Chapter 8: Evelyn Chooses Who Dies
1114 Words
There's a moment when fear stop being useful.
When it no longer can keep you alive, only small.
This is the moment when you either break or you decide.
Tonight, I decide.
The house is asleep and quiet.
Even guards move slower after midnight, tired by routine and the lie that danger announce itself.
Adrian breath evenly beside me, one arm is across the sheets, his presence still claiming space even in rest.
He believe the war is over.
He thought there's no next.
He believe the court failed, the media already moved on, and the storm passed.
Adrian don't understand that storms don’t pass.
They wait.
I slip from the room without waking him up. Bare feet on a cold marble. No nerves. No rush.This isn’t an escape.
It's a selection.
---
Once, I have search for approval, from the law, from morality from fate itself.
That girl died quietly the day she married a monster.
Now, I understand something simple and terrible.
If I don’t choose, someone else will.
And I know they will never choose me.
I don’t write them down.
Phones can be trace.
Paper can burned.
But memory is loyal.
I carried the names of men who made Adrian untouchable and victorious.
Men who erase evidences. Men who silence witnesses. Men who told themselves they were “just doing their job”.
A jobs that buried truths.
Jobs that turned people into shadows.
Jobs that ended lives.
These men are not soldiers.
They are infrastructure.
And infrastructure can collapse a whole empire if you remove the one right piece.
---
His name is Victor Ronan.
A name came from victories in every court's.
Hiding the truth.
Former head of special security.
Adrian’s fixer before he learned to fix things himself.
Victor knows where bodies are buried literally and figuratively. He believe his silence bought him a retirement.
A glass house overlooking the city.
Prestigious.
Minimal staff.
But maximum arrogance.
Men like Victor never hide.
Victor believe he already earned safety.
And that’s the first test.
I knock.
Didn't think twice.
He open the door, sees me, blinks once.
Then smiles.
“Mrs. Vale” he say smoothly. “What do I owe—”
“I won’t take long.” I reply.
I don’t raise my voice.
I don’t threaten him.
Power doesn't need a volume.
He step aside.
That’s his first mistake.
We drink wine either of us want to.
The whole city glows behind him like an audience.
Victor studied me carefully.
“You’re not what I expected.” he say.
“No one ever is.” I reply.
“You should be careful Ms.” he added. “You’re standing very close to a dangerous men.”
I meet his eyes. “So are you.”
Silence stretched.
He feel it now.
The imbalance.
The fear.
“I already know about Marcus Hale,” I say.
His jaw tighten.
“I know about that accountant. The witness who vanished in Lisbon. The burned phones you kept as an insurance.”
He didn’t deny it.
That is the second test.
The second he failed.
Men like Victor only deny when they think denial still work.
“What the hell do you want?” he asks quietly.
I smile faintly.
“Decide.”
"To decide."
“I can help you.” he said quickly. “Proof. Names. Accounts. Evidence—”
“I already have those." I cut him off.
“Then money."
“I already have that.”
His voice lower.
“You don’t understand the world you’re in, right?.” I lean forward.
“I understand it better than you did” I said
“Yes, i believe you survived it but not when I told you i was built by it.”
That’s when fear finally reached his eyes.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Victor whisper. “I’ll disappear. Hide—”
“You already disappear once,” I reply.
“That’s why this time has to matter."
I stand up.
I didn’t touch him.
I didn’t threaten him.
I leave.
And he understand.
That’s the cruelty, fairness and finally decided.
---
Victor Rowan was found dead the next morning.
The news called it suicide.
People always do.
A man overwhelmed by guilt.
A tragic footnotes in a fading scandal.
The case close itself.
Adrian reads the headline over coffee in front of him.
.
“Rowan’s gone.” he say neutrally.
I stir my cup.
“People do that.” I answer.
He watch me longer than usual.
Not suspicion.
But calculation.
Victor’s death isn’t that loud.
It doesn’t shakes buildings.
It doesn’t summon outrage.
But it travel.
Far from this called world.
Men who once felt protected start canceling their trips.
Deleting many files.
Calling lawyers in the middle of the night.
They didn’t know who moved.
Who did.
Only that someone can.
Fear doesn’t need explanation.
It needs example.
It is important.
When revenge that kills everyone becomes noise.
Revenge that chooses become a legend.
A unknown legend.
The second man knows I know him.
Yet I let him live.
I let him understand why he become loyal not to Adrian, not to anybody, not to money, but in silence.
Fear is cheaper than loyalties.
And it last longer.
He doesn’t know why.
But he already feel it.
The house grow quieter.
Calls stop coming.
Problems resolve themselves without investigations.
He think he’s winning it.
That victory is not far behind.
Men like him always did, right before they realize the board has changed it names.
“You’re calm,” he told me one night.
“I’m focused.” I reply.
He smile faintly.
“Survival suit you.”
I look at him steadily.
“So does honesty.”
He did not ask what I mean.
That because he isn’t ready.
That night, alone, I stand before the mirror.
I don’t see a wife.
I don’t see a victim.
I see a woman who understand something Adrian never will.
Power isn’t taken.
It'd change.
I didn’t kill Victor with my hand.
I don't need to.
I chose.
And the world has obeyed.
Not cruel.
Not merciful.
But precise.
Adrian still believe he control life and death.
He believes I’m dependent.
Contained.
Grateful.
He’s wrong.
Really wrong.
Because the moment you choose who dies.
You stop being afraid.
You stop being owned.
You stop waiting.
---
Heavy.
Cold.
But useful.
“Soon.” I whisper.
Because this wasn’t justice.
It was revenge.
And Adrian Vale doesn’t realize—
The most dangerous thing in his empire
is sleeping beside him, awake, and choosing.
One by one they will kneel and worship me.
- Writer
