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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32428
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32428
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If I were writing, they would have to be suspicious, no matter how this affected the story. The only good reason to NOT be suspicious is some form of love, romantic, sibling, parental, etc. For example, a son may not believe his own beloved father would betray him. I have a best friend of forty years that might as well be my sibling, we have been through multiple family deaths together (in his family and mine), victimizations, a fire, car crashes, murders in our family. I would not believe my friend could betray me.

For anybody else, a friend of a few years, a coworker or something like that, and **especially** anybody I knew that **had** betrayed somebody else in the past, suspicion is raised whenever some "anomaly" or "strange coincidence" occurs.

If I were writing, I think the lack of suspicion would break suspension of disbelief, it would look like a deus ex machina, like the bad guy accidentally leaving an obvious gaping hole in their defenses.

One thing you could do, for the better twist, is come up with a better twist for the suspicion. Make your traitor **also** realize the MC will suspect betrayal, so the traitor leaves behind clues or hints to the MC, so the MC suspect the **wrong person** of being the traitor.

If you can do this under the covers so the reader doesn't realize who the true traitor is (or thinks the true traitor is an ally) Then the MC is blind-sided when the true traitor is revealed, as you want.

Original score: 9