The Price of Exposure

The fallout was instant.

By noon, five governments had issued official statements. Lang's firm's stock plummeted 80% in an hour. Two international banks froze all accounts linked to the bribes in Emily's files. Protests erupted in front of embassies from Geneva to Washington. Footage of riot police and cardboard signs filled the news cycle.

Bella watched it unfold on a tiny hotel TV in Lucerne, wrapped in a blanket, her laptop still open on her lap. A cold breeze slipped through a gap in the window, but she didn't move to close it.

She should've felt vindicated.

Instead, all she felt was cold.

Not the kind of cold you could chase away with heat but the kind that lived under the skin. That settled into the bones. The kind that came with loss, and doubt, and a truth she hadn't been ready to face.

Mason walked in with two cups of strong, burnt coffee. He handed her one without a word.

"They're calling you a hero," he said after a moment.

She glanced at the screen. Her face grainy and taken from an old ID, was splashed beside headlines like Whistleblower Sister Exposes Global Scandal and The Woman Who Shook the System.

"I didn't want this," she said softly.

He crouched beside her, resting his arm on the bed. "Emily did."

Bella turned to face him. "Did she?"

Mason blinked. "What do you mean?"

She flipped open the leather notebook. Emily's notebook. The last pages—ones she hadn't dared read until now—were full of red markings. Crossed out names. Altered dates. Messages in shorthand Emily had created when they were teens to pass notes without getting caught.

She pointed at a line circled three times.

"M.B. compromised. Leaking to Lang. May be the reason they found me."

Bella's pulse thundered in her ears. She looked at Mason.

"Your initials."

Mason's face tightened.

"It's not what you think," he said carefully.

"Then explain it." She said to him.

"I gave Lang fake intel," he said. "To keep him off her scent. She asked me to. She didn't trust anyone else. She told me to be the leak, to protect the real whole story."

Bella stared at him, heart pounding. "You're saying she used you as a decoy?"

"Yes," he said. "And it worked."

She wanted to believe him.

God, she wanted to.

But something didn't sit right. His voice. The timing. The way he wouldn't meet her eyes.

That night, Mason stepped out to make a call. Something about a contact in Berlin. Bella stayed back, alone in the too-quiet room, her coffee untouched and cold. She played Emily's voice in her head, reading every journal entry again, scanning the shorthand with a detective's eye.

Then she found something.

Tucked inside the back cover.

A photograph.

Old. Creased. A little torn at the edge.

It showed Emily at a party, together with Lang. They were mid-conversation, blurry in motion. But Mason was in the background.

Standing with them.

Smiling.

Laughing.

And holding hands with Lang's assistant.

Bella's breath caught.

The timestamp on the back—if real—put the photo at least four years before Mason claimed he ever met Emily. Before he said he'd joined the cause. Before he told Bella he hadn't known Lang personally.

She stared at it for a long time.

Then she slid it back in the notebook.

Folded it.

Zipped it shut.

And waited in silence.

When Mason came back, smiling, holding takeout, she smiled back.

But this time, it didn't reach her eyes.

And Mason didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did.

And smiled anyway