Chapter 1: Shadows of the Past
Like a brave warrior, Lena Martinez entered the large courtroom filled with confidence. Her high-heeled shoes sounded like a drumbeat on the stone floor as her concentration increased to a new level. Today, however, she was no longer the defeated woman she used to be. She had become a prominent criminal defense lawyer – with judges, clients, and rivals all on the receiving end of her respect. And just as her chestnut-colored hair framed her face, that jacket was tamed to her body.
But it was just her outward composure that was calm. Her heart was racing. The moment the judge pronounced the decision in favor of the party she represented, such exhilaration turned the tight grip of tension inside her body. Thanks to her team, she turned and gave them a quick, almost brusque bow, close to the storm that was obvious just beneath the calm of her face. This win wasn’t a win to her; it is a step forward, a far cry from the devastation she had faced five years ago.
The hearing was over and the audience dispersed, excluding Lena, who was still lost in thought staring at the judge’s bench. She had been to a courtroom before but this time as the defendant facing charges of a crime she hadn’t committed. It was called embezzlement. It tormented her like a badge that almost destroyed her whole being. And alex – God, alex. How could he have ever fallen for such a lie?
This memory pierced her as it had on the day it occurred. Alex Donovan, her life, her world had been across the room, his gaze filled with doubt and anger as he tore her apart.
Shaking her head, Lena had to force herself to breathe. Today wasn’t about the past. She had won—again. She had risen from the ashes. But the feeling of justice, the sweet taste of revenge was never fulfilled. Not while Richard Dalton lived freely the earth, living off her misery and exploiting her pain.
Lena was packing her things when her phone rang. She looked at the message on the laptop—there was a message from the reception. "Ms. Martinez, there’s a package for you.",
Lena’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t ordered anything. Her triumphs were not celebrated, let alone alone in her world where the dangers were real and threats around every corner were very reachable. With a sardonic smile, she dismissed her assistant and grabbing the case files to herself walked off to the lobby.
The receptionist gave her a slim, white, and unmarked tissue paper – looking parcel. No sender’s name. No return address. Her feeling turned sour in her stomach. It had been years since anyone dared to send her anonymous mail.
She took the package and having a sense of fear creeping up her spine she tried to ignore it. When he was gone and she was safely in the office she locked the door, and then, sitting down at the desk, she stared at the package as if it contained TNT. Stupid concept, and yet she couldn’t get this idea off her head.
Her fingers got underneath the seal and tore the envelope open. Inside were a stack of papers—old financial records, spreadsheets, email correspondences. Her breath hitched. It was all familiar. Too familiar.
Her heart dropped.
Dalton Corp.
The name jumped out at her, and with it, a flood of memories she had buried so deep surged to the surface. She skimmed the documents quickly, her pulse accelerating with every page.
It was all here, the missing embezzlement, fake accounts, lost funds and anything you can imagine. But this time, there was something new: an inscription, a name, handwritten in the margins of the last page.
John Wilkes.
An ex accountant, one of Dalton’s most reliable men who disappeared into thin air after the scandal emerged five years ago. The final witness that could have testified that Lena was innocent, if he had not go missing.
The simple writing beneath his name with a pen, made her shiver.
"I’m ready to talk."
Lena stopped moving, the words turning to a haze in front of her. Could this be real? Could the great missing link – John Wilkes – finally be surfacing after all these years?
She put the papers down with her hands trembling with adrenalin running through her nervous system. This was it. The break she had waited for. The opportunity to vindicate herself once and for all; something she had wanted for a very long time. But with it was a dangerous fact—someone was watching her, and someone wanted her to keep silence.
She leaned back in the chair, the feeling of the next step sinking in. As her fingers traced the edge of the note, her mind drifted back to the moment her world had crumbled.
Five Years Earlier
“Tell me the truth, Lena.” Alex raised his voice, raw with a blend of desperation and anger. He slouched around the room helplessly punching his fists.
Lena was totally confused, totally devastated as she had never seen Alex like this—so distant, so cold. It was as if the man she loved had been swapped by another man she did not even know.
“I said I did not do it!” she yelled, crying at the same time. She stretched out her hand and he drew back as if her fingers were hot coal. The documents on the top of the coffee table looked like a time bomb between them – the evidence of her engagement in Dalton Corp.’s financial scandal.
Alex shook his head. “The evidence, Lena. How can you explain this? The accounts, the money—” The words chocked him. “I don’t want to believe it. But this…”
The fact that he doubted her broke her more than any kind of accusation in the world. This was Alex. The man, she had expected to spend the rest of her life with. It is the one person she had trusted most of all the others. And now, he was looking at her as though she’d never been something he considered important enough to hold dear, as though she were wanted for murder.
You REALLY think I can do this? Stealing? From the company?" She lost her breath with her words, her eyes welled with tears as she looked straight into his eyes; searching for a sign, a flicker of the man who loved her.
Alex hesitated for a second and then in his eyes, there was a war. But then his jaw set, and the cold, accusing look, was back.
“I really don’t know what to think anymore,” he barely said.
Hearing these words was like a sharp knife to Lena’s chest .
Lena fell, sliding all the way down until she sat on the couch cushion. “You don’t trust me…” Her voice rose slightly to a mere audible level as she cried alongside her tears.
Alex moved across the room and effectively turned his back to her though he shakily clutched the edge of the table. “I can’t afford to be wrong. If this is true… if you did this… His voice broke.
But she didn’t hear the rest. All around her it seemed as though her world was caving in on her; her heart cracking into small pieces. The man she loved didn’t believe her. And that was sufficient to annihilate her completely.
Present Day
Lena’s throat ached as she forced the memory away, causing her to blink rapidly. That pain, she had locked for years, trying to build a new life for herself, piece by piece. But those wounds were felt and still aching just beneath the skin.
Her phone rang on the desk, bringing her back to the present day. She looked at the screen and she immediately caught her breath when she saw the name.
Alex Donovan.
She stood there, phone at hand with her fingers resting on the device, unwilling to make a call. Now he comes calling me after five years.
The phone rang again, this time impatiently. Finally, she took a deep breath and she answered.
“Lena” Alex’s voice was low and his tone was gravely at that moment. “We need to talk.”
For a moment or two she was struck dumb. His voice was different; it was deeper; he was older and there seemed to be sorrow in him, almost like regrets. But she could not afford to be carried away by his words she had to caution herself against that.
“Why?” she asked coldly. “What could you possibly have to say to me now?”
She didn’t hear anything on the other end of the line. Then, quietly, Alex replied saying, “I was wrong.”
Lena’s heart skipped a beat, with a clenched fist and anger surging up inside her, she shouted “You’re five years too late, Alex.”
“Yes,” he whispered quietly. But I believe that somebody wants to harm you once more. And I won’t let them. Not this time.”
His words seemed to make her frightened, as if what he said was really true. She looked at papers scattered on her desk, a name ‘John Wilkes” reflecting under the low light that was on in her office.
“Meet me,” Alex said, breaking the tension filled silence. “Please. Let me explain.”
Lena bite her lower lip deep into her thoughts. Could she trust him? Could she put her faith in the man who had left her when she had most depended on him?
But before she could answer, the line went dead. Lena almost squeezed the phone she was holding; she was now breathing unevenly. The past was not a thing of the past. And, it appeared, Alex Donovan was not either.
As Lena sat in her office quietly, staring at the now dark phone screen, she kept pondering. The ghosts of the past had returned, and with them, Alex—asking for a second chance. But could she risk it? Could she allow him back into her life though the reality that she had so feared will come knocking at her door was already present?
Lena sighed and looked at the papers scattered all over her table one last time before she could shed tears. Somewhere, out there, John Wilkes was waiting to talk...
And so was Alex.
