Her First Day as a Prosecutor Should Have Been a Triumph—Then She Opened a Case Tied to Her Brother

Sirens screamed along Flatbush Avenue, but by the time the NYPD cruisers and the SDNY tactical squad arrived, the alley was empty.

No bodies. No spent casings. Only a smeared streak of dark blood on the fire escape railing that the rain was already washing away.

Nelson Gould, the chief of the Criminal Division, arrived at 4:30 a.m. Gould was fifty-two, impeccably groomed, with thin silver hair and gold-rimmed wire spectacles. He wore a heavy wool overcoat over his pajamas and held a steaming paper cup of coffee.

"It was an intimidation tactic, Felicity," Gould insisted, pacing the hardwood of her torn-up studio while two forensic techs dusted the window frame. "Mercer's people wanted to scare you off the grand jury. They’re getting frantic because you’re pushing too hard on the Delaware shell companies."

Felicity stood with a blanket wrapped over her shoulders, her hands wrapped around a paper cup of lukewarm tea. Her thumb was digging so hard into her palm that the skin was white.

"It wasn't Mercer's people who broke in," she said quietly.

Gould paused, adjusting his glasses. "What are you talking about? You saw Mercer on the fire escape."

"I saw him *kill* the man who broke in," Felicity corrected, her voice sharp. "The man who came through the window had a silenced weapon with an untraceable Russian suppressor. He wasn't here to scare me, Nelson. He was here to execute me. Mercer’s men pulled him out."

Gould frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly behind his lenses. "Felicity, you’ve been awake for forty hours. You’re under immense pressure. Knox Mercer is a ruthless sociopath who has eliminated six rivals in the last five years. If he was outside your window, it was to clean up a botched operation. He’s playing you."

"And what about this?" Felicity said, gesturing toward the names on her legal pad. "Caelum Logistics. Why wasn't that file included in the primary discovery packet from your office?"

Gould’s expression didn't change, but his fingers tightened minutely around his coffee cup. "Caelum was an inactive entity. It was tangential. We don't flood grand juries with irrelevant noise."

"It was founded the same month Patrick Mercer went to war with Warren Hail," Felicity countered. "It's the heart of the whole operation. Why did you redact it?"

"Because I am your supervisor, Felicity, and I decide trial strategy!" Gould snapped, his voice echoing in the small room. He caught himself, exhaled slowly, and softened his tone. "Look. You’re the best young prosecutor I’ve ever seen. But you’re too close to this. Go home to Vermont for forty-eight hours. See Ruth. Clear your head. I'll have the Marshals place a detail on your farmhouse."

Felicity didn't answer. She simply watched him.

When Gould left with the detectives, Felicity didn't pack a bag for Vermont. Instead, she waited until the hallway was silent.

*Check the box behind the radiator in your hall closet, Rosalind.*

The words burned in her ears like fire.

She walked out into the narrow, carpeted communal hallway of the fifth floor. Beside her apartment door stood an ancient, peeling cast-iron radiator that hissed continuously throughout the winter months. Behind its heavy pipes lay a dark, cobwebbed crevice between the floorboards and the baseboard.

Felicity knelt. Using a long kitchen knife, she probed the dark recess.

Her blade struck something metallic.

She reached in, ignoring the greasy dust, and pulled out a flat manila envelope sealed with red wax.

There was no address. No stamp. Just three handwritten words on the parchment:

*For my sister.*

Felicity’s breath caught in her throat. Her hands trembled so violently she could barely break the wax seal.

Inside was a single official document: an original police report from the Newark Police Department, dated October 14, 1999.

*Victim: Rosalind Mercer, age 4.*

*Incident: Kidnapping at St. Mary Kindergarten.*

*Distinguishing physical marks: Small birthmark shaped like a crescent moon behind the left ear.*

Felicity dropped the paper as if it were a white-hot ember.

Her hand flew to the back of her left ear.

Her fingertips traced the skin. There, hidden beneath her dark curls, was the small, faint crescent-shaped mark she had carried for as long as she could remember—the mark Ruth Davenport had once gently washed when Felicity was fourteen and sick with pneumonia.