SIENNA'S POV
I couldn't breathe.
Maya's nine-year-old face stared at me from the screen—victim seven, branded and broken. And beside her stood Celeste Moreau, the woman Maya now protected with her life.
The woman who was systematically murdering everyone from that case.
My phone rang, shattering the silence. Captain Torres's name flashed on the screen.
My hands shook as I answered. "Cross."
"We need you at a scene. Now." His voice was tight, controlled. The voice he used when something was really bad.
"Captain, I just found—"
"It's your father's house, Sienna."
The world tilted sideways. "What?"
"The eighth victim. It's Judge Raymond Cross. I'm sorry, but we need you here. There's... evidence. Things you need to see."
I was already grabbing my keys, my jacket, shoving my feet into boots. "I'm coming. Don't let anyone touch anything."
"Sienna, wait—"
I hung up and ran.
The drive to my father's mansion took twenty minutes but felt like hours. My mind raced through impossible thoughts. Maya was victim seven. Celeste was victim thirteen. My father helped cover up their trafficking. And now he was dead.
Did Maya know who killed him? Was she part of this?
No. Maya would tell me. We're best friends. We promised to always protect each other.
But she'd kept the biggest secret of her life from me for twenty years.
What else was she hiding?
I pulled up to my father's house—the place I'd grown up, the home I hadn't entered in three years. Police cars lined the circular driveway, their lights painting everything red and blue.
Officer Martinez met me at the door. "Detective Cross, maybe you shouldn't—"
"He's my father." My voice came out harder than I meant. "I need to see."
Martinez stepped aside.
The house looked the same as I remembered. Family photos on the walls—me as a kid, smiling and happy, not knowing what kind of man my father really was. The smell of his expensive cologne still lingered in the air.
I followed the sounds of activity to his study.
Captain Torres stood outside the door. He looked older than he had this morning, tired and sad. "Sienna, this is going to be hard. Maybe let the team process everything first, and—"
"I'm going in."
He didn't stop me.
My father's study was exactly how I remembered it. Big wooden desk. Leather chairs. Shelves full of law books he probably never read. And on the wall behind his desk, written in his own blood:
"Thirteen innocents must die for one guilty soul."
My father lay crumpled beside his desk, his eyes open and empty. Blood pooled around him, soaking into the expensive carpet he'd been so proud of.
I should have felt something. Grief. Anger. Loss.
Instead, I felt numb.
"We think it happened around midnight," Torres said quietly from the doorway. "The alarm system was disabled. No signs of forced entry. Whoever did this, your father let them in."
"He knew his killer." I knelt beside the body, my detective brain taking over. "Did he fight back?"
"No defensive wounds. It was quick. Professional." Torres paused. "Sienna, there's something else. We found a laptop in his safe. It was set to automatically send files when his heart stopped."
My stomach dropped. "What kind of files?"
"Police reports. Evidence from an old case. And a video message." Torres met my eyes. "Addressed to you."
I already knew what the video would say. I'd watched it last night on the flash drive someone had sent me. But I couldn't tell Torres that. Couldn't explain how I'd gotten evidence before the police found it.
"Show me the laptop," I said.
Torres led me to a side room where a tech officer was examining my father's computer. The video file sat on the desktop, ready to play.
"Give us a minute," Torres told the tech officer.
When we were alone, I pressed play.
My father's face filled the screen. The same confession I'd watched last night—about the trafficking case, the bribes, the thirteen girls he'd failed. But this version was longer. There was more.
"The girls were branded with numbers," my father said on screen, his voice breaking. "Victim one through thirteen. I told myself they were just case numbers, not real children. But they were real, Sienna. They were so real."
Tears streamed down his face.
"The lead investigator was Vincent Hale. He took the biggest bribes, buried the most evidence. But I helped him. So did a dozen others—judges, lawyers, cops, social workers. We all took money to forget those girls existed."
My hands clenched into fists.
"Someone is killing us now. One by one. Seven victims already, and I know I'm next." He wiped his eyes. "I deserve it. But Sienna, you need to know—victim thirteen is the key. She disappeared from the system at fourteen. No death certificate, no trail. Just gone."
He leaned closer to the camera.
"I think she's the one doing this. The killer. And I think she's planning something bigger than just revenge. There's a pattern to the murders—specific dates, specific locations. It's leading somewhere."
My pulse quickened.
"Find her, Sienna. Find victim thirteen before she completes whatever she's planning. Because when she does..." He shook his head. "I'm afraid a lot more people are going to die."
The video ended.
I sat frozen, my mind spinning. My father thought victim thirteen—Celeste Moreau—was the killer. But that didn't make sense. Celeste was victim thirteen. Why would she kill the other people who'd been trafficked with her?
Unless...
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Watch the rest of the files on the flash drive. The truth about victim thirteen isn't what you think.
I pulled out my phone and texted back: Who are you? How do you know about the flash drive?
Three dots appeared, showing someone was typing. Then:
Someone who wants the truth exposed. Watch file 13-B. The interview they buried.
My heart pounded. I turned to Torres. "I need to go back to my apartment. There's evidence I need to review."
"What evidence? Sienna, you can't work your own father's case. It's a conflict of—"
"He sent me files, Captain. Private files that might explain who's doing this." It wasn't exactly a lie. "Give me twenty-four hours. If I find anything, I'll bring it straight to you."
Torres studied my face for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "Twenty-four hours. But Cross? Be careful. Whoever's doing this has killed eight people. I don't want you becoming number nine."
I drove home faster than I should have, running red lights, my mind racing. Back in my apartment, I pulled up the flash drive files and found 13-B—a video interview labeled "RESTRICTED ACCESS."
I clicked play.
A girl sat in an interview room. Nine years old, dark hair, olive skin. The same defiant expression I'd seen in the group photo. Victim thirteen.
Young Celeste Moreau.
"Tell us what happened," a detective's voice said off-screen. It was Hale's voice. I'd know it anywhere.
"They hurt us," the girl said quietly. "All of us. But they hurt the others more because I told them which kids to take."
My blood went cold.
"What do you mean?" Hale asked.
"They said if I gave them names—kids from my foster home who nobody would miss—they'd be nicer to me. So I did." Tears rolled down her young face. "I told them about Maya. About the others. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The video cut to black.
I stared at the blank screen, horror washing over me.
Celeste hadn't just been victim thirteen.
She'd been the informant.
A nine-year-old girl, terrified and desperate, who'd given the traffickers a list of vulnerable kids to save herself. Kids like Maya.
That's what "thirteen innocents must die for one guilty soul" meant.
Celeste was killing everyone involved in the trafficking ring because she blamed herself for what happened to the other twelve victims. She was trying to atone for her own survival by eliminating everyone who'd hurt them.
Including herself. She'd be the thirteenth and final victim.
My phone rang. Maya's name flashed on the screen.
I stared at it, my finger hovering over the answer button.
Should I tell her? Should I warn her that the woman she was protecting had given her to monsters twenty years ago?
Or would that knowledge destroy what was left of Maya's ability to trust anyone?
The phone kept ringing.
I answered. "Hey, Maya."
"Si, thank God. I need your help." Her voice was panicked, breathless. "Something's wrong. Celeste got a death threat tonight—a real one, not the usual crazy messages. Someone knows where we're staying. The hotel room number. Everything."
"Where are you?"
"The Riverside Hotel, room 412. Can you come? Please? I know you're dealing with your father's death, but I'm scared. This threat was different. It said..." She paused. "It said 'victim thirteen's time is running out.'"
My entire body went rigid.
Someone else knew who Celeste really was.
"I'm coming," I said. "Don't open the door for anyone. Not even hotel staff. I'll be there in ten minutes."
I grabbed my gun and badge and ran for the door.
But as I reached for the handle, I heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Slow, deliberate steps. Then they stopped right in front of my apartment.
A piece of paper slid under my door.
I stared at it, my gun drawn, my heart hammering.
The footsteps walked away, fading into silence.
I picked up the paper with shaking hands.
It was a photograph—recent, high quality. It showed Maya and Celeste at today's rally, standing close together, smiling.
But someone had drawn a red circle around both their faces.
And written across the bottom in black marker:
"They both know the truth. They both have to pay. Starting tonight."
I looked at my phone, at Maya's contact information still on the screen.
She was in danger.
Real danger.
And I was the only one who knew that the woman she was protecting might be planning to kill her too.
I ran.