27 "The moment my three babies entered the world, I thought I was living the happiest night of my life. Less than an hour later, my wife was fighting to stay alive, and the doctor told me childbirth wasn't killing her. Someone had poisoned her, and the person I trusted with nearly every detail of my life was standing right outside the ICU.

The ballroom exploded into utter chaos as two FBI agents stepped forward, grabbed Richard Vance’s arms, and pulled them behind his back, snapping heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists.

"Get your hands off me!" Vance screamed, struggling violently against the agents. "Do you know who I am?! I built this city! Mason, you bastard! You can't prove anything!"

"We don't need to prove anything, Richard," I said coldly, walking right up to him as he was forced down the grand staircase. "Your CFO opened his mouth fifteen minutes ago when the FBI raided your headquarters. He gave up your secondary accounts, your private emails, and your encrypted chat logs with Vanessa Vale."

Vance stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes went completely lifeless as he realized his empire had just collapsed in front of the entire elite class of Atlanta.

"Your company is finished," I whispered in his ear. "By tomorrow morning, the board will strip you of your chairmanship, the SEC will freeze your assets, and Sloane Infrastructure will acquire Vance Global’s remaining assets for pennies on the dollar."

"You... you ruined me..." Vance gasped, tears of rage springing to his eyes.

"No," I replied sharply. "You ruined yourself the second you thought my family was a target."

The agents hauled Vance out through the front doors of the estate, where a fleet of police cruisers sat with their red and blue lights flashing into the dark night. Reporters swarmed the driveway, filming every second of Richard Vance’s humiliating perp walk.

I stood on the front steps of the mansion, taking a long, deep breath of the crisp night air. The war was over. The snakes that had lurked in the grass had all been crushed.

Detective Carter walked up beside me, clapping a hand on my shoulder. "Nice work, Mason. Vance is going away for at least thirty years. And Vanessa won't be seeing daylight anytime soon either."

"Thank you, Carter," I said, shaking his hand firmly. "For everything."

"Where are you heading now?" he asked.