Chapter 5 - The Turning Point
The delivery van was a rusted-out Ford Econoline with a broken heater and a half-full tank of diesel, but it moved. Vivian drove south for forty miles on secondary logging roads, keeping the speedometer under fifty to avoid drawing state troopers, until the engine began to knock ominously near an abandoned timber yard outside of Emporia.
She killed the ignition and coasted the van behind a stack of rotting pine pallets.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the cooling engine and the heavy, ragged sound of her own breathing. Her stomach felt tight, knotted into a hard, painful ball that wouldn't relax. She pressed both hands against her belly, closing her eyes as a sharp wave of nausea washed over her.
This wasn't working. She couldn't outrun a man who owned half the state’s transit networks and corrupt officials from the coast to the capital. Every mile she traveled on stolen vehicles and public roads was a breadcrumb left for Viktor to follow.
She needed to change the rules of the game.
Vivian reached into the duffel and pulled out the burner phone again. This time, she didn't call Arthur Hayes.
Instead, she dialed a number she knew by heart—not a government line, but a private office in downtown Richmond belonging to Marcus Vance, the only corporate litigator in the state who had ever successfully prosecuted a Draven-affiliated shell company and lived to tell about it. Vance had been disbarred under mysterious circumstances three years ago, driven out of practice by a wave of fabricated financial scandals that left him working out of a basement office near the harbor.
The phone rang three times before a raspy, tobacco-rough voice answered.
"State your business or hang up," Vance said.
"My name is Vivian Draven," she said into the receiver, her voice suddenly steady, cutting through the hum of the dying engine. "I’m sitting in a stolen bread truck forty miles north of the state line with thirty-four thousand dollars in cash, a ledger of your old client list, and proof of how Matteo Draven murdered my father."
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line. When Vance spoke again, all the fatigue was gone from his voice.
"Where are you, Mrs. Draven?"
"I’m not telling you where I am," Vivian said, staring through the frost-covered windshield at the gray Virginia sky. "I’m telling you where to meet me. Bring a secure recorder, a flash drive, and a federal marshal you still trust."
May you like
"And if I say no?"
"Then I’m driving this van straight through the front gates of the federal courthouse in Norfolk with the ledger taped to the steering wheel," she said softly. "And Matteo won't be able to buy enough judges to bury the wreckage."
