Chapter 13 - The Last LieMarcus Reed’s arrest should have ended it.
But men like Marcus rarely fall alone.
Two days later, Detective Hall called Mia again.
“We found something,” she said. “Marcus kept a private ledger. Your name is in it.”
Mia’s stomach tightened. “Why?”
“You delivered more envelopes than you realized. The people behind Marcus may try to claim you were involved knowingly.”
Mia sat down hard on her bed.
There it was.
The final cruelty.
Marcus had used her hands so he could keep his clean.
At the station, Mia gave her full statement. Every delivery. Every instruction. Every strange late-night customer she could remember.
Adrian waited outside the interview room.
When she came out, he stood.
“You okay?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m still standing.”
“Good.”
Mia looked at him. “What if they don’t believe me?”
“They will.”
“You sound sure.”
“I am.”
Before she could ask why, Detective Hall stepped out with a tablet.
“We recovered audio from Marcus’s office,” she said.
On the recording, Marcus’s voice filled the hallway.
“She’s just a waitress. She carries whatever I give her. If anything goes wrong, I’ll say she knew.”
Mia felt the words hit her like cold rain.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Detective Hall stopped the recording.
“That clears you,” she said.
Mia nodded, but she could not speak.
Adrian looked at her quietly.
“You were never invisible,” he said. “He only hoped you believed you were.”
May you like
Mia wiped her eyes.
And somewhere inside her, the last piece of Marcus’s power broke.
