Chapter 115: [115] "Paris Royal Part 11"
Luc Beaumont stood at the penalty spot, turned around, locked eyes with the ultras behind the goal, and pointed at the captain’s armband wrapped tightly around his bicep.
The away corner of the stadium, a tiny pocket of four hundred SC Valois supporters, erupted into tear-streaked delirium. Their voices carried over the stunned silence of the Parisian majority.
Up in the VIP director’s box, the atmosphere was completely different...
The glass-enclosed suite, usually a sanctuary of polite applause and subdued, aristocratic superiority, was in its usual silence. The Paris Royal executives, men in tailored suits who had spent the entire evening sipping vintage champagne and sneering at the structure of Valois, were staring at the pitch in wide-eyed horror. Their Coaches’ 4-2-4 gamble had failed.
Valérie Laurent was not going to sit through this.
She stood up from her plush leather chair, her charcoal blazer impeccably smooth, not a single hair out of place. She picked up her crystal champagne glass from the table.
She turned slowly, facing the half-dozen Paris Royal executives who had spent the last hour and a half quietly making jokes about her forty-million-euro Brazilian winger, her ’kids’ and her American captain.
Valérie raised her glass, her dark eyes flashing with ruthless joy.
"Kiss my ass," Valérie Laurent said.
Her voice was crisp, clear, and utterly devoid of professional courtesy. She didn’t wait for their outraged gasps or their sputtering replies. She took a deliberate sip of her champagne, turned her back on them, and looked down at her team dominating their pitch.
---
Down on the grass, the final five minutes of the match was being played.
Paris Royal was psychologically broken. Their shape had completely disintegrated. Bastien Leroux chased shadows in the midfield, his frustration boiling over as Jose Mallorca, Klaus Becker and Hugo Blanc passed the ball around him in simple triangles.
Klaus Becker orchestrated the final sequences like a maestro conducting a symphony, slowing the tempo down, draining every single second off the clock.
Amadou Fall and Leo Hernandez stood at the back, completely untested in the dying minutes, their wall absolutely impenetrable.
Minute ninety plus four.
The referee checked his watch. He brought the whistle to his lips.
Piii. Piii. Piiii.
It was over.
SC Valois 4, Paris Royal 2.
The mighty Paris Royal FC, for now, the unquestioned rulers of Ligue Alpha, had been eliminated from the Cup de France in the Round of 16. In their own stadium.
The Valois bench emptied out. Henri, abandoning his usual stoic composure, let out a massive shout and hugged his assistant coach.
Cillian sprinted onto the pitch, tackling Mallorca into the mud, the two workhorses laughing like madmen. Hugo Blanc dropped to his knees, his hands covering his face, the emotional exhaustion of defeating his former teammate, Bastien, finally catching up to him.
Gabriel Assis limped onto the grass, a towel wrapped around his neck, pointing at the scoreboard and shouting something in Portuguese.
Luc stood with his muscles screaming in agony. The dull ache in his back was now...not so dull. He had played ninety-four minutes as a lone striker against, arguably the best defense in the country, and he had buried them alive.
He watched his teammates celebrating. The expensive egos, the youth academy promotions, the veterans. They were no longer a disjointed collection of Valérie Laurent’s acquisitions. The tactical lie and the importance of the occasion had forced them to trust each other. The Captain’s Aura had bound them together. They were a team.
As the Valois players began to migrate toward the away end to applaud their traveling supporters, Bachra Goza found himself walking in the direction as Olivier Fontaine.
The Paris Royal striker was walking slowly toward the tunnel. His pristine blue jersey was stained with mud. His face showed only terrifying fury. He had scored a world-class goal, he had led the attack, and yet, he was walking off his own pitch a loser.
Bachra, bouncing on his toes despite the bruising on his shin, couldn’t help himself. The La Masia programming, the undeniable arrogance of youth, flared up.
As they crossed paths, Bachra turned his head towa6rd the star of French football. The teenager smiled brightly, raised his hand, and unapologetically, stuck his tongue out at Fontaine.
Fontaine stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes darkened, a flash of genuine malice replacing everything about him. His jaw tightened so hard the muscles jumped beneath his skin. For a split second, it looked as though Fontaine was going to grab the nineteen-year-old by the throat.
But a shadow fell over them.
Luc stepped between Bachra and Fontaine, placing himself squarely in Fontaine’s line of sight. He didn’t push Bachra behind him. He didn’t say a word to the teenager. He just stood there, radiating a winners exhaustion of a grueling ninety minutes.
"Go celebrate with the fans, Bachra," Luc said quietly, never taking his eyes off Fontaine.
Bachra smirked, tapped Luc’s arm, and jogged away toward the away section, leaving the two strikers alone in the center of the devastated Parisian pitch.
The noise of the stadium was draining away, the home fans flooding the exits in disgust, leaving only the echoing chants of the Valois supporters in the corner.
Fontaine looked at Luc. His breathing was heavy. The untouchable aura that had surrounded him since August, the gravity that made defenders stumble and goalkeepers freeze at his feet, was suddenly looking very, very mortal.
"You think a Cup victory changes anything, Beaumont?" Fontaine said. "You think because your owner bought a new midfield and a flashy winger, your team sits on the throne now?"
Luc wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his mud-stained hand. He looked at the scoreboard glowing brightly against the dark sky. Then, he looked back at the man he had waged his entire career against, back when he honestly had no sense.
"Throne? After tonight? You don’t have one."
Fontaine’s eyes narrowed, the silence between them stretching into absolute tension. The rivalry had transcended the wager. It was no longer just about who scored more goals in the league. It was about absolute supremacy.
Fontaine stared at him for three agonizing seconds, then walked away toward the tunnel, disappearing into the shadows.
Luc stood alone in the center circle. He felt the wind biting through his soaked jersey.
He looked toward his team, celebrating wildly in front of the away fans, then up at the VIP boxes where the executives had sat.
Luc smirked.