Chapter 11 — Old Tricks
1225 Words
Raphaël's POV
Bangkok, Thailand
The showroom was still buzzing when I left.
Journalists filing their stories. Investors making calls. The particular electric aftermath of an evening that had gone — precisely as planned. Marc was handling the remaining press with his usual quiet efficiency. The officers had done their job. The cameras had captured everything worth capturing.
I walked out into the Bangkok night without looking back.
The car was waiting.
I got in. Loosened my tie. Looked out at the city sliding past the window — gold and noise and the particular indifference of a place that had seen everything and remembered nothing.
My phone was in my hand before I realized I had picked it up.
Marc's last update — search results from Lyon. Still nothing concrete. A partial match here. A dead end there. The kind of progress that wasn't quite progress but wasn't quite nothing either.
France, Marc had written. Domestic flight records suggest Lyon as most probable destination. Continuing to narrow.
Lyon.
I looked at the word for a long moment.
My grandfather's city.
My family's city.
The city I had left at twenty-two with one bag and a fragrance formula and absolutely no intention of returning until I had built something worth returning to.
I had built several things worth returning to.
I just hadn't gone back.
My phone rang at midnight.
I was still in the car — still moving through Bangkok, still looking at nothing in particular — when the name appeared on screen.
Grand-père.
I picked up immediately.
"You're calling late." I said.
"Raphaël." His voice arrived carefully through the line — thin, slightly trembling, the specific vocal quality of a man who had been performing fragility since approximately 1987 and had never once been called out on it to his satisfaction. "I'm not feeling well."
I looked out the window.
"Is that so."
"My heart." A pause. Timed perfectly. "The doctors are concerned. Your father is here—"
"Of course he is."
"—being very loud about everything as usual." A soft careful sigh. "I would very much like you to come home Raphaël. To Lyon. Soon."
I said nothing for a moment.
Henri Moreau. Eighty-one years old. Sharp enough to run circles around men half his age. Stubborn enough to have built an entire fashion empire through sheer refusal to accept other people's limitations. And — according to the medical report Marc had obtained eight weeks ago — in perfect health.
Perfect.
"Grand-père." I said.
"Yes my boy."
"How serious is this condition exactly."
"Very." Too quickly. "Extremely ser—"
"Scale of one to ten."
A pause. The sound of a man recalibrating in real time.
"...Seven." He said finally. "Perhaps seven and a half."
"In 2019 it was an eight." I said. "When you wanted me home for Christmas."
Silence.
"2021 it was a nine." I continued. "The board restructuring situation."
More silence.
"And in 2022 when you decided my Bangkok apartment needed a personal inspection and the only logical route apparently went through Lyon first—"
"Alright." His voice dropped the performance completely. Like removing a coat. Like deciding the show was over and the real conversation could begin. Underneath it — just him. Warm. Certain. Entirely unrepentant. "Alright fine. Perhaps the doctors are not strictly — concerned."
"Perhaps."
"But you have been gone eight months." Quieter now. Real. Just my grandfather and the particular brand of love he had always expressed sideways — through manipulation and terrible fake illnesses and a stubbornness that had somehow always managed to feel like devotion. "Eight months Raphaël. And your father is driving me completely insane with his board meeting language and his very serious face about absolutely everything—" a pause — "and I am old. Old enough to use that fact without apology when necessary."
I almost smiled.
"And is it necessary." I said. "Right now."
"It is always necessary." Firmly. "When my grandson forgets that Lyon exists."
The car moved through Bangkok quietly.
Outside — gold. Noise. A city that had swallowed eight months of searching and given back almost nothing.
Almost.
I thought about Marc's message. About the word Lyon sitting at the bottom of a search update like something that had been waiting patiently to be noticed.
I thought about a blurred figure on a street camera. Dark hair. My white shirt. Moving fast with his head down like he knew exactly where every camera was positioned.
I thought about a vial in my jacket pocket that smelled like a memory I had refused to lose.
Lyon.
My grandfather's city.
And maybe—
"I'll be on the first flight." I said.
The silence that followed had a particular quality.
The silence of a man who has won and is deciding how much to enjoy it.
"I knew you would come." Warm. Satisfied. Not even slightly ashamed of himself.
"Don't." I said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't sound like that."
"Like what?" Innocent. Entirely unconvincing.
"Like you're proud of yourself."
A pause.
Then he laughed.
Low and genuine and exactly the same laugh I had been hearing my entire life — in that Lyon laboratory, in that garden, across every phone call and every fake medical emergency and every sideways expression of love that had somehow always managed to reach me anyway.
"Get some sleep Grand-père." I said.
"Already ahead of you." Cheerfully. "Goodnight Raphaël."
He hung up.
I sat in the silence of the car for a moment.
Then I called Marc.
Second ring. Slightly breathless. 1AM — he never quite adjusted.
"Sir—"
"First available flight to Lyon." I said. "Tonight if possible."
A pause.
"Yes sir. Is everything—"
"My grandfather." I said. "He's dying."
A beat.
"...Is he actually sir or—"
"Book the flight Marc."
"Yes sir." The sound of typing. Then — carefully — "And the search parameters?"
I reached into my jacket pocket.
The vial — solid. Warm. Present.
The one fragrance that existed in exactly one copy in the entire world. Made for no market. No launch. No strategy. Just — memory. Just — him. Just the ghost of something I had been carrying for eight months in a city that had kept every secret I had asked it to return.
"Expand everything to Lyon." I said quietly. "Domestic flight records. Finance sector employment — he seemed organized. Structured. Careful." I paused. "Someone who knew exactly how to disappear but couldn't quite stop living his real life."
"Yes sir."
"Cross reference everything we have." I said. "Partial build. Dark hair. French national. All of it against Lyon specifically." I looked out at Bangkok one last time. "I want results waiting when I land."
"Understood sir."
I ended the call.
Bangkok rushed past the window — loud, golden, indifferent — already letting me go the way it let everyone go eventually. Like it had never been keeping me at all. Like it had simply been the place where something started and Lyon was the place where it would continue.
I looked at the vial in my hand.
Eight months, I thought. Every city. Every camera. Every lead that went nowhere.
The corner of my mouth lifted.
Just slightly.
Dark and patient and completely certain.
But I'm coming to Lyon now.
And Lyon—
Is a very small city.
- Writer
