34

Louis’s POV

Midnight found us in the war room—my study, now transformed. Sierra sat curled in one of the leather armchairs, wrapped in a cashmere throw, her face pale but alert. Marcus stood by the screens, pulling up files on Alistair Finch. Adrienne Cole had arrived within twenty minutes of my call, her sharp bob perfect, not a trace of sleep about her. My mother, having anticipated the call, entered last, a silent queen taking her seat at the round table.

“Finch is a bloodhound with a byline,” Adrienne began, without preamble. Her tablet glowed in the dark room. “He smells blood in the water. The ‘tragedies’ around us have his attention. He’s not interested in the charity fluff piece. That was his opener. His real target is the Monaco incident. He’s been quietly requesting old passenger manifests for charter yachts from that season.”

“How do we know this?” Sierra asked, her voice quiet in the hum of electronics.

“Because I pay two of his researchers,” Adrienne said flatly. “His digging is professional, methodical. He won’t be swayed by a simple ‘no comment.’ He’ll take that as a challenge.”

“So we give him a different challenge,” I said, leaning forward. “Sierra’s idea. Misdirection. We feed him a story so juicy, so perfectly tailored to his cynicism, that he can’t resist chasing it. What do we have?”

Marcus pulled up a file. “From that period, we have several viable alternatives. There was a high-stakes poker game on the *Aphrodite* where you allegedly lost a vintage Ferrari to a Russian oligarch. There was a very public spat with an Italian prince over a vintage speedboat. And there was… the Contessa.”

“The Contessa,” Adrienne repeated, a gleam in her eye. “Elena Conti. Married to the aging Count Conti. Rumored to have had affairs with several younger men that summer. It was gossip fodder for a week, then faded. No one ever confirmed it. She’s now a widow, reclusive, living in Portofino. She detests the press.”

“Perfect,” I said. “A faded, beautiful socialite with a reason to stay silent. A scandal of passion, not injury. It fits the narrative of a reckless heir. How do we make Finch bite?”

“We don’t feed it to him directly,” Sierra said. All eyes turned to her. She sat up straighter, the throw falling from her shoulders. “If it comes from us, or anyone close to us, he’ll be suspicious. It has to come from the periphery. From someone who would have been there, with no apparent loyalty to you.”

“A hired server. A deckhand,” Marcus mused.

“Too low-level. Their word wouldn’t carry weight,” Adrienne countered. “It needs to be a peer. Someone from that world who has since fallen from grace, with an ax to grind against… not Louis, but against that entire scene. Someone Finch would believe is disillusioned.”

I knew immediately. “Christophe Renault.” The name tasted sour. “He was on that yacht. He lost his family’s shipping fortune to cocaine and bad debts two years later. He lives in a rented flat in Marseille, blaming everyone but himself. He’d love to spin tales about the ‘decadent old days.’ And he hates me because I refused to bail him out.”

A slow smile spread across Adrienne’s face. “Christophe is perfect. Desperate for money and relevance. We approach him through a cutout. Offer him fifty thousand euros for his ‘memoirs’ of that summer, with the Contessa story as the centerpiece. We provide… suggestive details. Enough for him to believe he’s remembering them himself. He’ll leak it to the highest bidder. Finch will be the highest bidder.”

The plan was set with brutal efficiency. Adrienne would craft the “memories.” Marcus would handle the cutout and the payment to Christophe, making it appear as a advance from a shady European publisher. The timeline was aggressive. The leak had to happen before the gala, to give Finch a new obsession.

As the others left to begin their work, Sierra remained in the chair. The first hint of dawn was bleeding into the sky behind her.

“You’re creating a lie that will ruin a woman’s reputation,” she said softly. “A woman who has nothing to do with this.”

“Elena Conti is a seventy-year-old widow who hasn’t left her villa in five years. The gossip will be a nine-day wonder. It will not ruin her. It will save us.” My voice was harder than I intended.

“And Christophe? You’re using his ruin to fuel our lie.”

“Christophe ruined himself. This is just giving his ruin a purpose.” I walked to the window, unable to bear the clear, judging light in her eyes. “This is the cost, Sierra. This is the arithmetic. One woman’s faded reputation versus our family’s future. Christophe’s dignity versus Katie’s safety. There is no clean choice. There is only the choice that keeps you breathing.”

I heard the soft sound of her standing. She came to stand beside me, not touching, both of us looking out at the waking world. “I know,” she whispered. “That’s what terrifies me. That I understand the math.”

I turned and pulled her to me, burying my face in her hair. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry this is the world I brought you into.”

Her arms came around me, holding tight. “You didn’t bring me. I chose to stay. We do this. Together. But Louis… when does it end? How many lies? How many ruined people?”

I had no answer. Only the truth that was worse than any lie. “It never ends. We just get better at building the walls higher.”

The next thirty-six hours were a masterclass in covert manipulation. Adrienne’s narrative was a work of art—salacious, detailed, full of the kind of period-specific color only an insider would know. The cutout made contact with Christophe. The desperate, bitter man took the bait with pathetic eagerness.

On the eve of the gala, the story broke. Not in Finch’s paper, but in a tawdry European gossip sheet known for paying for dirt. The headline screamed: **THE CONTESSA AND THE BILLIONAIRE HEIR: A FORBIDDEN YACHT TRYST THAT SHOOK THE RIVIERA!**

It was perfect. Just credible enough, just sordid enough.

My phone rang thirty minutes later. Alistair Finch.

“Mr. Trevane. I assume you’ve seen the morning’s sensationalism.”

“I don’t read tabloids, Mr. Finch.”

“Of course. I’m calling to offer you a right of reply for my piece. The Contessa story seems to be gaining traction. I’m more interested in your perspective on that era. A time of… reckless indulgence, it seems.”

He was testing. Seeing if I’d take the bait to deny it, which would only fuel his suspicion about what I was *really* trying to hide.

“That was a lifetime ago, Mr. Finch,” I said, my tone deliberately bored. “I was young and foolish. I’m focused on my family and my work now. I have no comment on the fabricated exploits of my youth. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a charity gala to prepare for with my wife.”

I hung up. The trap was set. He would now chase the Contessa story, digging into Christophe, trying to find Elena Conti. He would waste weeks. By the time he realized it was a dead end, we would be more entrenched, more untouchable.

The evening of the gala arrived. Sierra was a vision in a gown of liquid silver, her hair a dark cascade. She wore the Trevane diamonds with an ease that was now innate. As we stood at the top of the stairs, ready to descend into the glittering ballroom, she turned to me.

“Is he here?” she asked quietly.

“Finch? No. He wasn’t on the list. But he’ll be watching the coverage.”

She nodded, a small, tight movement. Then she slipped her hand into the crook of my arm, her smile dawning—warm, radiant, utterly false. It was the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing I’d ever seen.

“Then let’s give them a show,” she said.

We descended. The cameras flashed. The world saw power, love, and philanthropy.

But as I smiled and shook hands, my mind was elsewhere. It was on a crumbling apartment in Marseille, on a lonely villa in Portofino, on a girl named Mariella who might never remember her own name.

The walls were higher. The fortress was secure.

And I was the monster king, with my beautiful, complicit queen at my side, ruling over a kingdom built on graves