Chapter 7
738 Words
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Three Years Ago — The Trial
The courtroom was packed. Too loud and somehow still suffocatingly quiet.
Eliza sat in the witness box with her hands locked together in her lap. Not relaxed. If she loosened her grip even a little, they’d start shaking; and she couldn’t let that happen. Not here. Not now.
David had gone first. Yesterday. Five brutal hours of testimony, laying out the FBI’s case piece by piece until Eliza thought she might actually be sick watching him do it.
Now it was her turn.
Across the room, Dmitri Volkov sat at the defense table in a suit that probably cost more than her car. Maybe more than her apartment. His posture was perfect. Back straight. Hands folded.
Viktor Kozlov’s right hand. The fixer. The man who made problems disappear.
Fifteen murders, minimum. The ones they could prove, anyway.
“Miss Hartwell,” the prosecutor said, stepping closer to the stand. Calm voice. Neutral. “You’ve been investigating the Kozlov organization for several years. Can you tell the jury what you discovered?”
Eliza inhaled.
David had drilled her for this. Every question. Every angle. Again and again until the words felt memorized, hollowed out, ready to be recited without emotion.
That was the idea, anyway.
“I was investigating a series of murders in Boston,” she said. Her voice sounded steady. She didn’t feel steady. “Young women. Mostly immigrants. Mostly undocumented. They were disappearing from their neighborhoods.”
She paused. Too long.
“The police classified them as runaways. But their families didn’t believe that. They kept calling. Filing reports. Begging someone to listen.”
Someone had to.
“And what did you discover?” the prosecutor asked.
“That the women were being trafficked,” Eliza said. The word still felt ugly in her mouth. “Forced into p**********n. Drug smuggling. Controlled by the Kozlov organization.”
Her jaw tightened.
“When they tried to escape, or when they threatened to go to the police, they were killed.”
She swallowed. Hard.
“I located twelve bodies. Twelve women who were murdered and dumped like trash because they wanted their freedom.”
The courtroom stirred. Whispers.
The gavel came down. Once. Twice.
“Order.”
Eliza barely noticed. Her eyes were already locked on Volkov.
“I traced the operation along multiple fronts,” she continued. “Nightclubs. Massage parlors. Shipping companies. All owned by shell corporations.”
She hesitated.
“All of those corporations led back to one person.”
She didn’t look at the jury this time.
She looked at him.
“Dmitri Volkov.” “He ran the trafficking network. He issued the orders. He is responsible for those women’s deaths.”
“Objection!” The defense attorney shot up so fast his chair nearly toppled. “Speculation!”
“Sustained,” the judge said sharply. “Miss Hartwell. Stick to what you can prove with evidence.”
Right. Evidence. Facts. Numbers. Paper.
Eliza nodded once. Too quickly.
“The financial records show direct payments from Mr. Volkov’s businesses to individuals later identified as the women’s killers,” she said. “Shipping manifests document unexplained cargo routed through his companies. And phone records…”
Her hands trembled as she lifted the document. Damn it.
“These show dozens of calls between Mr. Volkov and those individuals. Calls placed within hours of the victims’ deaths.”
She lowered the paper.
From the gallery, she found David.
He looked tight. Pale. But when their eyes met, he gave a small nod.
You’re doing fine.
“Miss Hartwell,” the prosecutor said, softer now, “you placed yourself at considerable personal risk to gather this evidence. Why?”
The rehearsed answer hovered on her tongue.
But something else slipped out.
“Because no one else was looking for them,” she said. “Because they didn’t matter to the system. Because they were invisible unless they were dead.”
Her voice wavered. She hated that it did.
“Because someone had to tell the truth about what happened to them.”
A breath. “Because they deserved justice.”
Through it all, Volkov didn’t move.
He watched her. Unblinking. Calculating.
And then, slowly, he smiled.
Barely there. A flicker. Something only she seemed to notice.
You think this is over. You think you’ve won.
Eliza felt ice run down her spine. At that moment, she knew this wasn’t finished…
- Writer
