Paris, France – 9:47 AM – Musée du Louvre
The ivory was unlike anything Isabel Laurent had ever seen. It was old, older than the record said. Worn smooth in some places, splintered in others, it sat nestled in a velvet-lined case that didn't deserve it. The tusk seemed to pulse under the light as if alive, its pale surface flecked with ghostlike striations, like fingerprints from the dead.
Her gloved fingers hovered over it. She adjusted the magnifying lens and leaned closer, squinting at the curved base where a roughened patch broke the symmetry. There, almost invisible, was something carved—no, embedded. A symbol.
She carefully adjusted the focus. It was a seal. A single letter surrounded by a ring of fire. Beneath it, a name in minuscule script: "V. X."
She frowned. "That's not in the catalog." From across the sterile lab, Rhea Kassim, her closest friend and the museum's head of security, looked up from her screen. "What's not?"
Isabel glanced toward the bulletproof windows. Paris glowed behind the glass—sunlight trickling through a light fog, cars moving like insects beneath the Eiffel Tower's shadow. "There's a mark on the tusk. Hidden under a layer of resin."
Rhea stood, heels clicking. "Could be a forgery. Or a prank." "No. The resin is decades old. The carving's deeper. Precise. Like someone knew this would be studied, eventually." Rhea leaned in. "What does it say?"
"'V. X.'" "VX? That's a neurotoxin." Isabel shook her head. "Not the chemical. Initials." Rhea gave her a look. "Still sounds dangerous." It was. Something about it sent a ripple down Isabel's spine. This wasn't just an artifact. It was a message. Or a warning. Rhea crossed her arms. "This thing already caused a diplomatic storm. You sure you want to dig deeper?"
"I have to," Isabel murmured. "It's what I do."
She spent the next hour documenting the mark with extreme care, using micro-lasers to strip the outer layer without damaging the tusk. The room was quiet except for the hum of equipment and Rhea's occasional sighs.
When Isabel finally pulled off her gloves, her hands were shaking.
"What if it's a key?" she said. "To what?" Rhea asked.
"I don't know yet. But it's old. Very old. I think it predates the war it was supposedly recovered in."
Rhea leaned on the table. "Maybe you should hand this off. Let someone else chase ghosts." Isabel looked at her. "That's exactly why I won't."
Outside, the clouds darkened. The glass panes above trembled slightly as if the weather itself disapproved.
Downstairs, in the museum's crowded foyer, Ethan Vance adjusted the collar of his coat and moved silently through the shadows. He hadn't been seen in over five years—not by anyone who could prove it. His name was whispered in covert circles, his face erased from records. And yet, he stood now just beneath Isabel Laurent, heart pounding for the first time in years.
He watched her through the surveillance feed hacked into the museums closed-circuit. She was still beautiful. Curiosity burned in her expression, just like her father's.
"She found it," he whispered. A voice crackled in his earpiece. "Do we move in?" "Not yet," he replied. "We watch. If she figures it out, we'll know." "What if she doesn't?" "She will." Ethan leaned against the marble wall; eyes fixed on the grainy screen. A strange tension twisted in his gut—not from the mission, not from the code—but from her. He had left her behind to keep her safe. But she was diving headfirst into the very fire he'd tried to extinguish. And the fire had grown.
Back in the lab, Isabel packed her notes and backed up the scan files. She slid the image of the carved symbol onto a separate drive and tucked it into her coat pocket. Rhea noticed. "You're taking it home?"
"Just for review." "You never take work home."
Isabel forced a smile. "First time for everything."
As she left, her heels echoed down the long Louvre corridors. Outside, Paris had turned wet and grey. A chill wind pushed through the courtyard. She pulled her scarf tighter, her mind still on the tusk—on the name—on her father, whose body had never been found in that Ivorian jungle ten years ago.
She didn't notice the man in the dark coat following her.
Didn't see the glint of a phone camera as she passed through the gate.
Didn't know that by unlocking the tusk's mystery, she'd already opened a door that couldn't be closed.
Isabel lived on the Left Bank, in a narrow, ivy-draped apartment above a quiet bookstore. The kind of place that felt suspended in time—floorboards that creaked when the wind blew wrong, radiators that hissed like irritated cats, and walls lined with books that had survived wars and heartbreak.
She loved it. Or used to. Tonight, it felt... watched.
The door creaked shut behind her. She kicked off her heels, hung her coat, and crossed to her desk, dropping the USB drive into her laptop's port. The screen flickered. The image of the ivory seal reappeared - V. X.
A simple monogram, but so deliberate. So sharp.
She leaned back, sipping wine. Her father's voice played in her memory like a vinyl record worn thin.
"If you ever find the key, don't use it until you're ready to lose everything."
He had said that on their last call. She was seventeen. He vanished three days later.
She traced her finger over the grainy image.
"Who are you, V.X.?" Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She almost didn't answer. "Hello?"
Silence. A faint rustle. Then a low, velvet voice: "You need to stop. Right now."
She froze. "Who is this?" "I'm the only one trying to keep you alive." The line went dead. She stood, heart pounding. Immediately called Rhea. No answer.
The wind pressed against the windows. A faint knock echoed from the hallway.
She turned slowly. Waited. Nothing. Swallowing hard, Isabel retrieved a small blade from her drawer—her father's old survival knife, dull but comforting—and edged toward the door.
The hallway was empty. But when she returned inside, the USB was gone.
Ethan stood on the rooftop across from her building, rain soaking his jacket.
"She wasn't supposed to find it this soon," he muttered.
From the shadows behind him, a lean man in dark fatigues lit a cigarette.
"She's smarter than her father," said Gus. "That's why you cared." Ethan shot him a look. "Shut it."
"She's in it now. You gonna tell her who you are?"
"No. She thinks I'm dead. It's better that way."
"You sure? Cause if she cracks that code—"
"She won't. Not without help." Gus exhaled smoke, squinting toward her window.
"Then why did you take the drive?" Ethan said nothing. He was already gone.
Back in her apartment, Isabel frantically searched her desk, drawers, the floor—nothing. She hadn't even heard the door open.
She reached for her phone to call Rhea again. But the power cut out.
Paris's lights flickered through the window, undisturbed. Just her building. From the corner of her eye, a shadow moved.
She turned fast; knife raised. Nothing. Her breath hitched. She dropped the knife and backed into the bedroom, shutting the door and leaning against it like a child hiding from monsters. What the hell had she just stepped into?
And why did a part of her, deep in her bones, feel like this wasn't the beginning? It was the return of something buried. Something dangerous. Something personal. Sleep never came. Isabel spent the rest of the night pacing her apartment in silence, ears tuned to every creak and sigh of the old building. She checked the locks twice, turned off all the lights, and sat by the window with the blade gripped tight in her hand.
She hated feeling afraid. By morning, she was dressed and out the door before dawn, the USB still gone, her mind racing. She didn't tell Rhea. Not yet. Something told her not to. Instead, she made her way to the one person who might still owe her father a favour.
Professor Adrien Calloux, a retired historian and former intelligence attaché, lived in an antique-filled townhouse near the Seine. He looked older than she remembered-hair white, shoulders stooped-but his mind remained sharp as a scalpel.
"You look like hell," he said when he opened the door.
"You always know how to make a girl feel welcome."
He gestured for her to come inside. "Coffee?" Yes. Strong."
She showed him a photo of the tusk and the inscription. His eyes narrowed.
"Where did you find this?"
"At the Louvre. African ivory from the 1960s. But this" she pointed to the symbol, "was hidden. It doesn't match any of the records."
Calloux tapped the image. "That's not a tribal seal. It's a cipher. Military origin. European. Possibly covert."
"Covert? From who? "He hesitated. Then: "Your father's last assignment involved black market trade in post-colonial Africa. He was onto something before he vanished. Ivory smuggling was just the surface." "What was underneath?"
Calloux stood, walked to a bookshelf, and pulled down a faded dossier. "He thought the smuggling ring was a front for something larger. Government-funded. Possibly involving war crimes. He called it 'Project V.X.'"
Isabel's blood ran cold. "He said it was too big. That if he disappeared, I should tell you only if you came asking."
She sat back, stunned. "So, he knew. All along." He was close to exposing them."
"And now I've found the key." Calloux leaned forward. "Which means they'll come for you." She stood, panic and fire warring in her chest. "Then I need to finish what he started."
"Isabel, listen to me. You're brilliant-but you're not ready for this world. They don't fight clean."
"Neither do I." Outside, Ethan watched her exit Calloux's home from behind a newspaper on a park bench. His jaw clenched as she disappeared into the morning crowd.
"She's running straight into the fire," Gus said in his earpiece.
"She was born in it," Ethan replied. "So, what's the move?"
He stood. "We protect her. From the shadows. Until she either finds the truth"
"Or dies trying?" Ethan paused. "No. I won't let that happen."
He turned, fading into the crowd as the city came alive with secrets it no longer cared to hide.
Isabel, unaware of the eyes trailing her every step, made one decision as she walked toward the Louvre.
She would reopen her father's case. Even if it killed her. Even if it meant facing the man she once loved...the one she thought was dead