Chapter 4 - The Boarding of the Gendarmes
The dock of Port Hercule was blazing with light.
Monaco at midnight during the Grand Prix is normally a blur of neon, thumping bass from open-air lounges, and the mechanical purr of Ferraris idling along Boulevard Albert 1er. But tonight, the entire perimeter of Quai des États-Unis was illuminated by the flashing blue beacons of four Monegasque Maritime Police launches.
Cassandra Vale stood near the stern gangway of the *Étoile*, clutching a synthetic fur wrap over her shoulders. The wind off the water had turned sharp, whipping her bleached-blonde hair across her face. Her makeup, once immaculate, was streaked with black mascara where the humidity and her frantic, angry tears had melted it.
Two maritime gendarmes in crisp blue uniforms stood between her and the gangway, their arms crossed, their expressions carved from granite.
"I have the right to my personal belongings!" Cassandra shrieked, her voice carrying over the water to the fifty or sixty tourists and photographers who had gathered behind the harbor barricades. "My Birkin is in the VIP lounge! My diamond ring is on the vanity! You’re stealing from me! This is piracy!"
"Mademoiselle Vale," the senior officer said, his tone entirely void of emotion. "Your personal effects have been cataloged, sealed in maritime evidence bags, and transported to the central police station on Rue Suffren-Reymond. You will be permitted to collect them following your formal statement."
"My statement for what?!"
"For assault, battery, and willful destruction of private property within Monegasque sovereign waters," a voice rang out from the top of the companionway.
The crowd behind the barricades went silent.
I walked down the broad teak staircase onto the lower deck. The midnight-blue velvet of my mother’s gown caught the dockside searchlights, the black pearls at my collar shimmering with an iridescent, cold sheen. Lucian walked half a step behind me, his hands in his pockets, exuding the casual confidence of an executioner arriving at an appointment.
Cassandra spun around. When she saw me, her breath hitched.
The girl she had attacked twenty minutes ago had been wearing a plain ivory dress, her hair unstyled, carrying no purse and wearing no jewels. The woman standing before her now looked like an empress who had stepped down from a throne to inspect a garden pest.
"You..." Cassandra’s mouth opened and closed. "You changed."
"You should have," I replied.
"This is ridiculous!" Cassandra shouted, turning toward the photographers whose camera shutters were clicking in a deafening, metallic chorus. "Look at her! Look at the Vance heiress using the police to harass an independent woman! I accidentally spilled a drink! It was an accident! She baited me!"
"An accident?" Lucian’s voice cut through her screech.
He pulled a small remote from his pocket and pressed a button. Instantly, the massive eighty-inch outdoor entertainment screen mounted above the yacht’s aft deck flickered to life.
It was not Cassandra’s broadcast. It was the high-definition, four-camera multi-angle security footage from the *Étoile’s* owner’s deck, crystal clear and recorded in 4K resolution.
The audio boomed through the yacht’s marine-grade sound system, echoing across the entire marina:
*“Girls like this come to Monaco, sneak onto private yachts, and suddenly think they’re somebody,”* Cassandra’s recorded voice echoed, pristine, sharp, and dripping with malicious venom.
On the screen, the footage showed Cassandra deliberately squaring her shoulders, taking aim, and throwing the champagne directly into my eyes. Then, it showed her setting her glass down, smiling into her phone camera, and lunging forward to rip the fabric of my dress with two violent, deliberate jerks.
*“Oops,”* the recorded Cassandra laughed. *“Girls like this should never be allowed near luxury.”*
The silence on the dock was absolute.
Even the photographers stopped shooting for three seconds. The raw, undisguised malice captured on the screen was so grotesque that several of Julian’s remaining investors who were waiting near the gangway physically turned their faces away in disgust.
Cassandra stared at the screen, her face white as chalk. "You... you had cameras there?"
"This ship is the command vessel of the Vance Maritime Fleet, Miss Vale," Lucian said smoothly. "Every square inch of this deck, short of the private staterooms, is monitored by encrypted military-grade optics. Your phone was broadcasting to six hundred thousand people. Our system was recording for a jury."
"Julian!" Cassandra screamed, looking around wildly. "Julian, where are you?! Help me!"
Julian Thorne emerged from the companionway. He didn't look at her. He kept his head down, his collar turned up, clutching a single leather briefcase. He walked past her as though she were a ghost, heading straight for the gangway.
"Julian!" She grabbed his linen sleeve. "Julian, tell them!"
Julian ripped his arm out of her grasp with such force that she stumbled against the brass railing.
"Don't touch me," Julian hissed, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. "You destroyed me. You destroyed my company. I don't know this woman, Officer. She was an unvetted guest of one of our marketing contractors. I have never seen her before in my life."
Cassandra’s scream this time was not one of anger. It was the sound of an animal realizing that the trap had snapped shut, and that the person who had led her into it had just walked away.
"Mr. Thorne," the senior police officer said, stepping into Julian’s path. "Do not leave Port Hercule. The Public Prosecutor’s office has requested your presence at the Palais de Justice at eight o'clock tomorrow morning regarding an audit of your charter declarations."
Julian didn't answer. He simply nodded, his shoulders slumping into total defeat, and scurried down the ramp into the flashing blue darkness of the quay.
I walked to the edge of the gangway and looked down at Cassandra.
"You told your livestream that people like me should never be allowed near luxury," I said softly.
Cassandra was shaking, her knees barely holding her upright against the railing. "Elena... please. I was just—I was trying to make content. You know how the internet is. They want conflict. They want drama. I didn't mean it!"
May you like
"The internet wants truth, Miss Vale," I said. "And tonight, you gave it to them. Adrien, have the deck washed. There is still cheap wine on the teak."
***
