Chapter 9: The Witness They Forgot

The next morning, I woke to the sound of rain tapping against the apartment windows.

For a few seconds, I didn't remember where I was.

Then everything came rushing back.

The rooftop.

The fall.

The hospital.

Dimitri standing beside my bed, looking at me as if my survival had ruined a plan he thought was already finished.

I pushed myself upright.

My body protested immediately.

Every movement pulled at the stitches along my side, and the bruises around my ribs still made breathing painful.

But I was alive.

That was enough.

A knock sounded at the door.

I froze.

A moment later, the door opened and a uniformed detective stepped inside.

He placed a folder on the table.

“Lorelei Lombardi?”

I nodded.

“My name is Daniel Mercer. Internal Affairs assigned me to review the evidence connected to your old investigation.”

My heart tightened.

“Why?”

He looked at me for several seconds before answering.

“Because someone anonymously sent us a copy of your original case notes.”

I stared at him.

“My notes were confiscated.”

“Most of them were.”

He opened the folder.

Inside were photographs, transaction records, surveillance timestamps, and handwritten notes in my own handwriting.

My hands began to tremble.

“Where did you get these?”

“A storage unit registered under a false name.”

He turned another page.

“The strange part is that the unit was rented eighteen months ago.”

I looked at him.

“I never rented a storage unit.”

“I know.”

He slid a photograph across the table.

It showed the inside of the unit.

Boxes were stacked against the walls.

At the center was a large evidence case bearing the seal of the NYPD.

My evidence.

All the evidence I thought Dimitri had stolen and Francesca had used to build her case.

“Someone wanted you to believe everything was gone,” Mercer said.

“But they kept a second copy.”

I swallowed hard.

“Who?”

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he pulled out another photograph.

This one showed Dimitri entering the storage facility.

My blood ran cold.

“When was this taken?”

“Two days before your rooftop incident.”

I stared at the image.

Dimitri hadn't been protecting me.

He had been cleaning up.

“There’s more,” Mercer said.

He opened a second folder.

“We found a recording from one of the warehouses.”

My breathing stopped.

“A recording of what?”

“The night your husband and son supposedly died.”

For three years, I had believed that scene was the beginning of my nightmare.

Now I was learning it might have been the beginning of their entire plan.

Mercer pressed play on his laptop.

Static filled the room.

Then a man's voice came through.

“The woman is still investigating.”

Another voice answered.

“Let her.”

“As long as she keeps following the false leads, she'll never find the real operation.”

My fingers curled into fists.

Then I heard a voice I recognized instantly.

Dimitri.

“Make sure she survives.”

The recording ended.

I couldn't move.

For years, I had wondered why every dangerous lead somehow stopped just short of killing me.

Why the criminals always disappeared before I could reach the truth.

Why I was repeatedly injured but somehow always survived.

They hadn't been protecting me out of mercy.

They had been keeping me alive because I was useful.

I looked at Mercer.

“Why would Dimitri want me alive?”

He closed the laptop.

“Because you were the perfect investigator.”

“You were relentless, you had access to police resources, and most importantly, everyone believed you had a personal reason to hunt the people responsible for your family's deaths.”

I felt sick.

They had turned my grief into camouflage.

Mercer leaned forward.

“But there's one thing they didn't plan for.”

“What?”

“You surviving long enough to find the truth.”

He placed one final photograph in front of me.

It showed Francesca standing beside a man I had never seen before.

Behind them was a warehouse with a familiar red door.

My stomach dropped.

I knew that door.

It was from one of the earliest leads Clara had given me.

The same warehouse where I had found the first evidence of the organ trafficking network.

Mercer watched my expression.

“Do you recognize it?”

I nodded slowly.

“Then you also recognize the man beside your sister.”

I stared at the photograph.

And suddenly, I understood why Francesca had always been so certain I would never uncover the truth.

The man beside her wasn't a stranger.

He was the former deputy commissioner who had signed the order suspending me three years ago.

The man who had publicly called me unstable.

The man who had personally approved the destruction of my original case file.

My entire body went cold.

This wasn't just a family betrayal anymore.

It went far deeper.

Mercer closed the folder.

“Lorelei, if you want justice, you need to understand something.”

“The people who did this to you are still watching.”

I looked toward the window.

A black sedan was parked across the street.

Its engine was running.

And someone was sitting inside.

I smiled for the first time in days.

Let them watch.

This time, I knew they were watching me.

And this time, I was watching back.