Chapter 3 - The Secret Claire Took to Her Grave
Sophie laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the mind chooses laughter when reality becomes too painful to process.
“My father isn’t my father.”
Luca said nothing.
Alessandro remained perfectly still.
Sophie picked up the photograph again.
“Claire’s daughter is not Étienne’s child.”
She read the sentence aloud twice.
Then she looked at both men.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Sophie—”
“No.”
She pointed at Alessandro.
“You told me someone may be manipulating me.”
“Yes.”
“Then this is manipulation.”
“It could be.”
“It is.”
She tore the photograph almost in half before stopping herself.
Her father’s face looked up from the image.
Étienne.
The man who tied her shoelaces.
The man who carried her on his shoulders through Paris when she was five.
The man who sat beside her bed during thunderstorms.
Fatherhood was not a blood test.
She knew that.
But the possibility that he had hidden something so enormous opened another wound.
Sophie lowered the photograph.
“Who is my biological father?”
Luca looked at Alessandro.
Sophie noticed.
Her chest tightened.
“Why did you look at him?”
Luca replied carefully.
“Because there were rumors.”
“What rumors?”
Alessandro’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t.”
Luca ignored him.
“Claire knew Alessandro’s father.”
Sophie stared.
Alessandro stood.
“That proves nothing.”
Sophie turned toward him.
“Your father?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“Because the idea is dangerous.”
“Is it true?”
“I don’t know.”
She searched his face.
“How old was your father?”
“Forty-two when you were born.”
“Did he have a relationship with my mother?”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
The room became painfully silent.
When she opened them again, Alessandro was watching her with something she hadn’t seen before.
Guilt.
“You knew?”
“I knew they were close.”
“Close.”
“I was a child when it began.”
“And later?”
“My father never discussed Claire.”
“Why?”
“Because mentioning her made him angry.”
“Why?”
“I assumed because she betrayed him.”
Luca interrupted.
“She did.”
Sophie turned.
“What did she do?”
“She stole the Argent ledger.”
Sophie’s mind raced.
“You said she found it.”
“She found it because Vittorio Moretti had it.”
Alessandro’s father.
Sophie looked at Alessandro.
“Your father was part of the Circle.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother worked for him.”
“Yes.”
“And they had a relationship.”
“Apparently.”
“And then she stole something capable of destroying him.”
“Yes.”
Sophie stared at the chandeliers.
“Did your father kill her?”
Alessandro did not answer.
That was answer enough.
She stepped toward him.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew she was poisoned.”
“I learned years later.”
“By whom?”
“Someone connected to the Circle.”
“Your father?”
“Possibly.”
Sophie slapped him.
The sound echoed through the restaurant.
Matteo moved instinctively.
Alessandro raised one hand.
“Stay.”
Sophie’s palm burned.
Alessandro did not touch his cheek.
He simply looked at her.
“You’re angry at a dead man.”
“I’m angry at you.”
“Fair.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m standing here.”
“No. Because you knew pieces of my life and let me spend years believing lies.”
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“You recognized my name.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my father died.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my mother.”
“Barely.”
“But you knew enough.”
Alessandro accepted every accusation.
Sophie hated him more because he didn’t defend himself.
Luca eventually spoke.
“Étienne disappeared after Claire’s death.”
Sophie turned.
“He raised me for nine years afterward.”
“In public.”
“What does that mean?”
“He continued raising you. But intelligence considered him rogue.”
“Because of the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he hide it?”
“No one knows.”
Sophie suddenly remembered something.
The wine list.
She looked toward the table.
Old French handwriting.
A strange thought formed.
“My father taught me wine regions.”
Alessandro frowned.
“What?”
“When I was thirteen.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Why?”
“I never understood. He barely drank.”
Sophie began pacing.
“He made me memorize vineyards. Bordeaux classifications. Villages. Vintage years.”
Alessandro looked at Luca.
“That doesn’t sound accidental.”
Sophie stopped.
“He made it a game.”
“What game?”
“He would give me a year and a vineyard. I had to remember a number.”
“What number?”
Sophie tried to remember.
“Sometimes coordinates.”
Luca stood abruptly.
“Coordinates?”
“Not real coordinates. I thought they were puzzles.”
“Examples.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
“Pauillac. 1982. Seven-four-one.”
Alessandro went toward the reserve list.
He found the entry.
“741.”
“What?”
“There’s a cellar inventory number.”
Sophie’s pulse quickened.
He checked another.
“Give me another.”
“Margaux. 1990. Three-one-six.”
Alessandro found it.
“316.”
Luca whispered something in French.
Sophie stared.
“My father knew this restaurant.”
Alessandro looked around.
“Apparently.”
The owner had disappeared earlier.
Sophie suddenly realized that.
“Where’s Monsieur Laurent?”
Matteo checked toward the kitchen.
“He left with the staff.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“Find him.”
Matteo walked away.
Sophie looked at the wine list.
“What if my father encoded something into these numbers?”
Luca came closer.
“Étienne loved layered encryption.”
“You say that like you admired him.”
“I did.”
“Were you friends?”
Luca hesitated.
“Brothers, once.”
The sadness in his face softened Sophie slightly.
“What happened?”
“The mission happened.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It destroyed everyone.”
Sophie sat beside the list.
Alessandro placed the photograph nearby.
“Your father wanted you to find something.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he taught a child information no child needed.”
Sophie ran her finger over the handwritten entries.
1982.
1983.
1984.
1985.
Numbers her father had made her repeat until she could say them while half-asleep.
Another memory surfaced.
“1961.”
Alessandro searched.
“Which vineyard?”
“Latour.”
He found it.
“922.”
Sophie whispered, “Nine-two-two.”
She suddenly saw her childhood kitchen.
Her father standing beside a chalkboard.
Seven numbers written in rows.
Sophie opened her eyes.
“There were seven.”
“Seven what?”
“Seven combinations.”
She found a napkin and wrote from memory.
741.
742.
743.
744.
745.
746.
747.
Luca stared.
“Could be a cipher.”
Alessandro took out his phone.
“No electronics.”
Luca stopped him.
“If the Circle is watching, assume compromised devices.”
They began comparing numbers against the reserve list manually.
Each inventory number corresponded with a wine.
Each wine carried a year.
The first digits seemed meaningless.
Then Sophie noticed the first letters of each estate.
L.
M.
L.
H.
C.
P.
D.
No word.
She tried regions.
P.
M.
P.
S.
S.
P.
S.
Still nothing.
Then she remembered her father’s voice.
Never read the bottle, Sophie. Read where it sleeps.
She whispered the phrase.
Alessandro looked at her.
“What?”
“My father said that.”
Luca smiled slowly.
“The cellar.”
They all turned toward the kitchen.
L’Étoile Noir maintained a private underground wine cellar.
Sophie had only entered twice.
The oldest bottles were stored behind locked iron doors.
Alessandro grabbed his jacket.
“Show me.”
They descended a narrow staircase.
Warm restaurant light gave way to cool stone walls.
Rows of wooden racks stretched beneath low arches.
Thousands of bottles lay beneath soft amber lamps.
Sophie led them toward the reserve section.
Shelf numbers marked each wall.
741 wasn’t an inventory number.
It was a location.
Row seven.
Column four.
Slot one.
Sophie reached toward the bottle.
Alessandro stopped her.
“I’ll do it.”
He removed the wine.
Behind it was a tiny metal plate.
A keyhole.
Sophie stared.
Luca laughed once in disbelief.
“Étienne.”
Alessandro checked the remaining numbers.
Seven locations.
They removed seven bottles.
Behind each was a separate lock.
Sophie looked around.
“What opens them?”
Luca looked at the silver wolf cane in the security photo.
“The cane.”
Sophie’s heart sank.
“We don’t have it.”
A sound came from behind them.
Slow applause.
They turned.
Monsieur Laurent stood at the top of the cellar stairs.
The restaurant owner smiled.
He was holding the silver wolf cane.
Sophie froze.
“You.”
Laurent descended.
“You were always clever, Sophie.”
Her blood turned cold.
“How do you know me?”
His smile faded.
“Because Mrs. Bellamy wasn’t the woman who sent you here.”
Sophie stared.
“I met her.”
“No.”
He reached the cellar floor.
“You met someone wearing her name.”
Alessandro stepped between them.
“Who are you?”
Laurent looked almost amused.
“A man who has waited seventeen years for Claire Dubois’s daughter to remember seven numbers.”
Sophie’s mouth went dry.
“You arranged my job.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because only you could open what your father hid.”
He raised the cane.
“And now we finally have the key.”
Alessandro’s expression became deadly calm.
“You’re Argent.”
Laurent smiled.
“Was.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the Circle is no longer what you remember.”
Luca asked, “Who controls it?”
Laurent looked at Sophie.
Then he gave an answer none of them expected.
“Étienne Dubois.”
Sophie stopped breathing.
“My father is alive?”
Laurent’s smile widened.
“Oh, Sophie.”
He tapped the silver wolf cane against the stone floor.
“Your father isn’t just alive.”
A hidden door inside the cellar clicked open.
Footsteps approached from the darkness beyond.
May you like
Laurent stepped aside.
“He’s been waiting for you.”
