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Chapter Eight

Later that night, the room was quiet when she got home. Bryan was asleep on the couch, mouth open, one leg dangling off the edge, the whiskey bottle leaning empty against the coffee table. The TV buzzed softly in the dark, casting blue shadows across his slack face. A rerun of some sports highlight show played to no one. She didn't bother waking him.
Nadia stood there for a moment, watching him. Once, she might have felt something—tenderness, maybe, or at least obligation. Now she felt only a dull recognition that they were traveling different paths, had been for some time.
She moved straight to the bedroom, shut the door, and locked it with a soft click. She paused, listening for movement, but there was nothing. Her laptop waited on the desk like a patient friend, the power light pulsing gently in sleep mode.
Nadia hung her jacket carefully over the back of her chair and sat down, running her fingers over the cool surface of the flash drive in her palm. She needs to review all the information she has, including checking out what's on the flashdrive. She took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive underwater, then slid the drive into the port. 
A single folder blinked open on the screen: "DonovanCase_D."
"Typical Jayson," she muttered. "Even your spelling errors are rushed."
Inside, she found documents—witness statements, coroner's reports, camera footage, even notes scribbled in Jayson's sharp, impatient handwriting. It was messy, unfiltered, raw. But real.
She leaned in, the screen's glow illuminating her face in the darkened room.
There was Naomi Peterson, twenty-one, pronounced dead from an overdose—except there were no drugs in her system. Just a bruise around her neck, and a puncture wound too clean to be random.
"Jesus," Nadia whispered, enlarging the autopsy photos. The girl's face was peaceful, almost as if she were sleeping, but the marks on her neck told a different story.
She opened another file, a police incident report filed but never followed up on. One report showed a possible match between the car seen near the alley the night Naomi died and a vehicle registered to a private security firm contracted by none other than Senator Lewis's campaign.
"Bingo," she breathed, feeling the familiar tingle of a story breaking open.
Then came an interview transcript—someone close to Naomi, talking about threats, secrets, and a man who promised to "make her disappear." The witness was identified only as "K.M."
Abigail scrolled, heart racing:
K.M.: She was scared. Like, really scared. Said this guy kept showing up wherever she went.
Officer: Did she describe this man?
K.M.: Tall. Wore nice suits. She said he had this way of smiling that never reached his eyes.
Officer: Did she tell you what he wanted?
K.M.: She wouldn't say exactly. Just that she'd seen something at the hotel bar where she worked"
Officer: And when was the last time you saw Cassie?
K.M.: Two days before... before they found her. She called me that night, though. Around midnight. She was crying, said she'd gotten into a car with him.
Officer: Did you report this?
K.M.: Yes, but no one believed me.
Abigail sat back, her heartbeat steady but firm. This was it.
This was more than just a story. It was a reckoning.
A soft knock at the bedroom door made her jump.
"Nady?" Bryan's voice was rough with sleep and alcohol. "You in there?"
She quickly minimized the window. Kept mute.
"Maybe she's slept," he mumbled through the door.
She heard him sigh, his footsteps shuffling away, then the creak of the couch as he settled back down.
When she was sure he was gone, she opened the files again. There was a photo of Senator Lewis at a campaign event, circled in red marker. Behind him stood a man with cold eyes and a perfect suit. Though blurred. Nadia squinted, zooming in on his face. There was something familiar there, something she'd seen before.
"Security Director," Jayson had scrawled in the margin. "Ex-military. Cleaner."
She pulled out her notepad and started scribbling headlines, angles, narrative arcs. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she began to structure the story—the victim, the silencing, the political link. She wasn't just writing an expose. She was laying out a map of rot that led straight to the top.
A text message lit up her phone.
Jayson: Did you look at it yet?
She texted back: Still on it. Will get back to you tomorrow.
The dots appeared immediately: Okay, I'll be waiting.
For the first time in weeks, Nadia felt alive. Her fatigue had vanished, replaced by clarity and purpose that hummed through her veins like electricity.
Nadia drafted the title: Suicide or Murder. Tell the public what happened in Westlake six months ago......
She worked past midnight, eyes burning but sharp, revising every paragraph, trimming fat, choosing each word like it mattered—which it did. She wrote like the promotion was already hers, like Mr. Tyrone was already reading this with his morning coffee and a raised brow that said, Now this—this is journalism.
At 2:30 AM, she heard Bryan get up and stumble to the bathroom. He tried the bedroom door again.
She listened as he walked away, wondering when his resentment had turned to support. But she couldn't dwell on it now. There was too much at stake.
By 3:00 a.m., the draft was done.
She saved it. Backed it up. Printed a hard copy and slipped it into a folder.
Then she sat back, stared at the ceiling, and smiled. A young woman's voice, silenced too soon, would finally be heard. Whatever came next—threats, backlash, danger—Nadia would face it.
She'd submit it first thing in the morning.
Let them try and overlook her now.
Nadia closed her laptop, the flash drive clutched in her palm. Outside, the first hints of dawn were breaking over the city. A new day. A new story. And with it, the sense that nothing would ever be the same again.

Book Comment (10)

  • avatar
    Villanueva Liquido Michell

    nice

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    VitóriaAna

    muito bom

    28d

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  • avatar
    Jester Garcia

    anobayan

    29d

      1
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