A Gift from Elena

POV: Malia

The courier envelope didn’t look like a threat. It sat on the edge of the granite kitchen island, disguised as a mundane promotional mailer for a boutique I hadn’t shopped at in years. I stared at the return address. A phantom company. Elena’s distinct, hurried handwriting barely peeked through the printed label, the looping ‘M’ in my name giving her away.

I waited until the housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, retreated to the laundry wing before I slid a butter knife under the adhesive flap. The envelope tore open with a sharp rip. Inside, wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap, was a matte black flash drive. No note. No explanation. Just a heavy piece of encrypted metal that felt ten degrees colder than the room. I slipped it into my pocket, the cold plastic biting against my thigh, and walked straight to my study.

The door locked behind me with a solid, reassuring click. I pulled my secondary laptop from the false bottom of my desk drawer—the one entirely disconnected from Jarrah’s household network. The screen flared to life, casting a harsh white glare across my knuckles. I plugged the drive in. A password prompt immediately hijacked the screen. Three attempts remaining.

Elena wouldn’t make it complicated. She knew my memory was tied to dates, to the few days in our family history that hadn’t been tainted by the police force’s internal politics. I typed in the date of our father’s last commendation. Incorrect. My jaw tightened. I stared at the flashing cursor, calculating Elena’s current state of mind. She was terrified, hiding in the shadows of a city that wanted her silenced. She wouldn’t use a badge number. She would use the day it all fell apart. I typed the date of the warehouse raid.

The progress bar turned green. The drive decrypted, spilling hundreds of P*F files across my desktop. I opened the first one.

The old family police ledgers. The real ones, not the redacted garbage submitted to the internal affairs committee. The pages were scanned haphazardly, some angled, some stained with coffee rings, but the names and payout amounts were crystal clear. I scrolled through the records, my mouse wheel clicking rapidly in the quiet room. Names of judges, precinct captains, and city officials were listed alongside off-the-books payments. My stomach turned sour. This was exactly what Jarrah had been looking for, the leverage he needed to dismantle the remaining opposition. If he knew I had this in the house, he would take it, and Elena would lose her only bargaining chip.

A shadow passed under the crack of my study door.

I snapped the laptop shut. The sudden silence in the room was deafening. Footsteps paused right outside my door. Jarrah’s heavy, deliberate tread. He didn't knock. He never knocked when he suspected I was isolating myself.

"Malia." His voice bled through the heavy oak, calm and authoritative, demanding attention without raising a decibel.

I shoved the laptop back into the drawer, locked it, and dropped the key down my shirt, letting it settle against my skin. I took a slow breath, composing the muscles in my face, and opened the door. Jarrah stood in the hallway, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that made his shoulders look impossibly broad. He smelled of rain and expensive scotch. His dark eyes scanned my face, registering the slight flush in my cheeks before flicking over my shoulder to the empty desk.

"You locked the door," he observed quietly.

"I was reviewing the charity gala budgets," I lied, keeping my tone perfectly flat. "The caterers are threatening to walk out if we don't approve the revised menu. I needed quiet."

He didn't believe me. I knew it by the way he lingered in the doorway, crowding my space without taking a single step forward. He reached out, his thumb brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His touch was light, but it carried the weight of a warning.

"Don't overwhelm yourself," Jarrah murmured, dropping his hand. "The gala is a triviality. If they cause problems, replace them. I prefer you focus on what matters."

He turned and walked down the hall, leaving me standing in the doorway with my pulse hammering against the metal key resting on my chest. He knew something shifted today. I had the ledgers. I had the power. Now, I just had to figure out how to use it without getting Elena killed.