the piano.
“Where?”
Celeste hesitated.
Anaëlle’s grief transformed instantly into anger.
“Where?”
“Switzerland.”
“Why?”
“For treatment.”
“What treatment?”
Celeste looked toward Dominic.
He understood immediately.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You knew my father was alive?”
“I swear I didn’t.”
Anaëlle turned back to Celeste.
“Why would he be in Switzerland?”
Celeste took a careful breath.
“Your father was injured twelve years ago.”
“Injured how?”
“There was a car explosion.”
Dominic’s face darkened.
“I remember.”
Anaëlle looked at him.
“What do you remember?”
“Gabriel told everyone Julien Laurent died that night.”
“But there was no body.”
“There was enough evidence that people believed him.”
Anaëlle shook her head.
“My mother told me Dad abandoned us.”
Celeste’s eyes filled with sadness.
“Your mother was trying to save you.”
“Everyone keeps saying they were protecting me.”
Anaëlle’s voice rose.
“Do you know what protection felt like? It felt like my father didn’t love me enough to come home!”
Silence.
Dominic looked down.
Celeste took another step forward.
“Julien wanted to come home.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Because Gabriel threatened you.”
Anaëlle stopped.
“What?”
Celeste closed her eyes briefly.
“Your father worked for Vale Financial. He was brilliant with numbers. Too brilliant.”
“What did he discover?”
“A ledger.”
Dominic answered now.
“A record of payments Gabriel made to judges, police commissioners, politicians, union leaders, contractors.”
Anaëlle looked at him.
“And that’s what’s hidden?”
“Possibly.”
Celeste shook her head.
“Not merely a ledger.”
Dominic turned.
“What else?”
Celeste reached into her coat.
Marco tensed.
She removed an old cassette recorder.
Dominic stared.
Celeste pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a voice.
Anaëlle’s heart stopped.
Her father.
Older than she remembered.
Weaker.
But unmistakable.
“If Anaëlle ever hears this, tell her I am sorry.”
Anaëlle covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
“I thought I could expose Gabriel without destroying the Vale family. I was wrong.”
A cough.
Then:
“The ledger is not enough. Gabriel can deny numbers. He cannot deny voices.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
Celeste stopped the recorder.
“There are recordings.”
“Where?” Dominic asked.
Celeste looked at the key in Anaëlle’s hand.
“Locker 317.”
Anaëlle’s pulse accelerated.
Dominic spoke immediately.
“We go tonight.”
Marco frowned.
“Sir, if Gabriel is watching—”
“He already knows about the piano.”
Anaëlle shook her head.
“I’m going with you.”
Dominic looked at her.
“No.”
She almost smiled from disbelief.
“You’re still trying that?”
“Anaëlle—”
“That key is mine.”
“And Gabriel will know you have it.”
“He already knows I exist.”
“He’s known you existed for twelve years.”
The sentence silenced everyone.
Anaëlle slowly looked at Celeste.
“What does he want from me?”
Celeste’s face became grave.
“Your father designed the encryption.”
“The musical code.”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because you were the only person Julien trusted to remember it naturally.”
Anaëlle closed her hand around the key.
“So I’m not a person to Gabriel. I’m a password.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“That’s why you don’t leave my sight.”
Anaëlle looked at him.
“Your sight?”
“Until this is finished.”
“You don’t own me.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“But I owe your father.”
“For what?”
Dominic’s face changed.
For the first time, guilt broke through his control.
“Because the night your father disappeared, he saved my life.”
Anaëlle stared.
Dominic continued quietly.
“I was twenty-one. Stupid. Angry. Desperate to prove I deserved the Vale name.”
He looked toward the photograph.
“I found out Gabriel was using our companies to move money. I confronted him.”
Celeste whispered, “Dominic…”
“I thought blood meant something to him.”
His laugh contained no humor.
“It didn’t.”
Anaëlle listened.
“Gabriel ordered both of us killed. Julien discovered the plan. He got me out.”
“And the explosion?”
“Was meant for me.”
Anaëlle’s anger shifted.
“My father was hurt because of you.”
“Yes.”
Dominic did not defend himself.
“Yes, he was.”
“And you lived your entire life knowing that?”
“Yes.”
She wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
But the guilt in his eyes was too real.
“Why didn’t you find him?”
“I tried.”
“For twelve years?”
“Every month.”
Celeste looked at Dominic, surprised.
“You never told me.”
“I never told anyone.”
Anaëlle looked toward the piano.
The entire evening suddenly felt less like a strange job and more like something planned years before.
“My father chose tonight.”
Dominic frowned.
“What?”
“The date.”
She pointed toward the gilded clock.
“October seventeenth.”
Celeste inhaled sharply.
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
Celeste whispered, “The explosion happened October seventeenth.”
Twelve years exactly.
Anaëlle looked at the piano.
Her father had planned everything.
Maybe not the hour.
Maybe not the people.
But the sequence.
The letter.
The music.
The key.
All waiting.
“Then we go to locker 317,” Anaëlle said.
Dominic nodded.
This time he did not argue.
They left through the underground garage.
Two black SUVs.
Marco drove the first.
Dominic sat beside him.
Anaëlle and Celeste sat in the rear.
The city glittered beyond tinted windows.
Anaëlle held the key so tightly its edges pressed into her skin.
“Why didn’t my father contact me?” she asked.
Celeste looked at her.
“Because he believed Gabriel was monitoring you.”
“Was he?”
“For years.”
Anaëlle felt sick.
“My apartment?”
“Probably not.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
Anaëlle looked out the window.
“Does my mother know he’s alive?”
Celeste’s silence answered first.
Anaëlle turned.
“She knows?”
“She knew he survived.”
Rage burned through Anaëlle.
“She lied to me.”
“She was protecting—”
“Don’t say that word.”
Celeste stopped.
Anaëlle’s eyes filled with tears.
“My entire childhood was built around a lie.”
Dominic looked back from the front seat.
“Sometimes lies are the only thing keeping people alive.”
Anaëlle stared at him.
“That sounds like something a Vale would say.”
He accepted the insult without reaction.
They reached Grand Central after midnight.
The public concourse was nearly empty.
Dominic’s security team secured a private corridor leading to an old railway club no longer used by commuters.
The lockers remained.
Bronze doors.
Dusty numbers.
301.
302.
303.
Then 317.
Anaëlle inserted the key.
Her hand trembled.
Dominic stood behind her.
“Ready?”
“No.”
She turned the key anyway.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside sat a small leather case.
Nothing else.
Anaëlle removed it.
Dominic carried the case to an old wooden table.
Anaëlle opened it.
Inside were seven cassette tapes.
A notebook.
A passport.
And another envelope.
Anaëlle grabbed the passport.
The photograph belonged to her father.
The name did not.
Étienne Moreau.
Swiss residency stamp.
Three months earlier.
He really was alive.
Anaëlle began crying before she realized it.
Dominic looked away, giving her privacy.
She opened the envelope.
Another message.
This one shorter.
Annie, if you reached this point, you are not alone.
Trust the man who brought you to the piano.
Anaëlle looked at Dominic.
He looked almost uncomfortable.
She continued.
But do not trust anyone with the name Vale.
Her eyes stopped.
Dominic saw her expression.
“What?”
Anaëlle folded the letter.
“Nothing.”
“Anaëlle.”
She stared at him.
Her father had contradicted himself in two consecutive sentences.
Trust Dominic.
Do not trust anyone named Vale.
Why?
Then Celeste screamed.
Anaëlle turned.
A man stood at the end of the corridor.
Older.
Silver at his temples.
Perfect black overcoat.
He applauded slowly.
Dominic stepped in front of Anaëlle.
“Gabriel.”
The man smiled.
“So,” Gabriel Vale said, “Julien’s little pianist finally opened the box.”
Anaëlle held the case against her chest.
Gabriel looked directly at her.
“You have your father’s eyes.”
Dominic’s voice turned cold.
“Leave.”
Gabriel laughed.
“You still think this city belongs to you.”
“It never belonged to either of us.”
Gabriel looked toward Anaëlle.
“Did Dominic tell you why your father wrote that second warning?”
Anaëlle froze.
Dominic glanced at the letter.
Gabriel smiled wider.
“No?”
He took one step closer.
“Then perhaps he also forgot to tell you who ordered Julien Laurent’s car to be followed the night it exploded.”
Anaëlle slowly looked at Dominic.
May you like
Gabriel’s final words echoed through the corridor.
“It wasn’t me.”
