Eleonora barely remembered driving to the State Attorney’s Office the next afternoon. Chicago traffic swirled around her, horns blaring, commuters rushing, but she was moving through it all as if inside a fog. Svyatoslav drove her, one hand steady on the wheel, the other occasionally resting on her knee—silent reassurance, grounding her back into the moment.
In the lobby, she spotted Assistant State Attorney Rachel Kim, the same prosecutor she had worked with years earlier. Older now, sharper somehow, Rachel approached with a tight smile.
“Eleonora. Thank you for coming.”
“Do I have a choice?”
Rachel’s expression didn’t change. “Not really.”
They walked into a small conference room. Files were stacked on the table. A recorder blinked red. A legal aide hovered in the corner.
Rachel sat. “I’m going to be direct. Ethan claims you deliberately altered financial data from Bradford Systems and created a false paper trail.”
Eleonora’s voice cracked. “I gave you what I found. Nothing was fabricated.”
“I believe you,” Rachel said. “But belief isn’t evidence. Ethan provided new material—a set of emails from an encrypted server. He says they prove someone else at the company orchestrated the fraud and that you pinned it on him.”
“That’s impossible,” Eleonora whispered. “I didn’t even know there was another server.”
Rachel slid a folder across the table. Inside were printed emails—messages allegedly between Eleonora and a former accountant, Max Dillon. The tone was wrong. The phrasing wasn’t hers. And yet… the timestamps matched dates she actually remembered working late.
“These are fake,” she said firmly. “Max and I barely spoke outside of work.”
Rachel nodded. “Max was found dead three weeks ago. Car crash in Indiana. Unrelated, at least officially. But the timing is… inconvenient.”
A chill rippled down Eleonora’s spine.
Rachel leaned forward. “Ethan filed a petition for post-conviction relief. If the judge believes there’s merit, the case will reopen. You will be investigated.”
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“You’ll give a formal statement. And you’ll need a defense attorney.” Rachel paused. “Preferably one who understands federal corporate cases. This won’t stay local for long.”
When the meeting ended, Eleonora stumbled into the hallway. Svyatoslav caught her before she lost her balance.
“What did they say?” he asked urgently.
She told him everything. His face darkened—not with fear, but with a colder, deeper anger.
“We’re not letting him destroy your life again,” he said. “I know someone. A good attorney.”
“Who?”
“Daniel Mercer,” he replied. “Former federal prosecutor. Smart, ruthless when he needs to be.”
He hesitated. “And… he’s my brother.”
Eleonora blinked. She had never met him; Svyatoslav rarely spoke of his family. But the urgency in his voice left no room for argument.
“Call him,” she said.
That was when her phone buzzed with a number she hadn’t seen in eight years.
Ethan.
She stared at the screen, feeling the world tilt again.
Svyatoslav whispered, “Don’t answer.”
But Eleonora did.
“Eleonora,” Ethan’s voice was calm. Too calm. “I heard you were back in the spotlight.”
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“A chance to talk. Privately.”
“You’re trying to implicate me in your crimes—”
“Crimes?” He chuckled. “You mean the ones you pinned on me?”
She gripped the phone tighter. “I didn’t frame you. And the State Attorney’s Office will prove it.”
“That depends on what they find, doesn’t it?” Ethan replied smoothly. “Data is malleable. Memories fade. But desperation—well, that leaves fingerprints.”
Before she could respond, he hung up.
Svyatoslav took the phone from her hands, checking the call log. “He’s baiting you. Don’t let him.”
But Eleonora wasn’t sure she had a choice.
Two days later, she and Svyatoslav met Daniel Mercer in his downtown office overlooking Lake Michigan. Daniel resembled his brother—tall, stern—but his demeanor was colder, more calculating.
He listened to everything without interrupting, tapping a pen rhythmically against a legal pad.
When they finished, he said, “Ethan’s building a narrative: disgruntled ex-wife fabricates evidence, sends innocent husband to prison. Juries eat that up.”
“That’s not the truth,” Eleonora said.
“Truth matters less than perception,” Daniel replied. “But we have a starting point.”
He spread photos across the desk—scans of Ethan’s alleged new evidence.
“These emails are doctored. Professional job, but sloppy in metadata. We can prove tampering. The question is who created them—and why now.”
Eleonora swallowed. “Could Ethan have done it himself?”
Daniel considered. “Possibly. But he’d need access to internal records from years ago. Someone is helping him.”
“Who?” Svyatoslav demanded.
Daniel tapped one photo. “Bradford Systems’ new CFO. Cynthia Harper. She joined during Ethan’s incarceration. And she’s been quietly lobbying to reinstate him.”
Eleonora blinked. “She’s never met me.”
Daniel leaned back. “Exactly. You’re a convenient scapegoat.”
He stood. “I’ll subpoena server logs. Meanwhile, you stay out of contact with Ethan.”
Eleonora nodded, though anxiety buzzed through her like electricity.
That night, returning home, she found a plain envelope taped to her apartment door. Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside was a single printed photo.
Her. Eight years younger. Standing outside a storage unit. Ethan in the background, partially blurred.
The caption—typed, not handwritten—read:
“You remember what was in there. I suggest you stay quiet.”
Her knees buckled. Svyatoslav grabbed her before she fell.
“What is this?” he demanded.
Eleonora’s voice was barely a whisper. “The storage unit… I never told anyone about it. Not even you.”
“What was in it?”
She looked up at him, terror filling her eyes.
“Evidence Ethan hid. Files. Hard drives. Things he told me to destroy. I didn’t. I kept them.”
Svyatoslav stared at her in stunned silence.
“If Ethan finds them before we do,” she whispered, “he can rewrite everything.”
And for the first time since the nightmare began, Eleonora felt truly afraid.
