Chapter 16: Curtains and Needles

Chapter 16: Curtains and Needles
Late at night. Paris outside glittered yet lay hushed, the streets of the Marais drowned in golden light like molten wax dripping onto old flagstones. Far-off trams sounded like a needle pulling thread through fabric, stretching taut lines of sound across the dark. The smell of toasted bread and cigarette smoke drifted together on the wind and slipped through the window crack. Early autumn’s chill, a trace of the Seine’s damp breath, clung to every pane of glass like a film of mist. In the tiny third-floor flat, the window stood ajar, the curtains trembled with each gust, casting quivering shadows on the wall like faded sketches.

For the third time I checked the door lock and the window bolts, as if these habitual gestures could stitch shut the invisible gaps in my life. I glanced at the mirror in the hallway to see if any shape lurked behind me. The glass reflected my own pale face, eyes reddened from lack of sleep, dark circles like ink stains bleeding outward. My phone was set to secure mode, vibrating without names—only a faint band of light, like a hairline crack in the night.

I switched off the main light and left only the desk lamp shining down on the map of Paris. Its yellow glow traced the street grid like a spiderweb, each arrondissement a knot I had marked. The cooling coffee bled across the paper like spilled ink; beside it lay a half-finished sketchbook—broken pencil strokes, fragments of some larger plan not yet whole. On the laptop screen a blank file waited, the cursor blinking as if urging me on, each flicker a heartbeat of impatience.

The phone vibrated softly. The screen showed “Kristine”—just a single K, so no one glancing over would guess. I picked up before the second buzz.

“Not asleep?” My voice was hoarse with fatigue but still trying to stay calm, my breathing slow as if remembering childhood swimming lessons.

On the other end Kristine gave a low laugh, her tired voice sharp as a blade.
“Sleep? Hardly. Tonight’s been fun. It’s raining in Berlin, but the sky’s lightening because the servers are burning through their logs.”
Keystrokes clicked in the background, mingled with a cat mewing for food somewhere—her everyday life vivid in my mind: sitting cross-legged on a chair, hair in a messy bun, surrounded by empty Red Bull cans, coils of network cables like vines, and a little cactus long since dried.

“Finished?” I asked, leaning back, trying to picture Berlin’s wet night.

“Yeah. His biggest subsidiary in Belgium just got ‘a knock at the door’ from the authorities. One night and the stock fell like autumn leaves. Tomorrow the press will dig up the rest themselves.”
She spoke lightly, but pride slid beneath the breath. “I slipped in a few documents for them to ‘find’ too. This will keep him awake. Oh, and buy some of that dark chocolate you like—next time I’m over I’ll bring the wine.”

I closed my eyes; my heart slowed. The light outside the window shimmered on the tabletop, pale and tremulous like a campfire’s glow. I had done nothing, only sat here—distant, silent, watching. Every first “stitch” was Kristine’s needle. Memory flared: the first time we’d worked together, a university dorm, an all-nighter with a laptop digging into Kael right after he swallowed my father’s company; the reek of cheap cigarettes, the greenish glow of hidden files, the drum of our keys, resolve rising like heat from the floorboards. Back then we had only our two hands and a slow-burning anger; now it had become a net stretched across Europe.

“Are you sure he hasn’t traced you?” I asked softly, my voice so low it seemed to shy from the air.

“Not sure,” she said flatly, a paring knife touching wood. “Don’t think he’s blind. This blow hurts; he’ll hit back. He’ll send his people all over Europe to hunt me. Maybe you too.”

I looked down at the street. A figure in a long coat drifted past the lamp, stopped at the corner as if smoking. He didn’t look up, didn’t look at me, but I felt his gaze behind dark glasses. Cigarette smoke rose, blending with bread and tram exhaust, braided with the distant church bells.

“Good,” I said coldly, each word a bead of dew on a needle. “I want him to know. Every stitch will hurt worse than the last.”

Kristine paused, then gave a short laugh. “Sounds like you’re actually sewing.”

“I am,” I said. “Sewing my life back together.” My fingers brushed the edge of the desk as if searching for an invisible thread.

She exhaled lightly. “Oh, one more thing. I pulled a guest list. Julien—the guy you mentioned—seems unaware, but that investment fund ‘Albrex’ Maison d’Or is using to finance the upcoming show … it’s his new front. And there’s a VIP named Cécile Moreau, his right hand in Paris. She’ll be there too. In the USB photos I’m sending is a logo—a snake wrapped around a pair of shears, the mark of his new shell company. Don’t underestimate that detail.”

I tightened my grip on the phone; the final note in her voice pricked like a pin.
“Send it now. I’ll handle things here.”

“Okay.” Keystrokes rattled like Berlin rain on a tin roof. “Be careful, Anna. Don’t let him see you before it’s your cue. Remember, this is his stage.”

I looked for the street-corner man again—gone now, a wisp of smoke dissolved. The night sky over the Marais was a shade lighter, tram-lights spilling up like a reminder that all rails converge somewhere. “Don’t worry. I’m learning my catwalk. When the lights come up, I’ll be in place.”

Kristine chuckled softly, a metallic wire humming. “That’s my stage girl. Sleep. You’ve got a show tomorrow.” She hung up first, the click like a needle puncturing cloth at the end of a seam.

The room sank into silence. I shut the laptop, opened a drawer. Inside lay a small box: an old photo of Kael beside an unknown man, his smile half-crooked with contempt. Next to it a silver USB drive—the first evidence Kristine had ever sent me, the first needle of this game. A clipped newspaper fragment still smelled of ink: the article on the Belgian investigation, fresh, its corner faintly stamped with the snake-and-shears logo.

I set the sewing needle onto the unfinished fabric. It plunged deep through the thick weave, sealing my first step. A bead of blood welled up on my fingertip, soaking into the black thread. I stared at it and murmured to myself:

“When the lights go out, that’s when the play truly begins.”

Outside, the church bell struck one. Downstairs the elevator doors opened and shut, then footsteps receded into the sound of the tram. For a heartbeat I thought I could hear the thread drawn taut in the dark, like an invisible trap slowly closing. I kept sewing, stitch by stitch, slowly and deliberately—as if hemming a dress for the final performance, or stitching shut the very snare I’d set.