The Paris Apartment: A Novel Novels & Stories

Chapter 61 – New City, Same Lights (Eli POV) The apartment smelled like fresh paint and someone else’s life. I dropped the last box the one labeled “FRAGILE (mostly books and feelings)” in my own messy handwriting onto the laminate floor and immediately regretted it. The thud echoed louder than it should have in a space this small. One bedroom, one bathroom, one window that looked directly into another building’s brick wall. Home sweet starter home. The kind of place people move into when they’re trying to prove they can survive on their own, even when every instinct screams to run back to the person who makes surviving feel easy.

My throat closed around the memory: two teenage girls splitting a stolen croissant, giggling as rain dripped through the roof. The car swerved onto Rue des Alpes. Number 17 stood unchanged—a shabby fourth-floor walkup with peeling blue shutters. My chest ached. Lina stirred as Jeff killed the engine. "Is she here?" "No." I touched her shoulder. "But we'll find answers." The apartment door was unlocked. Inside, dust motes danced in our flashlight beams. The place had been frozen in time: my old sweater still draped over a chair, Daniela's hairbrush on the dresser. And on the kitchen table—

Saint asked as he came up behind me. I nodded. Torn between tears and giggles, a watery snort escaped before I could calm myself down. Perfect copies of my apartment sat like some kind of building project a little kid put together. Rows upon rows, columns after columns of my apartment lined the street. And they weren't only covering the warehouse where Scarlet used to hide away. No, these apartments were running the length of the street in both directions. Stacked about five apartments high along the full length of it. The worst part was the fact that the wall that faced the street...huge walls of windows. Anyone walking down the street could see into them.

The symbols and words seemed to move and dance as if alive, a testament to the restless energy that pulsed through this city of corruption and greed. We reached the entrance to the meeting place, a nondescript door sandwiched between a seedy nightclub and an abandoned building. The door creaked open, revealing a dark corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly into the abyss. The scent of danger hung heavy in the air, mingling with the acrid stench of death.

“Would you stop, please? I mean… What are you going to do next? What are you going to do now that you’ve got your life back?” He shrugged, even as his thoughts flew to the apartment he’d rented in the Marais district across the river, the most fashionable district in Paris, famous for old-world charm, narrow cobblestone streets, hidden courtyards, and tranquil gardens, a multitude of mansions called ‘hôtels particuliers’, and a thriving gallery and cafe culture. His sister hadn’t seen it yet. It had been hell holding her off, and he would have to tell her his plans soon, but Fabien wasn’t ready for her disapproval yet. He was still coming to terms with his own audacity himself.

“Better get used to it, Ms. Everheart. Paris tends to grow on people.” “I think it already has,” I said with a small laugh. Our ride was quiet after that, but not uncomfortably so. Ashton had a presence that wasn’t loud, but solid. Grounding. And I appreciated that. For someone who had just left behind a life, a marriage, and an identity, silence like that felt like healing. We arrived at the place Ms. Savarre had arranged for me. It was a quaint but beautiful apartment in Le Marais—old-world charm on the outside, modern and spacious on the inside. High ceilings, large windows, soft light filtering in through sheer curtains. It was perfect.

Paris felt different after the wedding. It was not the Paris I knew when I was younger. Then Paris was a city with a lot of fancy hotels and closed windows. People went to Paris to be seen. They did not really see anything. Now Stephen and I were two people walking along the Seine. We stayed in an apartment in the Marais. The floorboards. We could smell fresh bread from the street in the morning. There were no bodyguards, no phones and no strangers following us into cafes.

Undisclosed Location – 48 Hours Later The news blared from the television mounted on the wall of our secure apartment, the anchor's voice carrying the practiced gravity reserved for world-changing events. Outside, Paris continued its everyday rhythm—café patrons lingering over espresso, tourists photographing the distant Eiffel Tower, businesspeople hurrying along rain-slicked streets. None of them aware that just three floors above a patisserie renowned for its éclairs, we were watching the culmination of a decade-long chess match.

Vienna’s POV The next day, after school, Zanele and I went apartment hunting. We zigzagged across half of Paris on foot and by metro, chasing down leads from listings that looked halfway decent. But each place we visited was another disappointment. One had black mold blooming behind the kitchen cabinets. Another had a ceiling so low I couldn’t stand upright in half the space. A third only had a grimy shared toilet that smelled like mildew and despair. "All of them are terrible," I muttered as we walked down yet another narrow stairwell. "And way overpriced."

Cynthia could hardly believe how much time had passed. Months. Actual months in Paris. Sometimes she woke up still expecting to see the old room back home, the soft curtains she chose with Louisa, or even the lake house walls where she recovered from the darkest moments of her life. But each morning she opened her eyes to the sun melting through the tall French windows of their apartment — the one Xavier insisted on getting so she wouldn’t feel like a visitor in the city.