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21: The Third Option
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2026-01-09 18:54:38CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
POV: Julian Vane
The library was a tomb of silence, the air thick with the scent of old leather and the cold metallic tang of the safe built into the mahogany wall. I stood before it, my heart a frantic, trapped thing in my chest.
My birthdate.
The numbers felt like a betrayal as I punched them in. 0-6-1-2.
The electronic lock gave a soft, yielding click, and the heavy door swung open. Inside weren't just stacks of cash or gold bullion. There were hard drives, ledgers, and a single, weathered envelope with my name on it in Dante’s aggressive scrawl.
I ignored the envelope for a second, my hands moving to the primary server drive. This was what Agent Vance wanted. This was the "immortality" Dante had spoken of: the digital blueprint of every bribe, every route, and every kill. If I handed this over, Dante Moretti would cease to exist. He would be a ghost in a federal jumpsuit.
But as I reached for it, my auditor’s mind, the part of me that saw the patterns no one else noticed, caught on something in the FBI folder Vance had given me.
I pulled her file out and spread the pages across the library desk. I looked at the signatures again. Then I looked at the "Evidence" stamps.
The stamp on the 2009 manifest was Bureau Unit 742.
I quickly accessed the Moretti server on the library computer, my fingers flying across the keys. I didn't look for Dante’s crimes. I looked for Unit 742.
The screen flickered, a cascade of data pouring down. My blood turned to ice.
Unit 742 wasn't an investigation unit. It was a payroll account.
For ten years, Agent Sarah Vance had been receiving "consulting fees" from Vane Logistics. She hadn't been trying to catch my father; she had been protecting him. She was the one who had buried the original arson report. She was the one who had made sure the "industrial accident" stayed an accident.
She wasn't giving me justice. She was cleaning up the last witness to me. She wanted the Moretti server not to put Dante in jail, but to delete the evidence of her own ten-year partnership with my father.
"She’s a predator, Julian. Just like the rest of us."
I spun around. Dante was standing in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the dim hall light. He wasn't armed. He just looked tired.
"You knew," I whispered, gesturing to the screen. "You knew she was on my father’s payroll."
"I knew she was dirty," Dante said, walking into the room. He didn't look at the open safe. He looked only at me. "But I couldn't prove it until I had the Vane data from the airfield. I was waiting for you to find it. I wanted you to see her for what she is before I killed her."
"You let me believe you were the only monster," I said, a tear finally escaping and hot on my cheek.
"I am a monster, Julian. I delivered those chemicals. I lived with that lie for fifteen years." He stopped a foot away from me. "But I never took a cent to keep your mother’s death a secret. Vance did."
I looked at the server drive, then at the FBI file. The world wasn't black and white. It wasn't the Butcher versus the Law. It was just different shades of blood.
"She’s expecting me to meet her in an hour," I said, my voice hardening. "At the old shipyard. She thinks I'm bringing her your head."
Dante’s eyes glinted with a dark, sudden fire. "And what are you bringing her?"
"The Third Option," I said.
I grabbed a blank drive from the desk and began a rapid file transfer. I wasn't giving her the Moretti server. I was giving her a "poison pill" a virus hidden inside the Vane payroll data that would trigger an automatic upload to the Department of Justice’s Internal Affairs the moment she tried to access it on a federal computer.
"She wants a Vane to finish the job?" I looked at Dante, a slow, lethal smile spreading across my face. "Then I’ll give her a Vane. I’m going to the meeting. Alone."
"Julian"
"No," I interrupted, placing a hand on his chest. I could feel his heart thrumming, a steady, powerful beat. "This is my mother’s debt. Not yours. You stay here. You keep the perimeter. If I’m not back in two hours... then you can burn the city down."
Dante grabbed my hand, his grip crushing. He looked like he wanted to lock me in the safe and throw away the key. But he saw the look in my eyes the look of the "Golden Prince" who had finally found his teeth.
"Two hours," he hissed. "And Julian? If she so much as wrinkles your suit, I will spend the rest of my life making her regret she was ever born."
"I know," I said.
I kissed him a hard, fast claim and walked out into the night.
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