Leo took a slow, steadying breath and stepped out into the cool night air.
He had hoped he would never have to contact Nash again. Their history was complicated, buried in a past Leo preferred not to revisit. Years ago, Nash had helped Leo secure justice for someone who desperately needed it when the legal system had failed them. Nash operated in the shadows, an expert at unearthing the things people fought to keep buried. He was a ruthless, unsettling professional who knew exactly how desperate Leo must be to reach out to him again.
Nash stepped out of the SUV. He wore a black leather jacket, his demeanor calm and amused.
"Leo," Nash greeted, pulling a thick manila envelope and a sleek silver flash drive from his pocket. He tossed them onto the hood of Leo's car. "I brought what you asked for. And then some."
Leo stayed perfectly controlled, but inside, his muscles were coiled tight. He had spent weeks needing these answers and dreading them at the same time.
"It's ugly," Nash warned, leaning against his own vehicle. "Your guy and his girlfriend weren't careless all the time, but they were incredibly arrogant. And arrogance always makes people sloppy in ways they never notice."
Leo reached for the flash drive.
"Before we get to the good stuff," Nash said, his voice dropping into a dark, casual register. "I should tell you... my wifey may have gone a little overboard."
Leo went completely still. "What does that mean?"
Nash shrugged lightly. "She handles some of our digital surveillance. After seeing what we uncovered about your guy and his mistress... she decided the woman deserved a little extra punishment, since you and I were already dealing with the bastard. You know how she gets when she spots a bully."
Nash didn't explain what his wife had done, or how she had managed to do it. He simply handed Leo a phone from his pocket and tapped the screen.
A video began to play.
It showed Amanda standing in a lavish marble bathroom. She was screaming, her face contorted in unadulterated panic, as she dragged her hands through her hair. Large clumps of dark hair came away in her fingers, exposing patchy skin underneath. She looked terrified, humiliated, and broken.
Nash let out a dark chuckle. "Obviously, I'm not charging you for that. That was a gift from my wife."
"How did she pull that off?" Leo asked, his eyes fixed on the screen.
"As if she'd share her tricks and secrets with me. You two went to college together, so you should know what she's capable of after what happened back then."
Leo chose not to overthink the variety of untraceable mixtures that would make something like that possible and went back to staring at the screen. He tried to feel pity. He tried to feel a twinge of guilt. He tried to tell himself that Amanda, no matter how awful, didn't deserve to be physically terrorized.
But then his mind flashed to Olivia. Olivia standing in the doorway of her own bedroom, shattered. Olivia hiding in his guest room for a week, so devastated she couldn't even stomach a glass of water.
Leo felt absolutely nothing for Amanda.
Not pity. Not guilt. Not even a shred of satisfaction. Just a cold, dark absence where mercy should have been.
Somewhere deep down, Leo knew he should be disturbed by his own lack of sympathy. But after everything Amanda had helped orchestrate to destroy the woman he loved, he simply could not make himself care.
"Show me the rest," Leo said coldly, handing the phone back.
Nash nodded, opening the thick envelope on the hood of the car.
The evidence was staggering. It was everything they needed to completely dismantle James and Amanda’s fabricated story.
There were deleted text messages recovered from cloud backups. Detailed call logs. Hotel receipts booked under the name of Amanda’s sister, even though she was living and working abroad at the time. Rental car records.
But it was the messages between James and Amanda that made Leo's blood run cold.
"Not everything in here can be handed straight to a judge as-is," Nash clarified, pointing to the flash drive. "Some of these are just leads. You’ll need your lawyer to subpoena the right records, get sworn statements, and route it through the proper legal channels so it holds up in court. But this gives you the exact map. It tells your guy exactly where to look and what to demand."
Leo wasn't just receiving magic proof; he was receiving the loaded gun that would let the lawyers prove exactly what James and Amanda did.
Leo scanned the top page of the recovered text transcripts.
Amanda:Your wife really believed the late meeting excuse again?James:She always does. If she starts asking questions, I’ll tell her she’s spiraling.Amanda:You’re too good at making her apologize for noticing things.James:Because she wants to believe me more than she wants the truth.
