Chapter 5: The Gallery

I didn’t leave Monaco right away.

I stayed an extra day. Maybe two. Walked the marina like I belonged there. Ate lunch without checking the prices. Watched the sea move like a machine built to hypnotize men who think they’re free.

The morning I was meant to leave, I returned to the yacht.

Same deck. Same chair. Different silence.

Rivière was already there. No ceremony. Just two glasses. The same amber drink.

I sat without being asked.

He didn’t look at me. Just said:

“You’re still here.”

I nodded once.

“What would you expect of me?”

Only then did he turn his head.

“Not much,” he said. “And everything.”

He took a sip, then:

“No violence. No theft. But your presence would be required. At auctions. Private gatherings. Sometimes you’d act on behalf of others. A signature. A handshake. A whisper in someone’s ear. The kinds of things that money alone can’t buy.”

He made it sound like theatre. But it was power and it was real.

That night I lay awake, the city soft outside my window.

I thought about the card Elise gave me. The door she said I could open. The choice she said I’d eventually face.

I didn’t call her. But I did send something.

A message to the Geneva number. Just one line:

“If the door is still there, don’t lock it yet.”

No reply. But maybe that was the answer.

---

A few days later, I was flown to Paris. Not for a job. Just a briefing. A short meeting, a long dinner, and a dossier that changed everything.

The second watch had surfaced. Or something close to it.

Not on the market. Not in circulation.

It had been given.

A gift, years ago, from a former Swiss power broker to a family with deep European ties — the kind of lineage that doesn’t show up on Wikipedia, but still gets summoned when nations need to decide what something means.

The watch had passed, unknowingly, into the private collection of the family’s youngest heir — Alexandre.

Early 30s. Art world regular. Half-hearted hedge fund. The kind of man born fluent in five languages and allergic to obligation.

To him, the Richard Mille wasn’t a watch. It was a cool piece in a drawer.

Something inherited. Not earned. Not understood.

---

Then I arrived in Madrid for the soft open at the gallery.

Before the journalists. Before the hangers-on.

Alexandre found me.

Or maybe he had been told I’d be there.

He was exactly what I expected: A man in a linen suit, gold-rimmed glasses, and hair that looked styled by accident. He held a drink but didn’t sip it — as if even intoxication should obey him.

He spoke softly and mentioned he collected rare design pieces.

“I love things that are made for nobody,” he said. “Things that would be misunderstood by everyone else.”

“Just like the watch you’re wearing.”

I smiled. “Some things disappear so they can be seen by the right people.”

He tilted his head slowly.

We talked more, first about art, then design. Fifteen minutes turned into half an hour. He didn’t push on my identity; he simply asked what I liked, what I collected, what I thought of a particular artist’s refusal to frame his work. I kept my voice low, matched his pace, and noticed his eyes linger a second longer on the RM than expected.

Later, near the end of the evening, he gestured toward the exit and said:

“A few of us are having dinner tomorrow. Not far. Family estate. Bit quieter.”

He didn’t wait for a response. It was as if he assumed I’d say yes.

That night, back in my hotel, I reported in. The reply came back almost instantly:

“Attend. Observe. Say little.”

I stood on the balcony, Madrid glowing like low embers below. The RM still on my wrist, the same one that brought me into this world, the same one that might take me out. In my jacket pocket, the Geneva card remained uncreased. Still real.

And tomorrow, I’d be stepping into the life of a man who didn’t know that the watch he owned could unmake him.