The Team
Valeria
I leave the gala shortly after my confrontation with Bianca.
I got what I came for.
My resurrection is public now: three hundred witnesses, dozens of phones recording, and by tomorrow morning, my face will be everywhere.
Most importantly, Dante knows I’m alive now.
Hugo joins me the moment he spots me.
He slides behind the wheel, and the car pulls away from the curb.
Almost immediately, a second vehicle falls in behind us.
Stephen.
Reliable, steady, discreet. The kind of man people barely notice until they realize he’s already seen everything.
My bodyguard.
Tonight, he’s making sure nobody follows us.
“You okay?” Hugo asks.
“Barely.”
He nods once. No pity. No pointless reassurance. We both knew what tonight would cost me.
Paris slips past the windows in ribbons of gold and winter light.
Holiday lights glow across the boulevards, painfully cheerful against the chaos in my head.
At regular intervals, Hugo checks the mirrors.
Making sure Stephen is still there.
We leave the city behind, cross through the suburbs, then stop in front of wrought-iron gates. Beyond them rises the rented manor—discreet, secure, its tall windows barely lit.
Our headquarters for the next few weeks.
Youri buzzes us in from the guardhouse and gives us a brief wave.
I head upstairs immediately.
In the bathroom, I undress mechanically. I remove the microphone—no bigger than a jacket button—that Mara had hidden beneath my neckline. When the dress slips to the floor, it feels like shedding the weight of the entire evening.
The water is scalding, but I stay beneath it anyway.
The spray beats against my skin until my hands stop trembling.
Then the tears come, unstoppable.
I see Dante again. His rage. His contempt. Those black eyes that once looked at me like I was the only woman in the world.
You died to me two years ago, Valeria.
And despite everything—despite his anger, despite his hatred—it’s the urge to run to him that nearly breaks me.
The urge to explain everything.
To find my way back into his arms.
But he’s marrying Bianca on Christmas Eve.
The day we first made love, eight years ago.
Eventually, the tears stop.
I pull on jeans and a thick sweater before heading downstairs.
Stephen and Hugo are scrolling through their phones.
“There are pictures and videos of you everywhere already,” Hugo says. “People are losing their minds with theories.”
A smile tugs at my lips.
“So what’s their favorite one?”
“Secret lover,” Stephen replies. “Showing up on Hugo’s arm caused a stir.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
They’re nowhere close to the truth.
Mara arrives about an hour later.
“He’s fine. He went back to his apartment.”
The pressure in my chest eases slightly, though it doesn’t disappear completely.
I hadn’t realized how tense I was until that moment.
Mara removes the brooch pinned to her collar, extracts the SD card hidden inside, and slides it into the laptop. Seconds later, footage from the gala fills the television screen.
First the wide shots. Crystal. Champagne. Power and vanity beneath glittering chandeliers.
Then the entrance.
Dante and Bianca appear together.
Bianca is radiant, draped around him with perfectly rehearsed possessiveness.
Dante moves with effortless confidence.
They greet a few guests.
Then heads begin turning, whispers spreading through the room.
Hugo and I have just entered the ballroom.
Dante is the first to turn.
I study him with clinical detachment.
The shock. Real. Absolute. Impossible to fake. The champagne flute slipping from his fingers without him even noticing. A brief unraveling. Then rage, the instant he realizes it’s truly me.
A second later, his face closes off again.
But fury still radiates from every line of his body.
“Rewind.”
Mara backs up the footage and plays it again.
“This time,” I say, “watch Bianca.”
Shock crosses her face too.
But unlike Dante, she isn’t looking at me.
She’s looking at him.
Fear flashes across her expression—raw, instinctive, immediate.
Mara freezes the frame.
“There. That kind of fear can’t be faked. She’s afraid of his reaction.”
Why?
Because she’s afraid of losing him? Afraid of what he might discover?
I hand the tiny microphone to Mara.
“9:15 p.m.”
She fast-forwards to the correct timestamp and starts the restroom audio.
We listen in silence.
When the recording ends, Mara looks at me.
“That’s good,” she says quietly. “Really good.”
“Catching her off guard helped. Without it, she would’ve been more careful.”
“That was the hope,” Mara replies while copying the files onto the laptop. “Between this and your testimony, there’s enough circumstantial evidence pointing in her direction. Matthieu will know how to use it.”
I smile faintly at her blind faith in her partner: Inspector Matthieu Sanders.
He’s been leading the investigation ever since I filed charges against an unknown suspect for attempted murder.
Hugo turns toward me.
“You were right. Dante isn’t involved.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that they’re a couple,” Mara says evenly before I can answer. “Even shaken by your return, there’s no way to know where his loyalty will land once the shock wears off.”
She’s only doing her job.
Protecting me. Anticipating risks. Making sure I don’t let emotion cloud my judgment.
I know that.
But fuck.
Mara and Stephen leave soon afterward, leaving me under Youri’s protection.
“I’m staying the night,” Hugo tells me. “I’ll take one of the guest rooms.”
I try to protest, but he cuts me off immediately.
“I’m not changing my mind. And don’t worry about me. I’ll survive the coffee machine tomorrow morning.”
I smile at my friend, grateful for his presence.
Tonight wrung me dry, and somehow Hugo’s presence makes the house feel less empty.
“Thank you, Hugo. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I hug him briefly before heading back upstairs.
As sleep finally pulls me under, my thoughts drift to Dante.
Will he believe me if I let him hear the recording?
Or will he choose her instead?