The Weight of Truth

Celeste did not remember leaving the study.

One moment she was standing beside Dante with the tablet still glowing in her hands, Lauren Reed’s name burned into the screen like a brand, and the next she was moving down the corridor with no clear destination in mind.

Her footsteps echoed faintly against the marble floor.

Lauren Reed.

Her mentor.

The woman who had taught her how to build a case from fragments of truth and instinct. The woman who had insisted that justice was not about winning, but about proving what others tried to hide.

The same woman who had vanished the moment Celeste’s life began to fall apart.

Celeste reached the balcony before she realized where she was going. The morning air was cool against her skin, sharp enough to clear the lingering haze from her thoughts. She gripped the railing tightly, her knuckles turning pale as the implications of what she had just learned settled over her.

If Lauren had been involved from the beginning, then the case that sent Dante to prison had never been clean. Every piece of evidence she had presented. Every witness she had called.

Every argument she had made in that courtroom.

All of it had been built on a lie.

The sliding door behind her opened quietly.

She did not need to turn to know who it was.

“You should not be alone right now,” Dante said.

She laughed softly, though there was no humor in the sound.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been less alone.”

He stepped out beside her, stopping just close enough that she could feel his presence without being touched by it. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“She helped me,” Celeste said finally. “When no one else would. She believed in me when I was still just an associate who thought she could change the world.”

Dante’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon.

“And now?”

Her throat tightened.

“Now I don’t know what was real.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Do you remember the trial?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember how certain I was?”

He glanced at her.

“You were not uncertain about anything.”

“I was convinced I was right,” she said. “I believed the evidence. I believed the witnesses. I believed her.”

Her hands trembled slightly as she spoke.

“She was the one who pushed me to keep digging when the case stalled. She said there were inconsistencies in your financial records that needed to be exposed. She brought me the first report herself.”

Dante’s jaw tightened.

“And you trusted her.”

“Yes.”

The admission felt heavier than it should have.

“You should not blame yourself for being manipulated,” he said quietly.

She turned to him then, her eyes bright with something dangerously close to anger.

“I put you in prison.”

“Yes.”

“My brother is dead because I was chasing a lie.”

“That was not your doing.”

“You don’t know that,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t taken the case, if I hadn’t pushed it to trial, maybe he would never have started investigating it in the first place.”

Dante did not answer immediately.

Instead, he reached out, his hand settling gently against the railing beside hers. Close enough to feel. Not close enough to claim.

“Nate believed in you,” he said. “That is why he investigated.”

The use of her brother’s name made her chest ache.

“He wanted to prove that you were right,” Dante continued. “He wanted to expose the corruption that allowed someone like me to operate unchecked.”

“And now he’s dead because of it.”

“No,” Dante said firmly. “He is dead because someone wanted to silence him.”

Celeste looked away.

Below them, the estate grounds stretched out in careful symmetry. Guards moved along the perimeter, their presence a constant reminder that danger had not passed simply because the house had survived the attack.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Dante exhaled slowly.

“Now we find Lauren Reed.”

The name settled between them like a challenge.

“You think she’s still alive,” Celeste said.

“I think she did not disappear without reason.”

“And if she’s been working with Ethan this entire time?”

His gaze darkened.

“Then she has answers.”

Celeste swallowed hard.

“And Adrian?”

“We deal with him when the time comes.”

Something in his tone made her look at him again.

“You’re not going to wait,” she realized.

“No.”

The certainty in his voice was unsettling.

“You’re planning something.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not going to tell me what it is.”

A brief pause.

“Not yet.”

Frustration flared, but she forced herself to let it pass. If the last few days had taught her anything, it was that Dante rarely moved without reason.

“I want to see the rest of the files,” she said. “Everything connected to Lauren.”

“You will.”

“And Ethan.”

“Yes.”

She hesitated.

“And the trial.”

Dante studied her carefully.

“You are certain?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I need to know how much of it was real.”

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then he nodded.

“We begin this afternoon.”

The words should have comforted her.

Instead, they filled her with a quiet dread.

Because if Lauren Reed had been lying from the start, then the truth behind Dante’s conviction was far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.

And the deeper she dug, the harder it would be to pretend she had not helped bury it.

We are still on-arc and now transitioning into:

Trial corruption reveal

Mentor betrayal thread

Conspiracy deepening

Next chapter will begin exposing inconsistencies in the original evidence.