She could hear her bodyguard and driver in the kitchen, talking while they replaced old kitchen items with the new things she had bought. They were speaking in low voices, they were trying to give her space so as not to intrude on her, although normally they would have been at her side to help, but they knew that it was an emotional day for her and wanted to respect it, so they let her move around the house alone and waited until she asked for their help. She approached the foreman of the movers to remind him about their wearing gloves and shoe covers again. As she walked toward him, she saw him look at one of the others and nod, and suddenly powerful arms grabbed her from behind and lifted her off her feet. Someone slapped a wide piece of strong tape over her mouth before she could scream, and she tried to struggle against them. All six closed around her, and the two who held her rushed her toward one of the long windows. She knew at that moment that this was exactly what had happened to Matthieu and Axel. She tried to kick them behind her, but nothing she did slowed them down. They carried her like a doll toward the windows, ready to run to the moving truck with her. She wondered if they were going to kill her, and for an instant she didn’t care. With Axel gone forever, it didn’t matter.

They tied her hands behind her, and she was making muffled sounds, which weren’t loud enough for Franck and her driver to hear her in the kitchen. Just as they reached the windows, there was an explosion of sound near her ear, and she saw the leader standing only inches from her, with his brain exploding from his head. He’d been shot in the head, and pitched forward, his brain splattering all over her face and chest, his blood splashing everywhere as he collapsed. There was a second explosion immediately, then two more, and the two men carrying her collapsed behind her—one dead, and the other shot in the shoulder and the back of his leg. Both were lying on the floor in a pool of blood, as she stood there trying to scream, with her hands behind her back, and the tape over her mouth, shaking violently as Franck and Christophe, her driver, came running into the room, while the three remaining movers fled through the long French windows they were intending to use as an exit to carry her to the truck.