Chapter 5

If she was an impostor, she had to have captured Lyra to extract all these intimate details about our childhood and our operations.

But if she had Lyra captured, why did she allow the cartel to be completely dismantled?

And now, instead of taking the cartel's millions and fleeing to a non-extradition country, she was actively trying to fly back to the United States—where law enforcement and surveillance would make her life ten times more dangerous!

"Hey!" she knocked sharply on the door. "Do you need me to call an ambulance? Don't tell me you're pulling a Tyler and pulling a muscle from straining too hard on the toilet!"

I froze.

"I'll be right out!" I called back.

The confusion in my mind deepened.

If she just wanted to fool me, knowing my childhood secrets was enough. Why did she also know that Tyler, one of our rookie colleagues from six years ago, had once passed out from food poisoning in the precinct bathroom?

Even under the most brutal torture, Lyra would never have volunteered such a useless, trivial piece of office gossip.

And Lyra would never break. Her conviction was ironclad.

I walked out of the stall. The moment I opened the door, she wrapped her arms around me, checking my forehead for a fever. Her worry felt so incredibly real.

Was it possible... that the prolonged torture had simply damaged Lyra's brain? Had she developed some form of amnesia that made her confuse the "maple tree" warning with a real memory?

It was the only logical explanation left.

"Lyra, I think we need to go to the hospital," I whispered, leaning against her. "My stomach really hurts..."

Before I could finish, she swept me up into her arms in a bridal carry.

"Excuse me! Where is the nearest hospital?" she shouted to the restaurant host, her face pale with panic.

She rushed me into a cab, her eyes red as she squeezed my hand. "You've lost so much weight, Alana. I remember when you took a bullet in the shoulder five years ago, you were so much heavier when I carried you to the ER."

I closed my eyes, forcing my tears back. I couldn't say a word.

I wanted to believe she was Lyra.

I went to the hospital to buy time. While the doctors ran fake tests on my "stomach flu," I secretly handed a few strands of her hair—which I had pulled from her jacket—to a trusted forensic colleague who was part of the clean-up team.

If the DNA test came back as a match, we would go home together.

If it didn't... I would personally drag her into an interrogation room.

The next twenty hours were a living hell. I sat by her hospital bed, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Finally, my phone buzzed. It was an encrypted Snapchat from my colleague.

*“DNA results are in. It’s Lyra. No discrepancies. She is who she says she is.”*

The moment I read the text, I threw my arms around her, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I'm fine now, Lyra. Let’s go home. Let's finally go home!"

She beamed, immediately pulling out her phone to book the next flight to New York.

In the Uber to the airport, we were buzzing with excitement, planning all the places we wanted to travel to. We talked about road trips, concerts, and expensive dinners we could finally afford.

It felt like walking out of hell straight into heaven. Having Lyra safe was all that mattered.

"Oh, wait—"

As we pulled up to the departures terminal, Lyra suddenly paused. "We don't actually have much savings, do we? The department's bonus and hazard pay will take months to clear through bureaucracy. How are we going to pay for all these trips?"

She smiled warmly. "Why don't we go dig up the emergency fund our parents left us? We agreed we would only touch it once the cartel was dead and buried."

I stopped dead in my tracks. "What fund?"

Lyra laughed, a perfectly natural, easy sound. "What do you mean, 'what fund?' Did you forget?"

"The cash we buried in the lockbox right under the Tree of Vengeance."