The crowd flowed outward like a tide.
Landing onto Parrisian soil, none of them spoke. But beneath their quiet steps and calm faces, they all felt it that strange electricity in the air, the sense of excitement was waiting for them above and they all could tell.
Somewhere, in the lightless corridors of Paris, "AXILE's merchandise" was already moving.
And so were the ones hunting it.
The sun had begun its descent, spilling soft amber hues over the cobbled streets of Parris. The air was thick with perfume and smoke, the gentle hum of conversation blending with the melody of a street violinist somewhere nearby.
By the time Klaus arrived at 'Le Roman' , the city was bathed in the mellow gold of late noon the kind of glow that made even the shadows look alive. The bar was an architectural marvel marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and dark oak counters polished to a mirror sheen. On the walls hung oil paintings of nameless lovers and battles, their colors dim under the candlelight.
Klaus stepped inside, his hand buried casually in his coat pocket, his posture relaxed and alert. He'd spent the morning drifting through the winding streets through markets and alleys, museums and old cathedrals each corner a silent reconnaissance. The bar was the final piece of his quiet inspection of the district. A place like Le Roman was perfect for loose tongues and drunken truths.
As the door closed behind him, the chatter softened briefly. He smiled faintly, tipping his head to the bartender a sharp-eyed man with a waxed mustache and sleeves rolled to the elbow.
"Une bouteille du vin rouge, s'il vous plaît," Klaus murmured, his French smooth but faintly accented.
The bartender grinned. "Of course, monsieur. Local?"
"Naturally," Klaus replied, sliding into a stool.
He had that disarming warmth the kind that made strangers lean closer. Within minutes, he was in an easy conversation with the bartender and two locals beside him, a pair of business associates arguing about shipment delays and corrupt permits. Klaus laughed in the right places, asked the right questions, sipped his wine slowly — harmless, friendly, forgettable.
Unbeknownst to him, fate threads were just a few feet away all woven.
Across the bar, Yunli stepped in quietly, her coat collar raised, hair loosely tied. Her eyes adjusted to the soft amber light as she scanned the crowd. After two days of confinement in her rented hotel suite, she'd grown restless. The data streams from AXILE's network had gone cold, the interference patterns suggesting heavy encryption.
The network in this city in particular was very different from the outside as if it had its own satellite and as such she need local services registration to use the Internet, luckily, Athalia had done just that for her and now If she wanted new information, she'd have to dig the old-fashioned way through people.
Le Roman was the kind of place where conversations could be bought with smiles and expensive drinks.
She moved to a corner seat near the window, ordered a cup of black tea, and set her tablet on the table. To anyone watching, she looked like a traveler reviewing her itinerary.
In reality, her screen flickered with multiple frequencies tapping into local communication nodes, cross-linking audio pings from nearby devices. She slipped one earpiece in, her expression serene.
Her mind was sharp, working fast as she filtered voices from random chatter about wine, a couple arguing softly, to two men whispering about a shipment delayed at the city's southern checkpoint…
Her fingers paused for a second. That voice was Faint, steady, confidently familiar.
She turned subtly, her gaze sweeping the bar and there, at the counter, sat a tall man with calm eyes and a faint smirk, chatting easily with locals. The angle of his shoulders, the measured way he moved, even the subtle alertness hidden beneath the charm all of it screamed trained .
For a heartbeat, her pulse quickened.
"Klaus?"
The name flickered in her mind, unbidden.
But then she dismissed it. The thought was absurd. Klaus was supposed to be somewhere else likely in another district, or even dead. Besides, the man's aura was too relaxed and refined and unassuming which was quite very opposite to what she knew of Klaus.
She returned to her tablet, tapping through the static of intercepted calls. "Focus," she muttered under her breath, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Still, her eyes drifted once more to that same back, broad and familiar, draped in a black coat. She exhaled softly and shook her head.
"Coincidence, they just looked like his."
Meanwhile, Klaus leaned closer to the bartender, his tone conspiratorial.
> "Tell me," he said with a grin, swirling the wine in his glass, "what's the mood in the city these days? You know how it is... travelers like me hear all sorts of stories about this place."
The bartender chuckled, wiping a glass clean. "Ah, monsieur, Paris is always alive. But lately, hmm…"
his voice dropped a little, "there are whispers about Big business, foreign men, police turning guarding eyes. But you didn't hear it from me as it's just an everyday thing here."
"Of course not," Klaus replied, eyes glinting faintly. "My lips are sealed."
At that same moment, Yunli's screen registered a private frequency ping one that originated just meters from her location. Someone else was encrypting a call nearby. Her brow furrowed. She began decrypting the packet slowly, masking her own signal.
A faint, distorted voice filtered through:
: "shipment secured… surveillance units posted… no interference so far" the voice said in french
Her eyes flicked up again. The voice was faint, but she could trace its pattern. It came from the man at the counter the one with the easy smile.
Her blood ran cold for a moment.
Was it "really" him?, She pondered.
She froze in her seat, her heartbeat loud in her ears, the hum of the bar fading around her. If she reached too far, he'd sense the intrusion. If she ignored it, she might lose the only solid lead in days.
And across the room, Klaus lifted his glass once more, his reflection faintly visible in the mirror behind the counter calm, and his eyes… sharper now, as if he had sensed something stirring in the air.
For the briefest moment, their worlds brushed unseen, unaware, but drawn toward each other.
And Le Roman, that exquisite bar of whispers and wine, became the quiet stage where two ghosts of the same past might be of a different present.