Chapter 3: The Evidence They Stole

I turned my head, refusing to look at Dimitri.

I didn’t want to see the old scar on his forehead, the one he’d gotten for me years ago.

Dimitri sighed, his expression softening into something that was almost familiar.

“Lorelei, I’m married to your sister now. No matter how much you act out, I have to fulfill my responsibilities as a husband and father.”

I lowered my head and let out a soft, broken laugh.

“But you were my husband first. What about your responsibility to me?”

My chest was so tight I could barely breathe. I reached out, my fingers gripping his arm.

“Didn’t you say you’d protect me for the rest of your life? Dimitri, why?”

“Lorelei Lombardi, that’s enough!”

My mother shoved me, her eyes red with fury.

My strength gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.

“Dimitri is your brother-in-law now. Nothing you do can change that.”

I was about to speak when my phone suddenly rang.

It was the precinct’s direct line.

I answered immediately.

My captain’s voice came through, clipped and professional.

“Lombardi, the internal investigation is closed. You’re cleared to return to Major Crimes.”

“Your sister isn’t dead. She’s been cooperating with a classified operation for the past three years.”

“Based on the evidence she submitted, we just cracked a cross-border organ trafficking case. She’s about to receive the department’s highest honor…”

I didn’t hear another word.

A cross-border organ trafficking case?

That was the case I’d been investigating on my own all this time.

I left them all behind and raced home.

I threw open my safe and found it empty. All the evidence I had fought so hard for, every piece of it, was gone.

I collapsed to the floor, slamming my fists against the hardwood again and again.

Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind.

“Lorelei, don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”

I whipped around.

It was Dimitri.

I understood instantly.

The safe’s combination was Dimitri’s birthday. Besides me, only he knew it.

He had taken my evidence and given it to Francesca.

Tears streamed down my face as I grabbed him by the collar, my voice cracking.

“You stole the evidence? You gave it to Francesca?”

“Do you have any idea how many times I almost died for that? Do you know that was my only chance to get back to Major Crimes?”

The organ trafficking case was the last one I’d worked before my suspension.

To photograph a transaction, I was shoved from the third floor of an abandoned building. The impact cracked my lumbar vertebra and shattered my left shoulder blade.

To infiltrate the organization, I posed as a buyer and walked into an underground market.

When they found my wire, they locked me in a water-filled cell for three days and three nights. I nearly died getting that evidence out.

How could he give something I had paid for with my life to Francesca?

I pounded on his chest with all my strength.

Dimitri didn’t move, just let me hit him, his shoulders shaking with the force of the blows.

“Lorelei, this is what you owe Francesca.”

“If it weren’t for you, Francesca wouldn’t have had to fake her death, and she wouldn’t have lost her job at the DA’s office. You owe her. Consider this your way of making it right.”

I was about to argue when my mother appeared in the bedroom doorway, holding another file.

“Lorelei, I know these years have been hard on you. But they’ve been even harder on your sister.”

“She’s cared about her career since she was a little girl. Can’t you just help her out?”

“It doesn’t matter whose name is on the commendation. Don’t be so petty.”

I laughed.

I laughed until my whole body shook, until the tears wouldn’t stop falling.

When Francesca slept with my husband, she didn’t remember I was her sister.

When she took my husband and my son and faked their deaths, she didn’t remember I was her sister.

When she destroyed my career and turned me into a pariah, she didn’t remember I was her sister.

I lunged forward and tore the file from her hands, ripping it to shreds.

“If you give her one more piece of my evidence, I swear I’ll drag her down with me.”

My mother froze.

She clenched her jaw, her face twisting into an ugly mask.

“You really are a piece of work, Lorelei Lombardi. Since you have no regard for family, don’t blame me for what comes next.”

Dimitri gave me one last, long look, then helped my mother from the room.

I closed my eyes and sat slumped against the wall for a long time.

The sky outside darkened to black.

In the past, no matter how late I worked, Dimitri would always leave a plate of lasagna in the oven for me.

Before he left today, he had left one for me, too.

I slowly got to my feet and dumped the cold food into the trash.

Then I opened my laptop, pulled up the full set of evidence I had backed up, and recorded a video.

She can’t defend a case she didn’t build. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.