Chapter 8: What Selena Knew
They met in a coffee shop on the west side.
Small.
Quiet.
The kind of place where nobody looked up from their own table.
Selena Ward was already there when Amara arrived.
She looked different without Dante's house around her.
Smaller.
The polished stillness Amara had noticed in the breakfast room was gone.
She sat with both hands wrapped around a coffee cup, and when she looked up, there were shadows under her eyes that no amount of careful makeup had fully covered.
Amara sat down across from her.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
"I'm not going to apologize," Selena said.
"I know that's what you're waiting for."
"I'm not waiting for anything," Amara said.
"You asked to meet.
I'm here."
Selena looked at her for a long moment.
Then she reached into the bag beside her chair and placed a small USB drive on the table between them.
"What is that?" Amara asked.
"Three years of recordings." Selena's voice was flat.
Controlled.
"Dante talking about accounts your forensic accountant hasn't found yet.
Dante talking about people he's paid to make problems disappear.
Dante talking about the federal investigation — he's known about it for six weeks.
He has a source inside the bureau."
Amara looked at the drive.
She didn't touch it.
"Why do you have this?"
"Because I stopped trusting him eighteen months ago." Selena's jaw tightened.
"He told me I was the only one.
That you were a business arrangement.
That once the baby was born he was going to restructure everything and I would have a real life with him." She looked down at her coffee.
"I believed him for longer than I should have.
When I stopped believing him, I started recording."
"And the federal investigation?"
"I went to Hale eight months ago.
Before I had any of this." She nodded at the drive.
"I went because I had seen enough to know that if Dante ever decided I was a liability, there would be no one to protect me." Her eyes came back up.
"I went to Hale to protect myself.
Not you.
I want to be honest about that."
"I appreciate that," Amara said.
"But you're not a liability to me.
You never were." Selena's voice dropped slightly.
"You were just the person he went home to.
And I told myself that meant you were fine." A pause.
"I know that's not how it works."
Amara looked at the drive again.
"If I take that," she said, "and it comes out that you gave it to me—"
"Then Dante will know I've been building a case against him." Selena's hands tightened around the cup.
"He already suspects.
Victor Cass's motion this morning — that wasn't about your documents.
That was Dante testing me.
Seeing if I would react."
"Did you?"
"I texted you."
A quiet moment passed between them.
"Selena," Amara said carefully.
"The source inside the federal bureau.
The one Dante has.
Do you know who it is?"
Selena looked at her.
"That's the other thing on the drive," she said.
Amara picked it up.
It was lighter than she expected.
Small enough to close her fist around.
"You should go straight to Philip Osei," Selena said.
"Not to Hale.
Not yet.
Let your lawyer hold it.
Let him decide how it enters the case."
"And you?"
Selena looked out the window at the street.
"I have somewhere to go.
I've had it ready for a while."
"Will you be safe?"
The question seemed to surprise her.
She turned back to Amara with an expression that was difficult to read.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
"But I'm safer than I was yesterday." She stood, pulling her coat on.
"For what it's worth — your daughter is going to have a mother worth knowing." She picked up her bag.
"That's more than most people get."
May you like
She walked out without looking back.
Amara sat alone at the table, the drive in her closed hand, and watched the door settle shut behind the woman who had just handed her everything she needed.
