Alya couldn't move.
Her eyes were fixed on the woman standing behind Arka.
She looked older than she did in the photos they'd found all this time. Her hair had begun to turn gray, and a few age lines had appeared around her eyes, but Alya couldn't possibly have mistaken her identity.
That woman was Livia Wijaya.
The woman who had always been called the first victim.
The woman every document claimed had died fifteen years ago.
Alya stared at Arka, holding her breath. “She's... Livia?”
Arka nodded.
“My mother.”
Livia said nothing. She only stared at Alya with an expression that was difficult to read.
Raka, still lying in bed, also looked stunned. For the first time, his face showed genuine panic.
“Livia...”
The woman turned toward Raka.
“It’s been a long time, Raka.”
Raka stared at her as if he were looking at someone from the past who should never have been able to return.
“You should be dead.”
Livia gave him a faint smile.
“That’s what they wanted.”
Alya looked back and forth between them.
“Wait. So has everyone been lying all this time?”
Livia walked closer.
“Not everyone.”
“Then who?”
Livia stopped a few steps in front of Alya.
“Your father.”
Alya immediately shook her head.
“Don’t talk about my father like that.”
“Your father wasn’t a bad man, Alya.”
“Then why is his name in every one of these cases?”
“Because he was trying to fix a mistake he’d made in the past.”
Alya fell silent.
Arka took a chair and placed it beside Alya.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’ve spent too long listening to stories from people who hid the truth. Now hear it from the beginning.”
Alya remained standing.
“Where do we start?”
Arka looked at his mother.
Livia sighed.
“Fifteen years ago.”
Livia began to tell her story.
“Fifteen years ago, I worked for a company owned by the Wijaya family. From the outside, the company looked clean. Many people knew it as a major company that helped develop the city.”
Alya listened intently.
“But inside, things were different. Money flowed to all sorts of places. Transactions were never officially recorded. People were paid to make sure certain cases never reached court.”
“Who was behind all that?”
Livia looked at Alya.
“People with power.”
Alya furrowed her brow.
“Including the Wijaya family?”
Livia nodded.
“People within the family, too.”
Arka cut in. “You found documents about those transactions.”
“And that’s why they killed you?”
Livia fell silent.
“They tried to kill me.”
Alya froze.
“Tried?”
“I managed to escape.”
Alya stared at the photo of Livia that had always been considered proof of her death.
“Then how did everyone come to believe you were dead?”
Livia looked at Raka.
Raka lowered his head.
“Because we made them believe Livia was dead,” he said.
Alya turned to him at once.
“We?”
Raka nodded.
“Me, your father, and one other person.”
“Who?”
Raka didn't answer.
Livia did.
“The person who's looking for you right now.”
Alya grew even more confused.
“Why me?”
“Because the last document was with your father.”
“What document?”
Livia looked at Arka.
Arka opened his bag and pulled out a thin folder.
“This.”
Alya took it.
Inside was a single photocopied document.
Its title read:
LIST OF CASES ILLEGALLY DISMISSED
Seven case numbers were listed beneath the title.
Alya read them one by one.
The first case.
The second case.
The third case.
All the way to the seventh.
But at the very bottom was a name that left Alya speechless.
Darman Mahardika.
“Dad?”
Livia nodded.
“He was the one who gathered the evidence.”
“But why didn’t Dad report it?”
“Because every time he tried, the people around him received threats.”
Alya shook her head.
“So Dad kept everything?”
“Yes.”
“And then he was killed.”
Livia didn't answer.
Alya already knew the answer.
Tears slowly fell from her eyes.
“Who killed Dad?”
The room fell silent.
Arka looked at Raka.
Raka closed his eyes.
Alya immediately realized something.
“You knew.”
Raka opened his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I can't say without proof.”
Alya laughed bitterly.
“After all these lies, you're still talking about proof?”
Raka looked at her.
“Because if I say that name now, you'll become a target, too.”
“I’m already a target!”
Raka fell silent.
Alya wiped away her tears.
“That’s enough.”
She took the folder.
“I’ll find the evidence myself.”
Livia grabbed her arm.
“Don’t.”
Alya looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because the person who killed your father is still alive.”
Alya froze.
“And he knows you’ve found everything.”
Suddenly, the sound of something breaking came from the hallway.
Crash!
Arka immediately stood up.
“He’s here.”
Raka tried to get out of bed.
“Who?”
Livia stared at the door.
“The person truly behind the seven cases.”
Alya held her breath.
Footsteps sounded outside.
One step.
Two steps.
Drawing closer.
Arka drew a weapon from his waistband.
“Everyone, move back.”
The bedroom door suddenly opened.
A man entered wearing a police uniform.
Alya let out a sigh of relief for a moment.
But Raka immediately shouted,
“Don’t trust him!”
The man stopped.
His hands slowly rose.
Alya stared at his uniform.
“He’s a cop.”
Raka shook his head.
“No, he’s not.”
The man smiled.
Then he removed the badge from his chest.
“That’s right.”
He tossed it onto the floor.
“Because I haven’t been a police officer for fifteen years.”
Alya stepped back.
The man looked at her.
“Finally, we meet, Alya.”
Alya recognized that face.
Not because she had ever met him.
But because she had seen it countless times in her father’s old documents.
The name written there was—
Bima Prasetyo.
The man who should have died three years ago.
Alya looked at Raka.
“He...”
Raka nodded.
“He’s the person we’ve been looking for all this time.”
Bima smiled.
“And now, Alya...”
He locked the bedroom door from the inside.
“...we’re going to finish the case your father failed to solve.”
Outside, sirens suddenly began to wail.
But this time, they weren't coming from the police.
They were coming from an ambulance carrying someone out of the hospital.
Alya didn't know that a few minutes earlier, an officer had found something inside Raka's car.
An old envelope.
Written across it were the words:
FOR ALYA, IF RAKA DIES.
And inside the envelope was a single sentence from her father:
Don’t trust Livia.