Chapter 5 - THE ATTACK WAS NEVER ABOUT KILLING ME
The man who rammed my convoy was alive.
That surprised everyone.
Six months earlier, police found the abandoned vehicle three miles from the crash site.
No driver.
No useful prints.
Fake registration.
The attack had been blamed on a rival crew.
Convenient.
Too convenient.
Carmine reopened everything.
The truck had been purchased through a shell fleet company.
That company's accountant once worked for Victor.
Still not proof.
Then money moved.
Two days after the attack, one hundred fifty thousand dollars was wired to an account in Nevada.
Recipient:
Derek Sloan.
Former contract driver.
Carmine found him in Reno.
Lawyers contacted federal authorities before anyone contacted Sloan.
I hated that part.
I also knew it was right.
Sloan was arrested on unrelated fraud charges first.
Then questioned.
His story:
He was paid to force my vehicle off the road.
Not shoot me.
Not kill me.
“Scare him,” were the instructions.
Create an injury.
Create instability.
Create a leadership vacuum.
The plan went wrong when my SUV rolled twice.
My spinal injury had been an accident inside a planned attack.
Who hired him?
Sloan never met Victor.
He dealt with a broker.
That broker had died three months earlier.
Still no direct proof.
Then investigators found encrypted messages on a recovered phone.
One contact:
V.C.
Not enough.
But one message mattered.
If he survives, Hale handles the rest.
I stared at the screen.
Faith stood beside me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“You're supposed to say yes.”
“No.”
She sat across from me.
“If you were okay, I'd be worried.”
I laughed once.
Then my anger returned.
“My own uncle may have arranged the attack.”
“Yes.”
“He sat beside me in the hospital.”
“I know.”
“He told me my life would be different.”
Faith looked at me.
“He wasn't wrong.”
I hated that.
She continued:
May you like
“But he doesn't get to decide what different means.”
That became the sentence I carried into rehabilitation the next morning.
