26. Isabelle
ISABELLE:
He's wearing an expensive coat over his suit, his hair slightly disheveled, like he rushed to get here.
His face registers shock as he takes in the scene: the destroyed living room, furniture overturned, glass everywhere, blood on the floor.
His daughter standing in the middle of it all, a man in black lying motionless nearby.
His wife bound to a chair, her face streaked with tears and rage.
For a long moment, no one speaks. No one moves.
Then my father's eyes find mine, and something in his expression shifts. The shock gives way to concern. "Isabelle." His voice is carefully controlled. "What happened here?"
I open my mouth to answer, but I don't know where to start. How do I explain weeks of running, of assassins hunting me, of discovering that his wife—the woman he married, the woman he trusted—tried to have me killed?
Julian steps forward. "Mr. Montague. My name is Julian Carros. Your daughter is alive because I've been protecting her from multiple assassination attempts. Attempts that were ordered by your wife."
My father's eyes move to Vivienne. She's stopped screaming now, but she's still crying, her body shaking with sobs. "Jacques," she gasps. "Jacques, please, you have to listen to me—"
"Is this true?" My father's voice is colder than I've ever heard it.
Vivienne opens her mouth, closes it. "I—I can explain—"
"Is. This. True."
The silence stretches out. Then, finally, Vivienne nods.
My father's face goes completely blank. It's the expression he wears during business negotiations, but underneath it, I can see the beginnings of grief he's struggling to hold back.
He turns back to me. "Are you hurt?"
"No." My voice is steadier now. "I'm okay. We're okay."
His eyes move to the man on the floor. "And him?"
"The assassin," Julian says quietly. "He broke in while we were waiting for you. We had no choice."
My father nods slowly. And then, without a word, he steps forward and gathers me into his arms.
He holds me for a long moment, his arms solid and reassuring around my shoulders, and I can feel the tremor in his hands—the barely controlled emotion that he's trying to keep locked down.
Jacques Montague doesn't show weakness. He doesn't show fear or vulnerability or regret.
Even when my mother died, I remember him holding it all back.
But right now, standing in the wreckage of his apartment with his daughter alive and his wife bound to a chair, I can feel all of it.
When he finally releases me, he turns to look at the room again. His expression hardens into something cold and terrible.
"Explain," he says, his voice clipped and controlled. "Everything."
So I do. I tell him about the contract, about the assassins hunting me across Europe, about Julian protecting me.
I tell him about the financial records we uncovered, the massive withdrawals Vivienne made from family accounts, the desperate need for money that drove her to order my death.
I tell him about how she planned to access my trust fund through my death and her marriage to him.
Julian stands to the side during my explanation, silent and watchful. He doesn't interrupt or add details or try to defend himself. He just lets me tell the story in my own words.
My father listens without speaking. His jaw tightens as I describe the weeks of running and hiding and barely staying alive.
His hands clench into fists when I explain how close I came to death tonight—how the assassin broke in while we were confronting Vivienne, how she begged him to kill me even as Julian and I fought him off.
When I finish, the silence in the apartment is suffocating.
My father turns to look at Vivienne. She's stopped crying now, her face pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed and desperate. She opens her mouth like she's going to speak, but he holds up one hand, and she falls silent immediately.
"How much?" His voice is deadly quiet.
"Jacques, I can explain—"
"How much did you steal from me? From my family? From my daughter?"
Vivienne's mouth works soundlessly for a moment. "Fifteen million. Maybe twenty. I don't—I don't know exactly."
The number hangs in the air like a death sentence. My father's expression doesn't change. He just nods slowly, his eyes still cold and hard. "And the contract on Isabelle's life?"
"It's two million, now." Vivienne's voice is barely audible.
"So you were willing to pay two million dollars to have our daughter murdered. To access her trust fund. To steal more money from the family you married into."
"I didn't have a choice!" The words burst out of Vivienne in a desperate rush. "I was drowning in debt! I had creditors threatening me, people I owed money to, and I couldn't tell you… and the trust fund was just sitting there—"
"So you decided to kill her." The look on my father's face makes my blood run cold. "You have two choices. You can call off the contract right now. You can contact whoever you hired and tell them to cancel the hit on my daughter. And then you can face the legal consequences of your crimes."
Vivienne stares at him, her face white as paper.
"Or," my father continues, his tone never changing, "you can refuse. You can try to deny what you've done, try to fight this, try to save yourself. And I will let Julian handle you."
Vivienne's eyes dart to Julian, who's standing near the window with his arms crossed over his chest. There's blood on his shirt from the fight. His knuckles are split and bruised. He looks exactly like what he is—a killer who's just eliminated a threat and is perfectly willing to eliminate another.
"Jacques, you can't—you wouldn't—"
"I would." My father's voice is calm and cold. "You tried to have my daughter murdered. You stole from my family. You betrayed every vow you made when we married. And you think I'm going to protect you? You think I'm going to save you from the consequences of your actions?"
He takes a step closer to her, and Vivienne shrinks back against the chair.
"I loved you," he says quietly. "Or I thought I did. I gave you everything—my name, my home, my trust. And you repaid me by trying to kill my child."
"I was desperate—"
"You were greedy. You wanted more than you had. More than you earned. More than you deserved. And when you couldn't get it legally, you decided to take it by force."
He straightens, his expression settling back into that terrible calm.
"So make your choice, Vivienne. Call off the contract and face justice. Or refuse, and face Julian."
The silence that follows is absolute. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Vivienne is staring at my father like she's seeing him for the first time—like she's finally understanding that the man she married, the man she probably thought was weak or easily manipulated, is not going to save her.
Julian hasn't moved. He's just standing there, waiting to see what she'll choose.
Vivienne's face crumples. Her hands are shaking so badly that the zip ties rattle against the chair. She's crying again, but this time it's different—not the manipulative tears she used before, but genuine terror. "I'll call," she gasps. "I'll call them. I'll cancel it. Please, Jacques, please—"
"Do it now."
Julian moves forward and cuts the zip ties binding her wrists. Vivienne rubs at the red marks on her skin, her hands trembling, and pulls her phone from her pocket.
I hold my breath.
"It's me," Vivienne says when someone answers. Her voice is shaking. "I need to cancel the contract. The one on Isabelle Montague. I want it revoked. Ended. Immediately."
There's a pause. I can't hear what the person on the other end is saying, but I can see Vivienne's face go even paler.
"I don't care about the down payment," she says desperately. "Keep it. Just cancel the contract. Tell everyone it's over. Tell them she's off limits. Please."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"And Julian," I speak up suddenly, and every head in the room swivels toward me. "I want Julian to be left alone, too. Whoever is after him for failing to complete the contract, they stop."
Vivienne swallows hard, her eyes darting around, but my father nods. She relays that information, too. "Yes… I… okay. Another five hundred thousand for that. I see. It'll be done."
She drops the phone and looks at us. "The contract is canceled."
"And Julian?"
"Isabelle—"
I ignore him. "Julian."
"They will leave him alone." Her voice is bitter and hollow as she speaks. The phone slides off of her lap and hits the floor.
And then, in that moment, as Julian looks at me as if he's never seen me before, shock written across his features, I feel the weight of the past weeks lifting.
It's over. The contract that's haunted me since Ibiza, that's driven us across Europe and forced us into this impossible situation, that's nearly killed me—it's finished.
I'm safe. We're safe.
My father turns to Vivienne, and the coldness in his expression hasn't softened at all. "Get out," he says quietly. "You can have a head start before I call the police."
"Jacques—"
"Get out of my home. Get out of my life. I'm filing for divorce. You can take what's legally yours, but nothing else. Not one dollar of the Montague fortune. Not one piece of property. Not one connection or contact or favor."
"You can't do this—"
"I can. And I will." He takes a step toward her, and she flinches back.
"If I ever see you again, Vivienne, if you ever contact Isabelle again, if you try anything at all—anything—I will make sure you disappear in a way that even Julian wouldn't have imagined.
I have connections you can't begin to understand," my father continues, his voice never rising above that terrible calm.
"I have resources you've never seen. And I will use every single one of them to make sure you suffer for what you've done to my daughter. "
Vivienne is sobbing now, her entire body shaking. She tries to stand and nearly falls, catching herself on the arm of the sofa.