Chapter 7 - The Gathering Storm
By evening, the news had swept through the upper-crust social circles of Montchat like wildfire. In affluent neighborhoods where reputations were currency and scandal was social death, the Perrot household had become ground zero.
Lucas spent the afternoon at Édouard Herriot Hospital, sitting beside Chloé’s hospital bed. The little girl was eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream brought by the pediatric nursing staff, her spirits noticeably brighter now that she was surrounded by federal social workers and a dedicated pediatric psychologist who had assured her, over and over again, that nothing that had happened was her fault.
"Daddy, are we going to have to live in a different house?" Chloé asked softly, swinging her small legs over the edge of the mattress.
Lucas smiled gently, pulling the blanket higher around her shoulders. "We might move to a new place, sweetheart. A place where there's no shouting, no locked closets, and no fear. Just you and me. How does that sound?"
Chloé’s face lit up with a brilliant, unburdened smile that made Lucas’s heart ache with profound relief. "Can we get a golden retriever?"
"We can get two golden retrievers," Lucas promised, kissing her forehead.
While Chloé rested, Lucas stepped out into the hospital corridor to take a call from his lead corporate attorney, Maître Bernard.
"Perrot," Bernard’s gravelly voice came through the receiver. "We’ve audited the remaining subsidiary accounts. Not only have we blocked Marc Vanes from accessing any corporate funds, but we’ve also managed to freeze the real estate assets in Cannes before they could be transferred to Sabrina’s offshore holding entity. Legally speaking, you are in a remarkably strong position for both the corporate dissolution and the emergency custody hearing scheduled for Friday morning."
"And Sabrina?" Lucas asked.
"She tried to retain Coulon—one of the top criminal defense lawyers in Lyon," Bernard replied dryly. "When Coulon saw the video evidence from Madame Leroy’s camera and the financial forensic reports, he dropped her case within twenty minutes. She’s currently isolated, her co-conspirator cousin is facing up to seven years in federal prison for fraud, and the prosecutor’s office is taking child endangerment extremely seriously."
"Good," Lucas said, looking through the glass window at his daughter sleeping peacefully inside. "Let justice take its course. I’m done negotiating with criminals."
As he hung up the phone, a tall, imposing figure stepped out of the elevator at the end of the hospital corridor. It was Detective Inspector Moreau of the Lyon Judicial Police—a man with sharp gray eyes, a rumpled trench coat, and an air of quiet competence.
"Mr. Perrot," Moreau said, walking up and offering a firm handshake. "I’m glad I caught you before you left. We just executed a search warrant on the Montchat residence and on Marc Vanes’s downtown office. We recovered electronic correspondence that fully corroborates Madame Leroy’s video footage. Your wife has officially been served with a criminal summons for tomorrow morning."
"Will she be detained?" Lucas asked.
May you like
"Given the severity of the physical evidence and the flight risk posed by the offshore accounts, the prosecutor is requesting pre-trial detention," Moreau said levelly. "You won't have to worry about her approaching you or your daughter anytime soon."
Lucas breathed a long, steady sigh of relief. The nightmare that had begun twenty-four hours ago in a dark hallway was finally being systematically dismantled by the wheels of justice.
