Marcel did not waste time comforting me.
That was one reason my father had trusted him.
He had always believed that panic was an expensive luxury.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “The documents you signed are serious, but they have not completed the transfer.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Julian told me the board had already approved everything.”
“He lied.”
The word steadied me.
“Then what happens now?”
“The final board vote is Friday.”
“Friday.”
“Until then, the controlling-interest transfer remains subject to review.”
I closed my eyes.
“How did you know?”
“I have someone on the hospital board.”
Of course he did.
Marcel had spent forty years building relationships that most people never knew existed.
“What about the fire?”
His voice became quieter.
“The fire was deliberate.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“I knew it.”
“I had an independent arson specialist examine the photographs before Julian's people altered the scene.”
“What did he find?”
“The main solvent valve was scored with a fine saw.”
I said nothing.
“The cut was microscopic,” Marcel continued. “Someone wanted the line to fail under pressure, not immediately. The timing was deliberate.”
My stomach turned.
“Someone wanted me at the station.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“Before the maintenance team arrived?”
I already knew.
“Elise.”
“Correct.”
The room seemed suddenly smaller.
Elise had spent years beside me in the company.
She knew which rooms I used.
Which formulas I guarded.
Which processes I handled personally.
She knew I prepared the Centenary fragrance alone.
She knew exactly when I would be in that laboratory.
“She tried to kill me.”
Marcel did not contradict me.
“She tried to remove the obstacle between Julian and the company.”
I looked at the documents lying on my blanket.
“Why does Julian want Maison Dubois so badly?”
A pause.
“Because he doesn't intend to keep it.”
I sat straighter despite the pain.
“What?”
“He has been negotiating with OmniCorp Global.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in the fragrance industry did.
“They manufacture synthetic mass-market products.”
“They want your company.”
“Why?”
“The name.”
I stared toward the window.
Maison Dubois had existed for generations.
My father had protected the formulas as though they were family members. Our reputation rested on rare botanical ingredients, slow extraction methods, and compositions that could not be duplicated cheaply.
OmniCorp wanted the label.
Not the craft.
Not the history.
The label.
“They would turn it into a mass-market brand.”
“Yes.”
I felt something hot behind my ribs.
“How much?”
“Five hundred million euros.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the number was obscene.
“They're selling my father's life's work for five hundred million.”
“They're splitting the proceeds through offshore accounts.”
“Julian and Elise?”
“Those two are the primary beneficiaries.”
I looked at the ceiling again.
The smell of antiseptic had become unbearable.
I thought of my father standing in the old laboratory when I was twelve, teaching me how to distinguish Bulgarian rose from cheaper substitutes with my eyes closed.
“Don't trust what shouts,” he had told me once. “The expensive ingredient is often the quietest one.”
He had been talking about perfume.
Perhaps he had been talking about people too.
“What do we need?”
Marcel answered immediately.
“The Master Ledger.”
I knew the name.
I had never seen it.
My father had kept one private record outside the company's accounting system.
“If Julian finds it—”
“He won't.”
“Where is it?”
“In the floor safe in your father's old study in Grasse.”
I thought of the chateau.
The study.
The old Persian rug.
The mahogany desk where my father had written formulas by hand.
“Does Julian know about the safe?”
“He knows there is a safe. He does not know the original combination.”
“You do.”
“Yes.”
I glanced at the IV in my arm.
“I can barely sit up.”
“You don't need to stay there.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Leaving.”
I looked at the door.
“Marcel, I am in a private Swiss clinic.”
“You are being discharged against medical advice in twenty minutes.”
I almost smiled.
“You arranged that?”
“I arranged several things.”
“Of course you did.”
“There is a car waiting below.”
I looked down at my bandaged shoulder.
The pain was enormous.
But beneath it was something stronger.
Purpose.
“Can I stand?”
“You tell me.”
I pushed the blanket aside.
My feet touched the cold floor.
Pain flashed through my shoulder and neck, making my vision blur.
I gripped the mattress.
For several seconds I stayed there.
Then I stood.
“I can.”
“Good.”
I removed the IV myself.
A bead of blood rolled down my hand.
I changed into the loose clothes left in the wardrobe and pulled an oversized hood over my bandages.
When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized the woman staring back.
Pale.
Bruised.
Wrapped in white gauze.
But my eyes were clear.
I did not look like Clara Dubois, Master Perfumer.
I looked like someone who had disappeared.
That was useful.
The hospital elevator took me underground.
Marcel's driver was waiting beside a black car.
Marcel sat in the front.
He looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“You made it.”
“I said I would.”
The car pulled away.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Outside the window, the city blurred into darkness.
“What happens if we get the ledger?”
“We expose the embezzlement, the fraudulent merger, and the bribery.”
“And the fire?”
“If the hard drive contains what I believe it does, it will establish motive.”
“Will that be enough?”
“For the police?”
“Yes.”
“For the company?”
I looked toward him.
“No.”
He nodded.
“That is why we need more.”
The road stretched beneath us.
“What do you mean?”
“Julian and Elise believe they can control the narrative.”
“Then we take that away.”
“How?”
I thought of the Centenary Gala.
The company had spent months preparing it.
The world's largest fragrance investors would attend.
Critics.
Executives.
Journalists.
The OmniCorp board.
Julian wanted that night to become his coronation.
I looked out at the darkness.
“Let him have his stage.”
Marcel's eyes met mine in the mirror.
For the first time, he smiled.
The car continued south.
Five hours later, the Alps gave way to Provence.
The landscape outside the windows changed slowly.
Snow became dark hills.
Dark hills became lavender fields.
At three in the morning, we reached the gates of the Dubois estate.
The house looked exactly as I remembered.
And nothing like home.
Marcel shut down the engine.
“Julian upgraded the security.”
“Can you get us inside?”
“I already did.”
He handed me a cloned keycard.
“The exterior cameras are looped. You have fifteen minutes.”
“And the interior?”
“Most of it is monitored.”
He pointed toward a digital blueprint.
“Not the old servant's passage.”
My father's passage.
The one leading from the wine cellar to the study.
I took the card.
Marcel caught my wrist.
“If they are awake, you leave.”
I looked at him.
“If they see me?”
“They may finish what they started.”
“I know.”
He released my arm.
I opened the door.
Cold air struck my face.
The estate smelled of wet earth and lavender.
I crossed the garden without using the gravel paths.
At the cellar entrance, I swiped the card.
The lock opened.
I slipped inside.
Darkness swallowed me.
The scent of old oak surrounded me.
Wine.
Damp stone.
Earth.
For the first time since the explosion, I felt something close to peace.
This was my father's house.
I followed the corridor to the spiral staircase.
Every step hurt.
But I kept climbing.
At the top, I opened the study door.
Moonlight fell across the room.
And I stopped.
Julian had already erased my father.
The old mahogany desk was gone.
The handwritten formulas had disappeared.
The framed awards were gone.
In their place stood a glass-and-chrome desk beneath a massive architectural rendering of an OmniCorp factory.
I stared at it.
Then I lifted the Persian rug.
The safe was still there.
I entered my mother's death date.
The mechanism clicked.
Inside lay a black leather ledger and a small encrypted drive.
I took both.
Then I heard the doorknob move.
Someone was coming.
I froze.
There was nowhere to run.
I slipped behind the velvet curtains and held my breath.
The door opened.
Elise walked in.
Julian followed.
And neither of them knew I was there.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Hidden Behind My Father’s Curtains, I Heard Them Toast to My Death and Reveal What They Planned to Sell
When the Flames Died, My Husband Arrived With Papers That Were Supposed to End My Life’s Work
Part 2 of 12
