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I tore off the rubber band and flipped through the photos. There was no reason for me to care about these pictures, but something kept me going.

Some nagging sensation in the back of my throat and in my gut told me there were answers here. Answers that I needed.

The first few were innocent enough—Alina as a child, standing uneasily beside an older man with sharp features. He had the same sharp nose she did, the same eyes. Her father, perhaps? He had a large, cheesy grin for the camera and he looked like he would be a normal, caring father. But something was off.

The way Alina positioned herself told a different story.

She was shrinking away from him, like his hand on her shoulder physically hurt her. Even as a child whocouldn't have been older than seven, maybe eight, Alina was afraid of him.

The next few photos painted a different story. Her father wasn't in them. In his place was an elderly woman. Alina's grandmother, most likely.

The woman's eyes were kind, her arm wrapped protectively around Alina's shoulders in almost every picture, and Alina looked…content in the first few.

But then her smile widened, and she looked happy.

The transformation was remarkable. Under her grandmother's care, the timid child blossomed.

If I were to guess, I would say the love and attention her grandmother gave her was what she needed to come out of her shell. But as I went deeper into the stack, the images grew…unsettling.

Her father was in more photos, same cheesy smile, but in each photo he was in, Alina's and her grandmother's smiles were tight and didn't quite reach their eyes. In more than a few, the grandmother and Alina wore long-sleeve shirts even though they were outside, while the father wore a T-shirt and shorts.

My jaw clenched as the pattern became clear.

Then there was the one that stood out and made my teeth clench.

Alina looked like she was maybe fourteen. There were banners all around them for the Fourth of July. Some kind of cookout. Her father wore that same stupid grin and a T-shirt.

The grandmother was looking off-camera, unable to smile, and Alina was wearing a long-sleeve shirt with ahigh neck and her hair down, in front of her eye. I could just see the outlines of a bruise under her hair.

Rage, pure and vicious, surged through me.

If I ever got my hands on the son of a bitch, I was going to kill him.

The pictures got happier again. Alina as an older teenager, in weather appropriate clothing. No bruises and a genuine smile. The grandmother's face looked serene, at peace, but there were shadows in her eyes, and in each picture, she seemed to age faster and faster.

The old woman had sacrificed everything to protect Alina. The toll was written in every line of her face.

I wrapped the rubber band around the pictures again and set them aside, removing more things from the backpack.

My fingers stilled when I found an envelope marked “Evidence.” The word was scrawled in bold, jagged handwriting across the front.

My blood turned cold, and instincts screamed at me as I slid my thumb beneath the flap and began to pull out some of its contents.

Did she work for the feds? She wouldn't have been the first one of our civilian employees to get into trouble with the feds and turned into an informant.

Several years ago, Artem had a gardener that got pulled over for drunk driving, and the police had tried threatening him with everything to turn against the family. Thankfully, he was smart enough to come to us, and it was dealt with accordingly. The gardener never saw the inside of a cell, and the police got absolutely nothing.

The few who tried working with the government did not fare as well.

If Alina was working for them…I wasn't sure I could protect her.

Sucking in a deep breath, I held it until my lungs burned, making a silent wish that it wouldn't come to that.

Then I focused my attention on the first photo.

The image made my blood run cold.

Alina stood beside her grandmother again—but parts of the grandmother's face had been burned away in perfect circles. A cigarette had been placed on the photo, blackened holes where the old woman's eyes should have been.