*Chapter 24: Maya's disturbance*
Grant stumbled back, his hand instinctively reaching for the desk behind him as if it might offer protection. But no desk, no office, no walls built by power could shield him from what now stood before him.
Ethan didn't move. He didn't need to. His presence was enough to suffocate the room. The silence hung thick—only the faint hum of electronics dared to speak.
"You—" Grant choked, shaking his head slowly. "You survived that purge. After all these years..."
Ethan tilted his head. "And not just survived. I watched. I listened. I waited. While you climbed the ranks, smiling on podiums, laundering your filth into handshakes and signatures. I followed every contract. Every death hidden in ink. Every time you shook hands with devils like you. I learned how men like you play this game."
Grant's lips trembled. "If this is about revenge—"
"This isn't revenge," Ethan cut him off sharply, his tone hollow and steady. "This is *justice*. Revenge would've come in the dark. A quick bullet. But this… This is the reckoning my father never got. This is every scream my mother couldn't silence. Every cough from my brother's lungs. Every night I dreamed of what you took from us."
Grant dropped to his knees. It wasn't planned. His body simply gave out.
"I can make it right," he gasped, the words pathetic. "I can tell the truth—I can testify. Please, Ethan, I—"
"Don't say my name like you're owed mercy," Ethan said, stepping forward now. "You lost the right to beg when you made the choice to kill John Thompson."
He pulled the knife slowly from its sheath beneath his jacket. Clean. Sharp. Unmistakably deliberate. Grant's eyes widened, full of real fear for the first time in years. The kind of fear no power could erase.
Ethan crouched beside him, blade glinting in his hand.
"This is not for show," Ethan whispered. "You don't deserve speeches. You deserve what you gave."
Grant's lip quivered. "You'll ruin your soul."
Ethan's hand paused.
He stared at the knife, then at Grant. "I ruined my soul the night I buried my family. This? This is release."
He raised the knife.
And then—
*"Ethan?"*
A voice—soft, shaken, and horrified—cut through the air like a gunshot.
Ethan froze.
He turned slowly.
*Maya* stood at the door. Her eyes locked onto the blade, then to Grant, cowering on the floor.
Her voice cracked. "What… what are you doing?"
Ethan's hands trembled, just slightly.
"Maya, get out," he said, not with anger, but warning. "You weren't supposed to see this."
She stepped inside anyway, gaze darting between the two men. "You said you were done with the blood. You said you were going to stop—"
"I lied," he said quietly. "Because stopping means letting monsters like him breathe."
She took a step closer. "And what does killing him make you?"
Ethan's silence said everything.
Grant, sensing the moment slipping, started to weep. "Please—don't let him do this. Please—he's lost—he's—"
"Shut up!" Ethan snapped, rage erupting briefly. "You don't speak her name. You don't speak."
Maya's eyes welled with tears. "Ethan… if you do this… there's no going back."
He stared at her.
Then at Grant.
Then back to her.
His grip on the knife tightened.
The air felt like glass, moments from shattering.
Then…
_Bleank Ø_