Chapter 5 - THE MAN VINCENT REFUSED TO BECOME
Vincent’s men captured one attacker.
Eight years earlier, Vincent would have taken him into a basement.
He would have used pain.
He would have called it justice.
Amelia watched him now.
“What are you going to do?”
Vincent looked at the terrified man.
Then at her.
“Call the FBI.”
His lieutenant Marco stared.
“The FBI?”
“Yes.”
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Vincent, we can get answers in ten minutes.”
Vincent knew exactly what Marco meant.
Amelia did too.
“No,” Vincent repeated.
The attacker was handed over alive.
Amelia later found Vincent alone.
“You did that because I was watching.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because Sofia was destroyed by men who believed their reasons placed them above rules.”
He looked at his hands.
“I’ve been one of those men.”
That confession mattered more than any promise.
Together they took the flash drive to federal investigators.
But Raymond anticipated them.
By morning, Amelia was on television.
Not as a victim.
As a thief.
Raymond publicly claimed she had stolen confidential prosecutorial records after becoming obsessed with him.
Photographs appeared.
Old messages stripped of context.
A recording was edited to make Amelia sound unstable.
The internet did what it always did.
It chose sides before breakfast.
Amelia sat in Vincent’s kitchen reading strangers call her liar.
“Stop.”
He took the phone.
“They believe him.”
“Some do.”
“He knew they would.”
“Yes.”
“Because he’s respectable.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Respectability is often just a costume with better tailoring.”
Amelia laughed despite herself.
Then cried.
Vincent did not tell her to stop.
He sat beside her.
Nothing more.
May you like
And somehow that was exactly enough.
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