Chapter 172
Lena's POV
The highway stretched ahead of us in the gathering dusk, headlights cutting through the violet haze that settled over the landscape. David drove with the same quiet efficiency he'd shown all day, his eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror in a rhythm I'd come to recognize as professional vigilance. In the backseat, Emily and I sat in silence, each lost in our own thoughts about what we'd just witnessed.
Emily was the one who finally broke the silence, her voice careful in the way it always was when she knew she was approaching something delicate. "Are you going to tell Diana?" she asked. "About Lily?"
I turned from the window to look at her, finding her expression open but concerned. She knew what I'd been wrestling with since we'd left Derek's apartment, since the moment I'd pieced together the truth about that surgical scar beneath Lily's ribs. The question wasn't whether Diana deserved to know—she did, absolutely—but whether knowing would help or hurt, whether it would close an old wound or tear it open wider.
"I'll tell her," I said finally, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. "She needs to know. This... it might actually help her understand what happened with Katya's case. The people who hurt Katya directly, who took advantage of her desperation and treated her like she was disposable—those are the real monsters in this story. Maria was complicit, yes. She helped them identify vulnerable people, she facilitated transactions that led to unimaginable suffering. But she was also trapped in her own nightmare, watching her daughter die and seeing no legal way to save her."
I paused, choosing my words carefully, knowing that what I said next mattered not just for Diana but for how I would carry this knowledge forward. "Maria is guilty of terrible things. She'll have to answer for what she did, for the part she played in a system that preys on the desperate and the powerless. But the real evil isn't one desperate mother trying to save her child—it's the system itself, the gaps in our healthcare that force people into impossible choices, the networks that profit from human suffering. That's what we need to fight. That's what we should focus our energy on now."
Emily nodded slowly, a small smile touching her lips. "She'll appreciate that perspective. And you're right—she won't see Katya's case as a failure anymore. She'll see it as the beginning of something bigger, a fight worth continuing." She reached over and squeezed my hand. "You know what else? I think she'll be proud of you for how you're handling this. For seeing the complexity instead of just the crime."
The validation settled warmly in my chest, easing some of the tension that had been coiled there since we'd left Derek's apartment. But there was still something else, something I hadn't been able to shake since I'd watched Lily curl into her father's side, since I'd seen the way Derek's hand had automatically moved to smooth her hair even in the midst of his own fear and confusion.
"I envy her a little," I said quietly, the admission slipping out before I could second-guess it. "Lily, I mean."
Emily's eyebrows rose slightly. "What?"
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it. "I know how that sounds. She's been through hell—her mother's gone, her father's struggling, she's carrying this terrible secret about where her kidney came from. Her life is objectively difficult in ways mine never was." I turned back to the window, watching the lights of the city grow brighter as we drew closer.
"But she has something I never did. Maria loved her enough to sacrifice everything, including her own soul, to keep her alive. Derek, for all his flaws and his anger, is trying his best to protect her. That's... that's real love. Unconditional love. The kind that doesn't calculate cost or benefit, that just gives because giving is the only option."
My throat tightened slightly, and I had to swallow before I could continue. "I spent my entire childhood trying to earn that kind of love. Trying to be perfect enough, quiet enough, useful enough that my parents would look at me and see someone worth protecting instead of a tool to be used or a burden to be managed. And I failed, over and over, because the problem was never me. They were never going to love me that way. They weren't capable of it."
The car's interior felt smaller suddenly, the darkness outside pressing against the windows. I felt Emily shift beside me, and then her arms were around me in the awkward confines of the backseat, pulling me into an embrace that was warm and solid and utterly without judgment.
"It's okay to envy that," she murmured against my hair. "It's okay to want what you should have had. I envy it too, honestly. The kind of love that doesn't keep score, that doesn't have conditions attached." She pulled back just enough to look at me, her hands still on my shoulders. "But here's what I want you to remember, Lena. You have the capacity now to give yourself that kind of love. You can be for yourself what Maria was for Lily—someone who fights for you, who protects you, who refuses to let you be sacrificed on someone else's altar."
I blinked rapidly, feeling the familiar sting behind my eyes that I'd learned long ago to suppress. But Emily's expression was so earnest, so filled with genuine care, that the usual defenses felt almost cruel to maintain.
"And you're not alone in this," she continued, her voice gaining strength. "You have people who love you unconditionally now. Me, for one. I'm not going anywhere, no matter how messy things get or how hard you try to push me away when you're hurting. Diana, who threw herself in front of a car for you without a second thought. Isabelle, who looks at you like you're the daughter she always wanted. Rachel and Sophia and the whole team, who followed you out of Madison because they believe in you as a person, not just as a lawyer."