Chapter 12: The Evidence They Couldn’t Erase

For three days, the city believed Lorelei Lombardi was dead.

But the woman who had fallen from the rooftop had not died.

She had survived because a maintenance platform several floors below had broken her fall.

When she opened her eyes in the hospital, the first thing she saw was a detective standing beside her bed.

“Lombardi, don’t move.”

“You have multiple fractures, a concussion, and internal bleeding. You’re lucky to be alive.”

I stared at him through the haze.

“Am I under arrest?”

The detective shook his head.

“Not anymore.”

My heart stopped.

“What do you mean?”

He placed a sealed evidence bag on the table beside me.

Inside was a flash drive.

“Someone anonymously sent this to Internal Affairs the night you fell.”

“It contains copies of your original case files, financial records, surveillance footage, and communications with the people you were investigating.”

My fingers trembled.

For three years, I had thought everything I had collected was gone.

But someone had preserved it.

“Who sent it?” I whispered.

The detective looked at me carefully.

“We don’t know.”

“But whoever did it knew exactly where the evidence was supposed to be.”

I closed my eyes.

There was only one person I could think of.

Francesca.

But why would she save the evidence that could destroy her entire story?

Before I could ask anything else, the detective continued.

“There’s more.”

“The department reopened the investigation into your sister’s supposed undercover operation.”

“Several people involved in the original case have already been questioned.”

“And one of them admitted that Francesca never worked undercover.”

A bitter laugh escaped my throat.

For three years, they had called me unstable.

Now the truth was finally beginning to move.

The detective picked up another file.

“We also found something strange about the vehicle explosion three years ago.”

My body went rigid.

“Dimitri and Leo were never inside that car.”

The room became silent.

I stared at him.

“Then whose bodies were they?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“But the fire was deliberately staged.”

“And the person who arranged it had access to your family’s private records.”

A cold realization spread through me.

This had never been about Francesca stealing my husband.

It had never been about Dimitri wanting another family.

They had planned something much bigger.

They hadn't just wanted me abandoned.

They had wanted me destroyed.