Three days later, the St. Louis Police Department held a memorial for Franco.
The entire force gathered to honor their fallen hero. Adelina was there too.
Dressed in a black trench coat, she stood at the back, silent and apart, like an outsider.
In the portrait, Franco wore his uniform, tall and proud, eyes shining with unyielding determination.
Adelina stared at his familiar face, her heart a tangled storm of emotions.
Did she hate him?
She told herself she did.
She despised him for doubting her, for sending her to prison with his own hands.
But when she learned he’d sacrificed his life to carve a path for her truth, her chest ached with a pain that burned raw.
After the service, a lawyer in a crisp suit approached her.
“Ms. Moran, Captain Alvarez left this for you.”
He handed her a small wooden box.
Adelina opened it, expecting perhaps a letter or final words. Instead, she found stacks of case files.
Those were documents detailing the frame–up three years ago and the massacre that had claimed her family eighteen years prior.
It turned out that Franco had been investigating Maurice all along.
From the moment he’d sent her to prison, he had been investigating in secret.
Franco hadn’t abandoned her. He’d been protecting her in his own, silent way.
At the bottom of the box lay a worn ultrasound report, a ring he’d never had the chance to give her, and a leather- bound journal.
With trembling hands, Adelina opened the journal. Franco’s bold, sprawling handwriting chronicled his journey over the past three years.
It recorded his initial suspicions, his shock, his rage, and finally, his crushing remorse and heartbreak.
The last page bore a single line.
“My Lina can finally go home. This time, I’ll walk into the abyss for her.”
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Chapter 9
Tears broke free, streaming down Adelina’s face.
She sank to the ground, clutching the box, her sobs raw and gut–wrenching.
She had thought her heart was long since dead.
But confronted with the love he’d never spoken aloud, she felt her soul fracture with unbearable pain.
***
A week later, Adelina burned the box and its contents.
The weight of the past, along with the love that had been betrayed, dissolved into the flames.
She reclaimed her true name: Adelina Siffredi.
Judson, too, shed his alias, becoming Judson Siffredi once more.
“Judd, I’m taking back everything that’s ours,” she said, her voice steely with resolve.
Judson met her gaze and nodded firmly. “Let’s do it.”
Maurice was gone, but the sprawling network behind him remained. Their family’s vengeance was unfinished.
This time, the siblings would fight side by side.
Adelina was a master profiler and hypnotist.
Judson was a battle–hardened detective with a sharpshooter’s precision.
Together, they formed an unstoppable force, ready to make those who had toyed with lives pay in blood.
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