Chapter 9 - The House of Cards
The police arrived with a warrant that covered the entire facility. The lobby, once a shrine to Vane’s ego, was now a crime scene. I watched as investigators systematically seized hard drives, files, and illicit logs. They weren't just looking for money; they were looking for the women—the "assets"—Julian had kept hidden.
I walked through the wards, the silence now heavy with the weight of impending justice. In the administrative offices, agents were uncovering the true scale of the network. It was larger than even my research had suggested. There were names, dates, and bank account numbers that linked the clinic to the most powerful people in the city.
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Julian Vane, however, was already in an interrogation room. I had left the most damning evidence—the logs of his "disciplinary" sessions with Grace—sitting on his desk, highlighted, for the police to find immediately. He wasn't going to have a lawyer who could argue his way out of this. He wasn't going to have a board to pay his bail. He was a man who had built his life on the fragility of others, and now, he was facing the crushing weight of the system he thought he owned.
I found myself near the police transport, watching as they led him out in chains. He looked small. Stripped of his white coat, his authority, and his leverage, he was nothing more than a man who had been terrified of being found out. He caught my eye as he was pushed into the car. He didn't look angry anymore; he looked defeated, a shadow of the predator he had pretended to be.
