At that moment, a gunshot rang out, sharp and deafening.
A spray of blood erupted from Judson’s arm, the scalpel clattering to the ground.
The shot had come from Adelina.
Unnoticed by anyone, she had positioned herself on the far side of the rooftop. A sniper rifle cradled in her hands, its barrel still smoking.
She looked at them coldly.
“When did I ever need you to fight my battles?” she said, her voice cutting like ice.
Judson clutched his bleeding arm, his gaze feverish with devotion as he looked at her.
“Lina!”
The intimate nickname hit Franco like a sledgehammer.
He whipped his head toward Adelina, then back to Judson, a horrifying realization clawing at his mind.
They looked… familiar to each other.
“You did well,” Adelina said, lowering the rifle and stepping toward Judson with deliberate calm. “But it’s not enough.”
She reached into his pocket and pulled out a small USB drive.
“This has everything you’ve gathered on ‘Mr. X‘ over the past three years, doesn’t it?”
Judson nodded weakly.
“Everything’s backed up there.”
“Good.”
A faint, satisfied smile curved Adelina’s lips.
Then, in a move that stunned everyone, she raised the rifle and smashed its butt against the back of Judson’s head.
He let out a muffled groan and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
The rooftop fell into a deathly silence. Everyone was dumbfounded.
“Adelina! What the hell are you doing?” Franco snapped out of his shock, rushing to check on Judson.
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Adelina ignored him. She walked over to Rebecca, who was paralyzed with fear, and crouched down to meet her
eyes.
“Now it’s just you and me,” she said softly, her voice a velvet blade.
“Rebecca, do you know what I excel at more than profiling criminals?
“It’s… hypnosis.”
Rebecca froze, terror flooding her gaze.
“No… please, don’t…”
Adelina paid no heed to her pleas. With a slow, deliberate snap of her fingers, Rebecca’s eyes glazed over, her expres- sion turning vacant and hollow.
“Tell me who Mr. X is,” Adelina commanded, her voice weaving a spell of compulsion.
“I… I don’t know…” Rebecca murmured, her words slurred.
“No, you do know,” Adelina pressed, her tone sharpening with authority.
“Think harder. When he contacted you, was there anything… distinctive?
“His voice, his scent, maybe a small habit?”
Rebecca’s empty gaze flickered with a trace of struggle.
After a long pause, she whispered, “He… he had a smell…
“A faint… antiseptic scent, like disinfectant…
“And… his finger. He wore a ring….
“It had… an eagle engraved on it…”
Franco’s mind raced, piecing together fragments at breakneck speed.
Suddenly, a face flashed in his memory, and his blood ran cold.
No. He couldn’t believe that!
“Anything else?” Adelina urged, her voice relentless.
“There’s more…” Rebecca’s body shook violently. “He… he told me to plant something in Frank’s office…”
“What was it?”
“A… listening device.
“I hid it… in the cactus you gave him…”
Franco’s world collapsed.
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That cactus had been Adelina’s first and only gift to him three years ago. He had kept it proudly on his desk ever
since.
And all along, his every move had been spied on.
He had placed a surveillance device in his own office with his own hands. And the person behind it…
Franco’s gaze shot to Adelina, his eyes brimming with shock and a fear he refused to acknowledge.
It all clicked into place.
Judson, Rebecca, and the elusive Mr. X. In the web of betrayal and deception, a single thread emerged.
It pointed to the one person Franco least wanted to believe–the man he had revered as a mentor, a father figure.
Maurice Watson, the former chief of the St. Louis Police Department.
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