LANCE'S POV:
The morning came too early.
Or maybe it just felt that way because i hadn't really slept. I'd been staring at the same screen for hours, rewatching the same loop of grainy CCTV footage from the bar that night, slowing it down frame by frame, looking for something, anything that could make this make sense.
But like always, the footage ran out of clarity at the exact point it mattered.
A blur of bodies, dim lights, bad angles. No weapon. No clear suspects. Just Luis smiling one second, then collapsing behind the curtain of noise and bodies the next.
Dead. And now Aurora Ysabelle Zobel—A-list actress, national sweetheart, my temporary houseguest, was neck-deep in a case that stank of setup.
A soft creak pulled my eyes from the laptop.
The guest room door was slightly ajar.
She must've gone back to sleep.
Or maybe she hadn't slept either.
Hard to tell.
Aurora had a way of walking around like she was fine, like she wasn't breaking slowly under the weight of it all.
Her resilience scared me sometimes. Because i could tell it wasn't real. It was survival.
A knock cut through the condo, firm, quick, sharp. No warning. I tensed, immediately walking over to the door.
Three men in plain clothes stood on the other side. One of them flashed a badge.
"Attorney Montenegro?"
"Yes," I said, already bracing.
The guy in front handed me a thick, sealed envelope. "This is for Ms. Zobel. Subpoena. She's being summoned to appear before the panel on Thursday morning."
I stared at it, unmoving. "Noted."
They left just as quickly.
The door clicked shut.
The envelope stayed in my hand like it weighed ten pounds.
She didn't need this.
Not today. Not after everything.
But keeping it from her wasn't an option either.
I knocked gently on the guest room door. "Aurora?"
A beat of silence.
Then her voice, soft, cautious. "Yeah?"
I opened it slowly. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees. Her hair was still tousled from sleep. She looked up at me, eyes puffy, but alert.
"Got something for you," I said, and held it out.
She didn't move for a moment. Just stared at it like she already knew.
"What is it?"
"A subpoena. You're expected to testify. Thursday."
Her hands trembled slightly as she took it. She didn't cry.
She just swallowed hard, blinked once, and looked away.
"Okay," she whispered.
I hated how broken she sounded when she said it.
Like she was expecting the worst.
Like she didn't even have the energy to argue.
I crouched beside her. "Hey. I'm going to be right there with you."
She nodded, still avoiding my eyes. "I know. I just… I didn't expect it to feel so real. This—everything, it still feels like a nightmare."
I wanted to say something comforting.
But words felt useless.
So i just stayed there, crouched next to her, while she stared down at the subpoena like it was some kind of death sentence.
The rest of the day passed in a kind of quiet blur.
Aurora moved through the apartment like a ghost. She was trying, I knew. Cleaning up after herself, keeping busy. At some point she tried making tea and forgot the kettle was still heating until it whistled like a siren.
Bianca showed up in the afternoon to drop off more clothes and toiletries, looking grim-faced but professional.
We didn't talk long.
Just small nods, quiet glances.
She knew what the subpoena meant.
After she left, I sat back at my desk.
I had to work.
I had to keep digging.
There was something wrong with this case. The timelines didn't make sense.
The statements were too vague.
And there was zero motive for Aurora to hurt Luis. The two of them were friends. Close friends.
So why the hell was she being dragged into this?
My phone buzzed with a notification, an internal memo from a friend in the NBI. A casual favor. The toxicology report from the night of Luis Padilla's death. I skimmed through it, heart pounding.
And then i froze.
"MDMA," I muttered under my breath. "Luis had MDMA in his system?"
That wasn't new.
But it was what wasn't there that sent my pulse racing.
No alcohol.
No depressants.
No signs of struggle.
So why did the autopsy report say 'blunt force trauma'?
I didn't get the chance to dig deeper.
"Lance?" Aurora called from the hallway, voice small.
I looked up.
She was holding her new phone, Bianca must've set it up for her.
Her face was pale. Not crying, just... distant.
"I saw the headlines," she said. "Selena got the role."
I nodded slowly. "Yeah. I heard."
"And the skincare brand?" she added, voice cracking. "They dropped me. Signed her instead."
"She's your friend, right?"
Aurora nodded. "Yeah. She is. I'm happy for her. I really am."
But i could see the pain underneath.
"They're not waiting for this to be resolved," she said. "They're just… moving on. Like i'm already guilty."
"You're not."
She looked at me then, really looked.
Like she was searching for something in my face.
"You keep saying that," she said. "But you weren't there either."
"I've seen enough to know you didn't do it."
"What if that's not enough?" she whispered.
The silence stretched between us.
Then, before i could stop myself, I said, "It will be."
She closed her eyes. "I don't know how to be strong right now."
"You don't have to be. That's my job."
That night, while she was asleep, I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop glowing in the dark.
I played the footage again.
Zoomed in.
Zoomed out.
Clicked through reports.
Every time i tried connecting the dots, the same thing stared back at me:
It didn't make sense.
And then i remembered what Aurora had said the night before, about not being able to remember anything after her third drink.
I pulled up the bartender's statement.
And froze again.
The timestamps didn't match.
Aurora's drink was timestamped 10:43 PM.
But her last appearance on footage at the bar was 10:51 PM, barely tipsy.
Yet she blacked out before 11:15?
I stood up suddenly.
No new evidence.
No new witness.
Just time.
Something was wrong with the timeline.
I grabbed my notebook and wrote it down, underlining it twice.
Timeline.
Because if the times didn't match…
Then maybe the whole thing was a setup.
And whoever did it made one mistake,
They forgot i keep digging.
Even when it hurts.
Even when it doesn't make sense.
Even when i have no reason to care.
Especially then.