We flew back to Paris at dawn. No sleep, no rest, just cold fucking resolve and forty-eight hours to save our daughter.
The tender intimacy from Geneva was gone. Replaced by something harder. Sharper. The kind of focus that comes right before you go to war.
Alan drove straight from the airfield to the 16th arrondissement—the kind of Paris neighborhood where old money lives in actual mansions behind actual gates. The Delaunay family fortress sat on a corner lot, all white stone and wrought iron, looking like it had been there since the Revolution.
Which it probably had. Because people like Henri didn't just have wealth. They had history. Legacy. The kind of power that came from generations of knowing exactly how to crush people.
We were about to find out just how good he was at it.
Alan's hand found mine as we stormed up the marble steps. His grip was tight, possessive, a silent promise that we were in this together. No more boss and assistant. No more hiding. We were parents, and we were done playing by Henri's rules.
The front door was ridiculous—fifteen feet tall, carved wood, probably worth more than most people's houses. A butler materialized before we could knock. Ancient, impeccably dressed, radiating that particular brand of disapproval that comes from a lifetime of serving the rich.
"Monsieur Henri is at breakfast," he said, already positioning himself to block us. "He is not to be disturbed—"
Alan walked past him like he was air. Didn't slow down, didn't acknowledge him, just pushed straight through like the door was his to open.
I followed, my heels clicking on marble floors that gleamed like mirrors. Everything in this place screamed money—the kind that's been accumulating interest for two hundred years. Oil paintings in gilt frames. Fresh flowers in crystal vases. Ceilings so high they had their own weather system.
The dining room was obscene. A table that could seat twenty, set for one. Crystal chandeliers dripping light like frozen rain. Windows overlooking gardens so perfect they looked painted.
And at the head of it all, Henri Delaunay.
Thin. Severe. Dressed in a bespoke suit at 8 AM because apparently tyrants don't do casual. He was reading Le Monde, sipping coffee from a cup that probably cost more than my rent, looking completely unbothered by the fact that his great-granddaughter was dying three miles away.
He glanced up as we burst in. His eyes were cold, reptilian, utterly unsurprised. Like he'd been expecting this. Like he'd already planned his response.
"You're interrupting my breakfast, Alan," he said. His voice was dry as old paper, laced with boredom.
Not anger. Not concern. Boredom.
That casual dismissal made rage spike hot in my chest. Alan's hand tightened on mine—the only thing keeping him from lunging across that ridiculous table.
"The game is over," Alan said. His voice was low, lethal, vibrating with barely controlled fury.
He stood at the opposite end of the table—twenty feet of polished mahogany separating them. A dark mirror of his grandfather. Same height. Same intensity. Different soul.
I stood at his side, chin high, refusing to let Henri see the terror crawling under my skin. Because I was terrified. Of him. Of his power. Of what he could do to Amélie with a single phone call.
Henri set down his coffee with precise, deliberate movements. Folded his newspaper along the creases. Everything controlled. Everything calculated.
"I don't know what game you're referring to."
"Geneva." My voice rang out in that cavernous room, echoing off marble and crystal. "We were in Geneva. At the lab."
His gaze flicked to me. Eyes narrowing just slightly—the only crack in his mask. Calculating how much we knew. How much damage we could do.
"You've been busy," he said mildly.
"We know everything," Alan continued, his hands clenched white-knuckled at his sides. "The Iris AI. The data mining. Protocol 1810." He took a step forward, eating up the distance between them. "We know you've been using Amélie—your great-granddaughter—as a test subject for your eugenics experiment."
"She is a variable," Henri stated. Flat. Matter-of-fact. Like discussing quarterly earnings instead of a child's life.
Something inside Alan snapped. "She is my DAUGHTER!"
The roar echoed like a gunshot. He slammed both hands on the polished table hard enough to make the fine china jump, crystal ringing like tiny bells. A coffee cup tipped, brown liquid spreading across white linen.
Henri didn't flinch. Didn't move. Just watched his grandson's rage with that same cold calculation.
"I know you cut her dosage," Alan continued, his voice dropping to something more dangerous than shouting. "I know you're testing your AI's predictive models on her regression. Watching her deteriorate to see how accurately your machine can predict her death."
He straightened, shoulders back, every inch the CEO now. "It's over. You're handing control of Veridian and the Iris Project to me. Today."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Heavy. The kind of quiet that happens right before something explodes.
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought Henri might hear it. Thought the whole mansion might hear it—this desperate, terrified rhythm that screamed we're fucked we're fucked we're fucked.
Then Henri laughed.
Not a pleasant sound. A dry, rasping cackle that held zero humor and absolute certainty. The laugh of someone who knows they've already won, who's just waiting for you to realize it.
"You fool," he hissed. The amusement drained from his face like water from a broken glass, replaced by pure contempt. "You burst into my home making accusations, and you still don't understand."
He stood slowly. His small frame—barely five-foot-seven—somehow radiating more authority than Alan's six-foot-two ever could. Old power. The kind that came from owning things. People. Legacies.
"You have no power," he said simply.
"I'll go to the board," Alan threatened, his voice tight. "I'll go to the press. I'll expose everything—the illegal experiments, the data mining, all of it."
"And say what?" Henri started walking around the table toward us. Slow. Predatory. Each step deliberate. "That our family carries a genetic flaw? That your illegitimate child is defective?"
He let the words land like blows. "You'll destroy the Delaunay name. Tank our stock—billions in market value gone overnight. Destroy everything three generations built." His smile was cold, calculating. "You'll destroy yourself, Alan. Your career. Your reputation. Your future."
He stopped just feet from us. I could smell his cologne now—something expensive and vaguely medicinal. Could see the liver spots on his hands, the way his suit hung perfectly despite his age.
Could see the absolute absence of humanity in his eyes.
"And more importantly," he said, looking directly at me, "you'll destroy her."
My breath caught in my throat. Alan's hand found mine again, squeezing so hard it hurt.
"You can't stop us from getting the serum," I said, forcing my voice steady even as my hands shook. "We'll find another lab. Another company. Someone who can synthesize it."
The smile widened. Grotesque. Triumphant. "You don't understand, child."
Contempt dripped from every syllable. "I own the patent. I own the formula. I own the only labs in the world capable of producing it at the scale and precision required." He let that sink in, watching our faces, reading our horror like his favorite book.
"I am the treatment," he said softly.
The floor dropped out from beneath me. We'd been so focused on exposing him, on fighting him, we hadn't realized—
He owned the cure. The only cure. Amélie's only chance.
And he knew it. Had known it from the start.
Henri turned back to Alan, his smile sharpening. "You think you can fight me?" His voice was a venomous whisper. "Try. Please, try. Take one step against me. Say one word to the board."
He leaned closer. I could see the cold calculation in his eyes, the complete absence of anything resembling mercy. "I will do more than cut your daughter off from the serum. I will personally blacklist her from every hospital I fund—and that's most of them in Europe, in case you were wondering."
His voice dropped even lower. "She will never receive another drop of medicine. Not the serum. Not pain management. Not even basic palliative care. You'll watch her die, slowly and painfully, knowing that you—your pride, your foolish attempt at heroism—caused it."
Alan's entire body was vibrating with rage. I grabbed his arm with my free hand, afraid he'd actually kill the old man right here on this obscene marble floor.
Henri saw it. The violence barely contained. And he smiled wider.
"The game isn't over, Alan," he said, turning back to his breakfast like we'd ceased to exist. He picked up his newspaper, smoothed it out where coffee had stained the corner. "It has just begun."
He sat down. Lifted his coffee cup. Took a deliberate sip.
"Now get out of my house."