Chapter 4

I couldn't wrap my head around it. When did the switch happen?

Three years ago, Lyra went completely dark. The other four undercover agents our department had placed inside the cartel were brutally executed.

Everyone thought Lyra was dead too.

Without hesitation, I volunteered to take over. Under Director Miller's coordination, I managed to seduce Zach, one of the cartel's top lieutenants, and worked my way inside the syndicate.

That was when I saw Lyra again.

She was locked in a water cage in one of the safe houses. Her face was barely recognizable, and her body was a mass of infected, weeping chemical burns.

Zach had laughed, pointing at her. "Our boss thinks she’s a cop. Personally, I think we got the wrong girl. No cop survives six months in the water cage without singing."

I had to play the cold, unbothered mob mistress. I couldn't show a hint of emotion.

But during a brief moment when Zach turned his back, our eyes locked. Lyra’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen, but they were burning with an fierce, unbroken light.

She silently mouthed three words to me: *Tree. Of. Vengeance.*

In that split second, I nearly shattered. She had survived the worst hell imaginable, and she was still fighting.

I knew, with absolute certainty, that she was the real Lyra then.

Later, she was moved out of the cage. Another lieutenant, a sick psychopath who took a perverse liking to her scars, took her in as his personal plaything.

For the next two years, we used our proximity to exchange critical intel through coded symbols left near a dead-drop location. She never betrayed me. In fact, she saved my life twice.

So she must have been real during that time too.

When could they have possibly switched her?

"Alana, the shop just Snapchat-ed me. The new snow globe is ready," the woman across the table said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Let's book the flight, grab the globe, and head home."

She was pushing to leave again, and I was running out of excuses.

"My stomach is killing me," I lied, grimacing as I stood up. "I need to use the restroom. Wait for me."

Inside the stall, I locked the door and pulled out my phone. I sent an encrypted message to our tech support, demanding they send over every single coded exchange Lyra and I had made during our undercover years.

We had communicated using complex symbols drawn on a specific brick wall near an inconspicuous alley.

I scrolled through the logs, analyzing every single dot, dash, and stroke. I looked for shifts in pressure, slight variations in the symbols, or any minor detail that would indicate a different hand had taken over.

But after reading them over and over until my eyes blurred, I found absolutely nothing. They were identical.

"Alana? Are you okay in there?" the impostor’s voice drifted through the restroom door, filled with urgent concern. "If your stomach is that bad, I can run to the pharmacy and grab you some medicine! We're going to miss our flight if we don't move!"

A cold sweat broke out across my forehead. A glaring question hit me:

*What was the point of this impersonation?*

***