Page 155 of Requiem
I lower my gaze, jaw locking hard enough to snap.
Later, Adela is called forward, carrying herself with the same confidence she always does. Rafe watches her the entire time, his fingers drumming slowly against his thigh while she speaks.
The recovered files are introduced gradually. Vlad’s name surfaces repeatedly throughout the documentation, each mention pulling the courtroom farther away from the narrative the media originally built around me. Because suddenly this isn’t about a violent musician spiraling publicly out of control.
It’s about a system built around coercion, murder, blackmail, and psychological domination. Alexei stops becoming a dead criminal in a headline and becomes what he actually was:
an architect.
Nolan’s role is carefully reconstructed within that framework. Not innocent. But manipulated, unstable, weaponized when useful and discarded when necessary. A man shaped into both intermediary and shield while Alexei maintained distance from direct exposure.
I stare down at my hands while legal language folds itself around the dead. Then Adela says something that changes the entire room again.
“There is one additional piece of evidence,” she says calmly.
Levi inclines his chin, turning behind us to retrieve something from Micah.His phone.
I narrow my gaze on it as Levi walks up to the stand. “What is that?” I ask.
Micah just sighs, his blue eyes falling to the floor. “I’m sorry I kept this from you.”
I tilt my head. “What do you—”
“This was recovered before the altercation,” Levi says, his gaze clashing with Micah’s. “Privately recorded from someone who is now dead.”
I go completely still.
No.No fucking way.
The static crackling softly through the courtroom speakers makes something cold slide slowly down my spine. Nobody moves or even seems to breathe. Across the room, reporters sit frozen over notebooks.
Then Micah’s voice cuts through the static. “Whenever you’re ready, Adri.”
The sound of it hurts me. Because knowing him, he already knew this conversation was going to haunt him forever.
Then comes the sound of Adriana breathing. One shaky inhale. “I don’t really know how to start this,” she says softly. “I guess honesty’s a good place.”
A horrible ache blooms slowly in my chest. The courtroom remains deathly still.
“I know I’m going to die,” she continues after a moment, and several people visibly shift at the bluntness of it. “Either now trying to escape Alexei…or years from now trying to escape my own mind.”
I stare forward without blinking.
“For the record…she asked me to record this,” Micah says quietly somewhere within the audio, his voice gentle. “Just say whatever you need to say.”
Adriana lets out a weak laugh then, but there’s no humor inside it. “God. That’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s too much to say.”
Paper rustles softly somewhere behind us before silence swallows the room again.
“I met Nolan when I was fifteen,” she says. “I thought he was brilliant at first. He made me feel chosen. He told me that he could make me a star.” Her voice cracks slightly on the last word before steadying again. “I trusted him. But after I was supposed to meet someone for a voiceover audition, I had a night that I still can’t remember clearly. I awoke beside him in bed in some hotel. He told me that he filmed us partaking in sexual acts.”
She pauses.
“We can stop this,” Micah whispers on the audio.
“No, it’s fine,” Adriana collects herself. “I was too scared to say no to him after that. He told me no one would ever take me seriously if they saw I was a…a whore.”
Emma lowers her gaze behind me.
