The narrator wakes hungover from the malt liquor she drank while clearing the road, compounded by stress over the Google Alert exposing her former alias. Her contacts have been messaging her repeatedly, demanding that Platon be "neutralized." She protests that she is not a hit man, but they insist she misunderstands: the Moulinards will do it themselves.

Realizing she has been complicit in setting Platon up for serious harm all along—through her surveillance of him in Marseille and Spanish villages—she decides to renegotiate. She inflates her fee to an absurd amount, certain they will refuse. They agree immediately, and she abruptly understands that her job is now to maneuver the Moulinards into killing a man.

To quiet her conscience, she rationalizes the assignment: Platon is universally reviled, and even his own driver and bodyguard would be indifferent to his disappearance—which is precisely why she studied them, banking on their apathy. She mentally argues with Bruno, challenging his blanket condemnation of violence when applied to a hated figure. She paces Chez Dubois, unable to find her Advil.