Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Silas investigates the cryptic texts and discovers that Julian Vance was not acting alone—a shadow network of OmniPharm insiders remains active. With Detective Rossi's help, he traces the messages to a former OmniPharm security contractor who reveals that the conspiracy extends to a government oversight committee. Evelyn's testimony becomes more dangerous, and Silas must decide whether to pursue the larger truth or protect those he has come to care about.
The river had not answered him. It never had. Silas Blackwood had spent too many nights watching water move past him, waiting for clarity that never arrived, and he had learned that the current offered nothing but its own relentless motion. He pulled out of the parking lot with the phone still glowing in his hand, the second message burning into his memory: 'They are not all in custody.'
He drove without destination, letting the streets carry him north through the industrial districts where warehouses stood empty and streetlights flickered in uneven rhythms. The city had changed since the indictment. It felt thinner somehow, as if the weight of OmniPharm's presence had been lifted and the air had not yet settled into its new density. But the message suggested otherwise. The message suggested that what had been lifted was merely the visible portion of something larger, something that remained anchored beneath the surface.
He pulled into the lot of an all-night diner on the edge of the warehouse district, cut the engine, and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel. The diner's neon sign buzzed and sputtered, casting pink light across the cracked asphalt. He checked his phone. No new messages. The number that had sent the texts was still unknown, still untraced—at least until Rossi's people could run it through the system.
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