Nadia's POV
I opened the Judge Rivers folder with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
The first document was a bank statement. Judge Catherine Rivers's name at the top. A deposit for five hundred thousand dollars dated one week before Dominic's trial started.
Source: A shell company owned by Victor Ashford.
No, I whispered. Not her. Not Judge Rivers.
Keep reading, Dominic said quietly.
I flipped through more pages. More bank statements. More deposits. Going back years. Decades.
Twenty years of payments from Victor Ashford to the judge I'd admired most in the world.
She's been on his payroll since before she became a judge, Dominic said. Victor funded her campaign. Got her elected. She's been ruling in his favor ever since.
I found case files next. Dozens of them. Trials where Judge Rivers had presided. Every single one involved Ashford family interests.
Evidence mysteriously deemed inadmissible. Witnesses blocked from testifying. Motions denied that should have been granted.
She threw cases, I said, my voice hollow. Deliberately. For money.
For twenty years.
I thought about every conversation I'd had with Judge Rivers. Her encouragement. Her advice about my career. The way she'd looked at me after difficult trials and said, Some cases can't be won, but they should still be fought.
All lies. All manipulation.
She told me I was doing good work, I whispered. She said I reminded her of herself when she was young.
She was positioning you. Making sure you'd trust her when the time came to destroy you.
The folder fell from my hands. Papers scattered across the floor.
Marcus had betrayed me. Sarah had betrayed me. And now Judge Rivers the woman I'd wanted to become was corrupt too.
How deep does this go? I asked. How many people in that courthouse are part of this?
All the way to the top. The Metro City courthouse is built on corruption. Has been for decades. Dominic started gathering the scattered papers. Victor didn't just buy a few officials. He bought the entire system.
That's not possible.
It's not only possible, it's profitable. Victor's been running this city's justice system like a business for twenty years. Prosecutors throw cases. Judges rule in his favor. Cops plant or lose evidence. Everyone gets paid. Everyone stays quiet.
I wanted to argue. Wanted to say the system couldn't be that broken.
But the evidence was right there in front of me.
I devoted my entire life to this, I said. Seven years as a public defender. Fighting for justice in a courthouse that was selling it to the highest bidder.
You were fighting for something real. The people you defended they needed you. That wasn't fake.
But it was pointless. If the judges were corrupt, if the prosecutors were bought what difference did my work make?
You gave people a voice. That matters. He handed me a cup of coffee I hadn't seen him make. Even in a broken system, someone fighting for the truth matters.
I took the coffee. Drank it. Tried to steady my breathing.
Show me the rest, I said. Day five evidence. Whatever it is.
You sure? This one's worse.
It can't be worse than finding out everyone I trusted is a criminal.
It can. He pulled up files on his computer. Linda Morrison. The federal prosecutor I'm accused of killing. These are the real crime scene photos. Not the sanitized versions shown at trial.
The screen filled with images that made my stomach turn.
Linda Morrison's body. Blood. So much blood.
But Dominic was right something was wrong with the scene.
Look at the furniture, he said, zooming in. Overturned chair. Broken lamp. Defensive wounds on her hands.
There was a struggle.
Yes. But the prosecution claimed she was shot execution-style without warning. That she never saw it coming. He pulled up the trial photos the ones shown to the jury. Notice anything different?
The trial photos showed the same room. Same body. But the furniture wasn't overturned. The lamp wasn't broken.
They cleaned the scene, I breathed. Before taking the official photos.
They staged it. Made it look like a professional hit instead of what it really was a struggle. A fight. He pulled up more photos. And look at this.
Blood patterns on the wall. Spatter that indicated the shooter was taller than Dominic.
You're five-eleven, I said. This spatter pattern suggests someone at least six-two.
Exactly. But this evidence was 'lost' before trial. Never made it to the jury.
Who lost it?
Guess.
Sarah. The name tasted bitter.
Detective Sarah Chen signed off on the evidence transfer. It disappeared somewhere between the crime scene and the police lab.
I stared at the photos. At proof that Dominic couldn't have committed this murder.
Linda was investigating Marcus for corruption, Dominic said. She'd been building a case for months. She was going to expose him, Judge Rivers, my father the whole network.
So they killed her.
And framed me for it. Killed two birds with one stone. Eliminated a threat and got rid of me.
How do you know she was investigating Marcus?
Because Linda contacted me two weeks before she died. She wanted to make a deal immunity in exchange for testifying against Marcus and my father.
I turned to stare at him. You were going to testify against your own father?
His expression went hard. Cold. He murdered my wife and daughter to punish me for trying to leave the family business. He deserves worse than betrayal.
The words hung in the air between us.
I thought about Elena and Lily. The photo on the shelf. A family destroyed by Victor Ashford's cruelty.
You wanted revenge, I said.
I wanted justice. There's a difference. He closed the crime scene photos. Linda offered me a way to destroy him legally. Through the system. I was considering it.
What changed?
She died before I could decide. And suddenly I was the one on trial for her murder. The perfect frame-up.
I saw it then the pain beneath his cold exterior. The same pain I felt about Marcus and Sarah.
We'd both been betrayed by the people we should have been able to trust.
So we're both victims of the people we trusted, I said quietly.
Dominic met my eyes. Which means we're the only ones who can take them down.
How? They control everything. The courthouse, the police, the evidence
We build a case they can't ignore. Overwhelming proof. Multiple sources. We expose every piece of corruption until the whole system collapses.
That could take months. Years.
We have 357 days left. That's enough.
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to think two people could take down an entire corrupt system.
But I'd believed in a lot of things that turned out to be lies.
Before I could respond, Dominic's phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen and his face went white.
What? I demanded. What is it?
He turned the phone toward me.
A text from an unknown number: Stop investigating or she dies.
Below the text was a photo.
Sarah Chen. Bound to a chair. Tape over her mouth. Blood on her face.
Alive. Barely.
Oh God, I whispered. They have her.
Another text arrived: You have 24 hours to surrender yourselves to the FBI. If you don't, Detective Chen dies. And her death will be on your conscience, Ms. Cross. Every second of it.
My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone.
It's a trap, Dominic said. Obviously a trap. They're using your emotional connection to Sarah to draw us out.
I don't care! We can't let them kill her!
She betrayed you, Nadia. Set you up. Helped destroy your life.
And she tried to fix it! That email from Officer Brooks Sarah felt guilty. She was trying to help. Tears burned my eyes. If she dies because of me
She won't die because of you. She'll die because she made enemies of people more powerful than her.
We have to save her.
We have to think. He grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. If we surrender, they kill us both. Then they kill Sarah anyway to cover their tracks. Three bodies instead of one.
So what do we do?
We
His phone rang. Unknown number.
He put it on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the room: Hello, Ms. Cross. Mr. Ashford. I assume you received my message.
Let her go, I said immediately. Sarah has nothing to do with this.
On the contrary, Detective Chen has everything to do with this. She planted evidence. Falsified reports. Helped frame you both. And then she got cold feet. Started feeling guilty. Even contacted Officer Brooks, thinking he could help her. The voice laughed. Bad decision.
What do you want?
I want you to stop investigating. Surrender to the FBI. Confess to helping Mr. Ashford commit crimes. And in exchange, Detective Chen lives.
You'll kill her anyway, Dominic said.
Perhaps. But at least Ms. Cross will have the comfort of knowing she tried to save her friend. Better than living with the guilt of letting her die, don't you think?
The line went dead.
I stared at Dominic, my heart pounding.
We can't just let her die.
We can't surrender either. It's suicide.
Then what?
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: We find her. Before they kill her.
How? We don't know where she is. We can't leave this building without being spotted by every cop in the city.
I have resources. People. Leo can
Another text arrived. Another photo.
This time, Sarah's face was clearer. She was crying. Terrified.
And behind her, barely visible in the background, was something that made my blood run cold.
A window. With a distinctive view of the harbor. And a sign partially, visible that I recognized.
I know where she is, I whispered.
Dominic looked closer. The old Ashford shipping warehouse. Pier 23.
Your father's property.
Former property. Supposed to be abandoned. His jaw clenched. It's a trap. They're using that location specifically because they know I'll recognize it.
But if Sarah's really there
Then we have a choice. Walk into an obvious trap to maybe save someone who betrayed you. Or stay hidden and let her die.
I looked at the photo. At Sarah's terrified face.
She'd betrayed me. Helped destroy my life. But she'd also been my best friend for five years.
I vote trap, I said.
Dominic stared at me like I'd lost my mind.
That's the stupidest
I know. But I can't let her die. I won't. I met his eyes. Are you going to help me, or do I do this alone?
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he sighed. We're both going to die, you know that?
Probably. But at least we'll die trying to do the right thing.
The right thing. He laughed bitterly. You're going to get us killed with your conscience, Counselor.
Then let's make it count.
He grabbed his phone and started making calls.
And I prayed we weren't about to make the worst mistake of our lives.