Truth in the Fire

The room was dark, lit only by the flicker of one exposed bulb overhead. The air stank of sweat, metal, and fear. Bella sat on the floor, wrists zip-tied to the base of a rusted metal chair. Her lip was split, blood drying on her chin, her head pounding from the last blow.

She'd lost count of how long they'd been holding her.

Hours? Days? Time meant nothing in a place like this.

Mason was in another room, if he was still alive.

Across from her, Monroe lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. His shirt clung to him with sweat, his collar askew, his face pale under the flickering light. He looked like a man unraveling at the edges, tired, desperate, and no longer in control of anything.

"You have no idea what's in that notebook, do you?" he said finally, voice thin and mocking.

Bella didn't answer. Her silence wasn't defiance. It was calculation.

"You think it's just Lang? You think he's the only monster in this story?"

He crouched beside her, exhaling smoke into the stale air between them.

"Emily was playing everyone," he whispered. "Even you."

Bella's stomach twisted at his words. She shook her head, forcing strength into her voice. "Liar."

Monroe smiled like a man with nothing left to lose. "You didn't read the full file, did you?" he asked, cocking his head. "The names? The dates? The donors? She cut deals, sweetheart. With people worse than Lang. People who funded her exposés in exchange for silence on their sins."

"You're lying," she hissed again—but it sounded less certain now, more wounded than before.

"I'm surviving," Monroe said softly. "Something Emily forgot to do."

The door burst open with a crash that echoed like a gunshot. A guard stumbled back into the room, gurgling, blood pouring from a deep slash across his neck.

Behind him came Mason, wild-eyed and limping, his shirt torn and streaked with blood, a gun shaking in his grip.

"Get away from her," he growled.

Monroe raised his hands, backing up a step. "Relax. Just talking."

Mason didn't relax.

He fired twice.

Monroe dropped like a stone. No scream. Just silence.

Bella flinched, her breath caught in her throat.

"You killed him!" she shouted, voice shaking.

Mason met her eyes, breathing hard. "He was already dead," he said quietly. "He just didn't know it yet."

Outside, sirens wailed, distant but growing closer.

They didn't have much time.

Mason sliced through the zip-ties with a pocket knife and helped her up. Her legs buckled beneath her at first, but she clung to his shoulder, notebook pressed to her chest like it was life itself.

"Zurich police will be here in minutes," he said. "Lang has people at the U.S. embassy. We can't go back. Not yet."

Bella shook her head. "We don't need the States."

"What?"

She looked at him with a fire in her eyes he hadn't seen before. "We go to the press."

"Here?"

"Everywhere."

Back at a small, rented flat on the outskirts of Zurich, Bella sat hunched over a battered laptop, surrounded by cables, notes, and Emily's files. Her fingers moved with purpose. Mason leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her. His ribs ached with every breath.

"You sure about this?" he asked quietly.

Bella nodded. "It's not just about Emily anymore."

She wasn't the same girl who'd run from Chicago, hunted and afraid.

She wasn't her sister either.

She was something else now, something harder and sharper.

And she had nothing left to lose.

She opened the encrypted drive.

Thousands of files bloomed on the screen—photographs, wire transfers, shipping records, medical reports, secret memos.

She uploaded everything to six different international media outlets.

Then she opened a blank document.

Her message was short, honest, and razor-sharp.

By the time the sun crept over the rooftops of Zurich, her words were live across the internet.

"My sister was murdered for uncovering the truth.

This is her voice. And now it's mine too." – Isabella Marie Rowan