The conference room at Rousseau Air headquarters breathes cold money. Panoramic bay windows overlooking Lyon, solid walnut table, black leather chairs aligned like judges. Six months to the day after the crash that pulverized a Cessna 208 against the slopes of Pilat, the company's survivors gather to pronounce a verdict.
Mathilde arrives ten minutes late. She wears an anthracite suit too severe, hair pulled back in a tight chignon—a sartorial armor she hopes is impenetrable. Her hands tremble slightly as she sets her folder on the table. She doesn't notice that Frédéric has already chosen the seat that once belonged to the CEO.
Véronique Mercier, board president for three months, opens the session without preamble. Her black pen strikes the table at each key point like an executioner's gavel. The numbers spread across the wall screen: 4.2 million euros in losses. Two major creditors have sent formal demands. Bookings down 38%.
Mathilde tries to speak. Her voice seems to come from very far away, that of a woman underwater.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I... we are gathered today to examine Rousseau Air's financial situation and..."
She cites market stabilizers, optimistic forecasts the former director had confided to her. No one really listens. Frédéric smiles—that predatory smile he's been perfecting for thirty years.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Véronique says, tone neutral. "Losses of 4.2 million last quarter, two major creditors threatening to seize the fleet."
Mathilde knocks over her water glass. Ice cubes slide across the table like little coffins. She apologizes, awkward, while someone produces paper napkins. It's this precise moment Frédéric chooses to speak of "relief," of "a burden too heavy for a woman alone's shoulders."
"You know, I've been thinking," he murmurs with that venomous solicitude. "Perhaps the time has come for you to free yourself from this... burden. I'd be willing to buy out your shares at a very reasonable price."
The vote is a formality. Unanimous. An outside consultant will be imposed. Someone named Luc Demoulin, reputed for "restructuring failing companies."
After the session, as the others pack up their files, Frédéric approaches Mathilde. He places a fraternal hand on her shoulder—a gesture he would never have dared when the CEO was alive.
"He knew what he was doing keeping you away from important decisions."
Mathilde doesn't respond. Alone in the empty room, she's absently organizing documents when she discovers a yellowed envelope slipped under the desk pad. Inside: a handwritten note on company letterhead. The writing is agitated, rushed.
"Véro—if something happens to me, protect her from Frédéric. There are things she must not know."
The date: 3 days before the crash.
Mathilde reads the sentence three times. The paper trembles between her fingers. Protect her from Frédéric. From what? And why this note addressed to Véronique, not to her?
The Parisian apartment breathes absence. Not serenity, but the active absence of a suspended life. The walls are white, the furniture modern and expensive, the shelves full of photos where the director always smiles.
Sophie is sprawled on the white couch, earbuds in, phone in hand. She wears a gray sweatshirt of her father's—stolen from his closet. At sixteen, she already has that adolescent capacity to transform indifference into a weapon of war.
Mathilde tries. She asks how school went. Sophie responds in monosyllables: "Mmh," "Yeah." Each answer is an additional wall.
When Mathilde mentions the consultant, the restructuring, Sophie yanks out her earbuds with a sharp gesture.
"You're going to let a stranger destroy what Dad built? You never understood his business anyway!"
Mathilde fires back—she can't help herself. Sophie looks at her as if she's speaking a foreign language.
"Dad understood me. You just pretend to exist."
She locks herself in her room. The door slams. Mathilde remains alone in the middle of the white couch, surrounded by photos.
She stands, moved by an impulse. She lifts the couch cushions. That's where she finds it: a black-covered notebook, filled with Sophie's compact handwriting. Trajectories drawn in pencil, flight path calculations, aircraft sketches. An inscription repeated, obsessive: "If I had been there, I could have helped him."
Brutal flashback: three days before the crash, Sophie and her father argue violently.
"You never keep your promises!" Sophie shouts.
Him, distracted and irritable: "I have more important problems than your teenage tantrums."
The next morning at dawn, Mathilde, having not slept, returns to Luc's office. He's already there, three computer screens open, mountain of annotated files. He stands, firm handshake, direct and evaluating gaze.
He's already identified seven major structural problems, three disastrous contracts, and an 800,000-euro hole in the accounting.
"I don't judge the dead, Madame Rousseau," he says calmly. "I save living companies. Your husband made mistakes. Question: will you repeat them out of misplaced loyalty, or do you really want to save Rousseau Air?"
Mathilde defends the deceased director, but her voice breaks.
"You know nothing about this company."
Luc smiles slightly.
"Correct. But I know dying companies. And this one has all the symptoms."
He hands her a file. First measure: layoff of 30% of administrative staff, including several close friends of the director. Mathilde goes pale.
"You have 48 hours to decide if you want to be a widow who weeps or a leader who acts."
That night, unable to sleep, Mathilde goes to the main hangar at 2 a.m. She climbs into the cockpit of the twin aircraft to the one that crashed.
Interwoven flashback: the director, three weeks before the crash, coming home late, tense.
"What's wrong?" Mathilde asks.
"Nothing I can't handle. You don't need to worry about it."
In the cockpit, Mathilde discovers a maintenance logbook wedged behind the seat. Alarming notes about "repairs deferred due to budget constraints." A mention: "DR approved the deferral despite my reservations. See email from 03/12."
The date: two weeks before the crash.
A noise startles her. Véronique is at the hangar entrance, silhouette in the shadows.
"You shouldn't be here, Mathilde."
Long silence. Mathilde brandishes the logbook.
"You knew? About the deferred repairs?"
Véronique, face unreadable: "He did what he had to do to keep the company afloat. As you will have to do."
Mathilde: "And if those deferred repairs caused the crash?"
After a long pause, Véronique responds softly:
"Then it's better that no one ever knows. For your sake. For your children's sake. For the 247 employees who depend on this company."
She extends her hand. Mathilde backs away, clutching her phone.
The next morning at dawn, Mathilde returns to Luc's office. She shows him photos of the maintenance logbook. He studies the documents, face grave.
"If this information gets out, Rousseau Air doesn't survive," he says slowly. "Insurers will withdraw, authorities will open an investigation, families will file lawsuits. It's guaranteed liquidation."
Mathilde, voice broken: "But if he's responsible... if I bury this, I become complicit."
Luc, tone unusually gentle: "You become a woman who chooses to protect 247 jobs and her children's future. There's no good choice here, Mathilde. Just less catastrophic ones."
"What would you do?"
Luc, after reflection: "I've spent my life making impossible decisions. Each time, I chose to save what could be saved rather than punish what was lost. But I can't decide for you."
He returns her phone. "Whatever your decision, I'll respect it. Make it knowing you can't go back."
Mathilde, trembling, hesitates at length over her phone. Her fingers hover over the photos. Quick flashback: Frédéric murmuring "He knew what he was doing keeping you away from important decisions," Sophie shouting "You just pretend to exist," Véronique saying "It's better that no one ever knows."
Mathilde takes a deep breath and...
Her phone rings.
It's Sophie's high school. The guidance counselor's voice: "Madame Rousseau, your daughter had a severe anxiety attack. She's been taken to the hospital. You need to come immediately."
Mathilde jumps up, dropping her phone. Cracked screen, photos of the logbook still visible.
Luc: "Go. We'll talk later."
On the threshold, she turns back: "Luc... don't touch my phone."
He nods.
As soon as she leaves, he stares fixedly at the abandoned phone on the desk, cracked screen displaying the compromising photos. His fingers slowly rise toward the device. He hesitates. Then...
He reaches out.
Black. Credits.