Chapter 21: [21] "A Predator Does Not Flinch"

Luc stood by, watching their conversation from all the way across the room.

He felt satisfied with it for just a split second before a familiar sharp presence was directly in his personal space.

Olivier Fontaine. The cracks were evident when looked at closely. His eyes had a bloodshot and slightly glassy look. The high-priced vodka was speaking, not him. The swaggering attitude remained there, but there was something within that, something Luc had been waiting to see.

Something adjacent to a man in fear, or rather, fear wearing a silver suit.

"Do you think you belong here, peasant?" Fontaine spoke quietly, so the executives wouldn’t hear. It was condescending, automatic and empty.

Luc looked straight ahead without flinching his eyes. He had his hands by his side in ease. He breathed steadily and slowly, despite the protest of his taped ribs.

"I’m right where I’m supposed to be, Olivier," Luc said calmly. "Straight in your head. I must be all you think about now, huh?"

Muscle in Fontaine’s jaw twitched. "I have four goals, you have three, I am still the King of this city."

Luc smiled. Not warmly. Not with humour. A man with only the flat smile of coldness, having already witnessed the end of the story.

"Kings don’t attack 19-year old kids on live television," Luc said softly. "Kings don’t call rookies at midnight on private numbers."

He waited just two seconds.

"You are terrified."

Fontaine lost it.

He put down his big crystal glass on a passing waiter’s tray. The glass broke with a loud crack. The crack took center stage of the ambient music like a pistol shot. Marble floor with bits of champagne and crystal.

The string quartets, all of them stopped playing.

The immediate vicinity was completely in silence.

The Qatari executives turned around slowly. The league commissioner, who had been snickering at something across the room, froze. Every important set of eyes in European football landed on Olivier Fontaine at precisely that exact moment.

Gasping for breath now, his face was dark red and ugly. His fists were balled tight at his sides. He seemed like a man who was standing on the precipice of an irreversible moment, watching the world fall apart around him.

Luc didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his hands. He didn’t step back even a single centimetre. He simply looked at Fontaine with the quiet patience of someone who had engineered this exact moment and had nothing left to prove tonight.

He slipped his jacket back into place quietly, buttoned it.

Luc spoke up to Olivier, "Clean up your mess." This was loud enough to hear by the investors. So soothing in itself, so shocking in contrast. "You’re making yourself look foolish."

He brushed shoulders with the king of France and left.

---

He spotted Juliette and Valérie at the main gate. With Valérie having a lit cigarette in her hand, between two fingers, and a look of a woman who had just witnessed a very satisfying investment reap a tidy early reward. Juliette just glanced at him, as she always did, read his posture, his breathing.

"We’re going", Luc said quietly. The rush of adrenaline was subsiding. An hour ago the painkillers were out of action and the taped ribs were making their presence felt.

Valérie smiled slowly. "You did just what I wanted. Go rest up, American"

They went around the press entirely by using the side doors. It was a pleasant cool Paris night after the stifling heat of the ballroom.

After the door was shut behind them and they were seated in the tinted town car, Luc exhaled a long, wheezy breath and stretched back against the leather seat. All of a sudden, his posture that he had maintained for three hours collapsed.

Juliette didn’t say anything. She bent over him and carefully unbuttoned his jacket and set two fingers on his taped ribs, softly observing his breathing. Her professional instincts were never fully turned off.

She spoke softly, "Shallow breathing."

Luc replied, "I’m alright."

She didn’t argue. She left her hand there, steady and grounding, a warmness against the tape.

The emptiness of Paris’ streets was where the car traversed. The Eiffel Tower briefly came into view in the window, but was fenced off behind the dark buildings.

[System Notification]

[Objective complete: Composure maintained]

[Reward applied: +10 Psychological resistance — permanent]

[New Objective incoming: Olympique Nantaise. Saturday. Away.]

[Their goalkeeper has not conceded from outside the box in 14 matches.]

[Prove the streak means nothing.] 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

[Reward: +1 Goal instinct — permanent increase]

[Penalty: Fontaine extends his lead. You do the maths.]

Luc read in the dark.

He slowly breathed out through the agony. But Paris stayed indifferent and luminous.

Juliette reminded him softly, "We play tomorrow".

"I know," Luc said. His eyes were already closed. His mind was already on the pitch and he was already calculating numerous things about a goalkeeper who had not been beaten from distance in 14 matches.

"But tonight," he said, seemingly to himself, "we won."