The One's We Thought We Knew

The One's We Thought We Knew
The rain hadn’t let up.

It streaked down the café windows in slow, heavy drops, making the world outside blur and drip like a watercolor painting left out in the storm. Isabella sat at the corner booth, a notebook open in front of her, filled with scribbles, names, arrows, and underlined lies. Camila sat across from her, chewing the end of a pen and staring blankly at the page.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Camila said. “Like… how can all of this be tied together? These people, this money, my face plastered on their brochures like I’m some kind of mascot.”

Isabella looked up. “Because they know how to play the long game. They count on silence. On shame. On girls like us being too afraid to ask questions.”

“Well,” Camila said, her voice flat, “they were wrong.”

They worked for hours—sorting the final batch of files Julian had uploaded to the shared drive. His betrayal still lingered like a bruise beneath Isabella’s skin, but the data he’d given them was real. Bank transfers, fake charities, a ghost company in Panama, hush money paid out to former employees. It was all there.

Enough to destroy the entire foundation.

Maybe even Muñoz himself.

Camila looked up. “So what now?”

“We leak it,” Isabella said. “Everything. With documents. Dates. Names. But we control the narrative this time. No spin.”

Camila hesitated. “Who do we trust to run it?”

“I have one reporter I still believe in,” Isabella replied. “An old friend named Nadia.”

Isabella reached for her phone, scrolled to the contact, and hit call.

Nadia picked up on the second ring. Her voice was cool, focused. “Isa. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

“You still working at The Current?”

“Freelance now, but I’ve got the audience—and the reach. Tell me you’ve got something.”

“I’ve got everything.”

Nadia paused, her tone sharpening. “You sure you want to do this? Once it’s out, it can’t be taken back.”

“I’m sure,” Isabella said.

“Then send it over,” Nadia said. “I’ll get to work immediately.”

Isabella hung up and nodded to Camila. “We’re doing this.”

Camila’s eyes welled slightly. “I don’t know if I should be scared or proud.”

“Both,” Isabella said softly. “Means you still have something to lose.”

They smiled, briefly. It was the kind of smile built out of war.

\---

That night, Isabella locked up the café, then sat in the back office alone. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, preparing to send the files to Nadia’s encrypted drive.

Before she could click “upload,” her phone buzzed.

A text.

Unknown Number: Don’t send it. He’s not who you think.

She frowned.

Isabella: Who is this?

No reply.

Her fingers hesitated, then moved to hit “send” again.

Buzz.

Unknown Number: One of your own gave you fake files. Cross-check before you burn everything down.

Her heart dropped.

She reopened the folder Julian had uploaded. Her eyes scanned the file names.

There was one folder labeled Confirmed. And another labeled Archives – Pending Review.

She opened both.

And that’s when she saw it.

The donation logs didn’t match.

Two entries—same date, same donor—one showed the money went to a nonprofit called Hope Works, the other claimed it went to Children of Valor.

But Hope Works didn’t exist. Not in any registry.

Isabella’s throat tightened.

She opened three more documents.

More discrepancies.

And then a fourth.

And a fifth.

Her stomach sank.

“Julian…” she whispered.

She tried to call him.

Straight to voicemail.

Then she called Camila.

“Hey,” Camila answered, voice groggy. “Everything okay?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been fed misinformation,” Isabella said. “Not all the documents are real. Some were planted to make it look like we were lying.”

Camila cursed softly under her breath. “How bad?”

“Bad enough to discredit everything if we release it as-is.”

“I thought Julian gave us the full truth.”

“He might’ve believed he did,” Isabella said. “Or maybe this was the plan all along. Give us just enough truth to tempt us, then lace it with poison.”

Camila went quiet.

“Do we still send it?” she asked.

“No,” Isabella said. “Not yet. We verify every line. Every dollar. We get real sources to back it up.”

They hung up.

Isabella sat in the dark office for a long time, her hands folded in her lap, heart thudding like a slow drumbeat in her chest.

Someone had played them.

The question now was: who?

And why?

\---

The next morning, Camila arrived early. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun, her hoodie zipped up to her chin. She dropped her backpack on the counter.

“I didn’t sleep,” she said.

“Neither did I,” Isabella replied.

Camila pulled out a yellow folder. “I found something. A school friend of mine interned at one of the council’s media firms last summer. She heard rumors about file fabrication. About how they sometimes plant bait for whistleblowers.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow. “You think they fed it to Julian?”

“I think they fed it to someone, and Julian might’ve been the delivery boy.”

They looked at each other.

Then Isabella said, “We need to find the source files. The originals. From inside the foundation.”

Camila’s eyes widened. “You mean go in?”

“Yes.”

“That’s suicide.”

“No,” Isabella said, “it’s justice.”

Camila swallowed. “You really think we’ll survive this?”

“I don’t know,” Isabella said honestly. “But we’ve come too far to stop now.”

Camila nodded.

Then she smiled faintly. “Alright. Let’s burn their house down.”