27

Lena

I n a matter of minutes, dusk had quickly given way to full night. The wind was a living thing, biting through Lena’s jacket. She could barely feel her hands anymore—from the cold, and from how tightly she was clenching them.

Standing next to her, André was unraveling, his voice a frayed thread, muttering the same thing again and again. “It’s there, it’s there, it has to be there … She always said … My mother always knew … we were meant for more …”

Lena barely dared to breathe. André’s hand kept jerking upward, the barrel of the pistol tracking her, even when his eyes flicked away. She could feel how close he was to the edge—one wrong twitch, one wrong breath—and it could all be over.

A few meters away, Tristan worked around the helicopter, his hands moving with that quiet, controlled precision she’d come to trust. Pre-flight checks, he’d told André. But Lena saw more than that. She saw the tension in his shoulders, the way, every so often, his eyes would flicker over to André — sharp, assessing, calculating.

Her heart squeezed painfully. Was he stalling? Waiting? For what? For someone to show up? For André to slip up?

Please, Tristan , she willed silently. Please have a plan for us .

Then his voice cut through the night air, steady as a wire pulled taut.

“We’re ready to go.” His eyes fixed on André. “Remember our deal. We leave Lena here, safe.”

Lena shook her head. No . Together, the two of them stood a better chance of overpowering André. If Tristan went up that mountain alone with Andre … if he found that damned stone … she might never see Tristan again. She tried to communicate this with her eyes, but Tristan wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was on André.

André, who suddenly let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“I’ve changed my mind.” His grin stretched wide, like he was about to share a good joke. “She comes with us.”

Lena’s breath caught. She turned to Tristan, whose expression remained stoic, expressing no surprise, no disappointment. If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she might not even have noticed the slight tightening of the jaw. But she did know him. She knew him, and she wasn’t going to let him do anything stupid.

“Come on, André,” Tristan cajoled. “We had a deal. We can both get what we want. You get the diamond, I get to know Lena’s safe.”

“I won’t hurt her, but she needs to come with us. For my safety,” André said. Clearly, he thought he could convince Tristan.

“I’m not flying you anywhere unless she’s safe.”

“I bet I can change your mind,” André said. Lena took a step back, but she was too slow. André’s hand curled painfully around her biceps as he brought her body against him like a shield. Lena gasped, stumbling, trying to twist free, but he was too fast, too strong.

André’s hiss against her ear made her want to throw up. “I can shoot off her pinkie. How would you like that? A pinkie’s not that important … unless, of course, she ends up bleeding to death.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Tristan said, taking a step forward, raising his hands in the air in a placating gesture. “Please don’t hurt her.” Another small step forward.

No .

A hot surge of fury bloomed inside her. She was getting so tired of getting manhandled by this asshole—so tired of being threatened and shoved around like a bargaining chip.

She met Tristan’s eyes, and for a moment, she saw something there.

Permission .

“Don’t move any closer,” André warned.

Tristan nodded. To André? To me? She wasn’t sure. He started speaking, but Lena barely heard him. “Come on, André. The helicopter is ready. We can still?—“

Lena shifted her weight slightly.

She took a deep breath, praying she hadn’t misunderstood Tristan’s nod. But it didn’t matter. It was now or never. Because they weren’t getting into that helicopter.

With all the force she could muster, she slammed her boot down onto André’s foot—hard, sharp, grinding her heel with a force she hadn’t even known she possessed.

André let out a howl, his arm jerking instinctively. The gun wavered—and then Tristan moved.

In one clean surge, he launched himself forward, slamming André with a force that knocked both Lena and him backward. The gun fired—a deafening sound that made Lena’s heart stop for an instant—but the shot went wide, smacking into the snow a few feet away from them.

Lena landed on her side, momentarily losing her breath. She scrambled to her knees as the two men hit the ground hard beside her.

“Run, Lena!” Tristan shouted as he rolled them both away from her.

Still struggling to take a breath, Lena stood. She looked at the surrounding snow, searching for the pistol. There wasn’t much she could do to help Tristan now, but she could make sure André didn’t get his hands on the weapon again. Except she couldn’t see it.

The rolling came to a stop, Tristan on top, holding on to André’s wrists securely with his left hand, while his right elbow pressed hard into André’s chest, trying to pin him.

But André was fighting like a man possessed. With a guttural snarl, he bucked his hips, twisting hard, nearly throwing Tristan off. His knee came up, slamming into Tristan’s side. Right where he’d been hurt before . Tristan grunted, holding on, but his grip slipped just enough?—

André’s hand shot free.

Lena’s heart lurched as she saw the flash of metal. The pistol. André’d had it all along.

“No!” she gasped, surging forward without thinking, grabbing at his arm.

André let out a savage snarl, jerking his arm, dragging Lena off-balance?—

Then Tristan slammed his fist into André’s jaw, hard enough to make the man’s head snap sideways. The gun clattered free, skittering across the icy ground.

For a heartbeat, all three of them stared at it.

And then they all lunged.

Lena reached it first—fingers brushing the cold steel—only for André’s hand to close around her wrist, yanking her backward with brutal strength. She yelped, stumbling, as Tristan slammed into André from the side, driving them both away from her.

They grappled in the snow, rolling, punching, shoving—Tristan fighting with everything he had, but André was wild with desperation.

Lena scrambled backward, gasping, eyes darting wildly for help. For anything.

And then?—

A sharp voice cut through the night.

“Police! Hands up in the air!”

Lena’s head snapped up.

Across the clearing, framed in the headlights of a snowmobile, stood Beau—gun raised, steady and sure.

Lorenz and Alex sprinted forward, one on either side, flanking their boss.

“No. No! You don’t get to steal this from me! You don’t understand—it’s mine!”

“I recommend dropping that weapon,” Beau said, his tone menacing.

André froze—just for a second—his body jerking in hesitation.

That second was all Tristan needed. He drove his fist into André’s jaw. It landed with a brutal crack, snapping the man’s head sideways. His knees buckled in slow motion, his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed face-forward onto the snow.

Lorenz was the first to reach them, black boots skidding in the snow as he helped Tristan wrench André’s arms behind his back. Alex was right behind, snapping a pair of flex cuffs on his wrists.

It was over.

Tristan staggered to his feed, panting, blood trickling from a split at the corner of his mouth. His eyes shot to Lena.

“Lena. Are you?—“

She didn’t wait for him to finish. She launched forward, wrapping her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.

“You’re shaking,” he said, wrapping her in his embrace.

It was true. Her whole body was shaking—from cold, from fear, from everything.

“I’m okay,” she gasped. Even her voice trembled. “I’m okay.”

“I’m okay, too,” he said. One hand came up to cradle the back of her head, his own breath shuddering, warm and ragged, against her hair. “God, when I saw you run towards us?—“

“We’re okay.”

“What the hell’s going on, Tristan?” a voice asked behind them.

It took Lena a moment to realize Beau, Alex, and Lorenz had no idea what was going on.

“It’s a long story,” Tristan said.

“Which I can summarize very quickly,” Lena said. She wasn’t going to allow anyone to blame Tristan for a mess that she had brought to his door. “His name is André Rogier. He’s a reporter who’s been asking questions about the skeleton. He says the dead man is his grandfather. He believes there’s a valuable jewel up in the mountains, and he tried to force Tristan to take him there.”

Behind her, Alex was already on the phone with someone from the gendarmerie , explaining the facts.

“Are you both alright?” Beau asked calmly. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” Lena replied.

“She does,” Tristan said at the same time.

A low moan escaped André. “I need a hospital,” he said groggily. “My jaw … he broke my jaw.”

Good.

“I wasn’t asking you,” Beau replied stiffly. “Tell that to the gendarmes who’ve just arrived to pick you up.”

André let out another low, pained groan, but none of them gave him the sympathy he was clearly fishing for. And then, as they watched, André’s eyes went wild again. “It’s there,” André rasped, his voice cracking. “It’s still up there … my diamond …”

Lena turned slightly, watching as Lorenz hauled André to his feet and dragged him away to the waiting car, where two gendarmes wasted no time handcuffing him and reading him his rights.

Beau snorted softly. “Yeah, good luck explaining that to the judge.” A pitying look appeared on his face. “There’s nothing up there. The forensic scientists already swept the site. If anything was ever there, it’s long gone.”

Lena leaned into Tristan, exhaustion suddenly slamming into her like a wall. She didn’t care about the diamond. No diamond was worth somebody’s life.

Tristan kissed the top of her head softly, murmuring, “You were amazing.”

She gave a shaky laugh, half on the verge of tears, and turned to face him. His left eye was going black. “I thought he was going to kill you. I’m … not okay with that, Tristan.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Tristan said, and, for the first time, Lena believed it. She shivered. She wasn’t dressed to be out here in the snow, and the adrenaline in her body was draining fast, leaving her lightheaded. “Come on, let me take you home.”

Home. Her father. The break-in. “André told me he was the one to break into my father’s house. He was looking for my photographs, hoping to find some sign of the diamond. We need to tell him.”

“You can tell him yourself. He’s on his way here.”

Lena sighed. “He knows I’m okay?”

Beau nodded. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a long night. We’re going to need statements from both of you.”

Tristan grimaced but nodded. “Of course.”

Lorenz returned, brushing snow off his gloves. When had it started snowing? She watched, half-dazed, as he took off his jacket and handed it to Tristan, who placed it around her shoulders. She immediately felt warmer.

“Thank you,” she said.

Lorenz dipped his head in acknowledgment. “On the bright side, you’re going to have one hell of a story to tell over drinks.”

Lena let out a soft laugh. “I guess we will.” In the distance, blue lights flashed as two more cars pulled up. Her father was in one of those cars, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to see him right now.