[Target #2 – Simon Vance]
Position: Former Special Prosecutor, Federal Witness Unit
Location: Boston, MA
Cover Identity: Private legal consultant for high-net crime defense
Confirmed Ties:
• Elena Fray (Case #F-731) – Key manipulation of witness testimony
• Sealed settlements involving child victim families
• $2.1 million in unreported case payout rerouted via offshore nonprofit
Judicial Profile: Untouchable. No convictions. No investigations.
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Time: 04:14 A.M.
Date: December 4th, 20XX
Location: Dorchester, Massachusetts – Vance's Safehouse
The storm was violent.
But Derik was calm.
He sat in the shadows outside a three-story building that claimed to be under renovation. The windows were boarded, the walls wrapped in scaffolding—but Derik had already breached the blueprints three days ago.
Inside wasn't construction.
It was containment.
The house had reinforced rooms, fingerprint scanners, false walls, panic buttons—paranoia posing as security. And Vance? He never stayed in the same place two nights in a row. Except tonight.
Why? Because Derik let him think he had won.
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Weeks Earlier
Derik leaked a doctored FBI memo to Vance's assistant—one that named Vance as the primary whistleblower in the Fray scandal.
It was fake. But it made him valuable.
It made him desperate.
Vance fled his mansion in Beacon Hill and activated his private bolt-hole.
Exactly as Derik planned.
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Inside the Safehouse
The walls were filled with monitors—stock prices, legal reports, silent feeds of high-profile clients in court.
But in the far corner sat something else:
A black metal case.
Locked. Biometric sealed.
Inside: signed NDAs, blackmail photos, payout slips, audio tapes.
Vance's insurance.
His real power.
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04:19 A.M.
The door buzzed.
Vance stood, pistol drawn. His veins throbbed in his forehead as he looked through the peephole.
Nothing. Just the flickering porch light.
He opened the door anyway. His ego wouldn't allow fear.
Derik was already inside.
"You always thought your secrets kept you safe," Derik whispered from the hallway behind him.
"But I've already copied them."
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04:21 A.M.
The struggle was brief. Vance aimed, fired.
Derik stepped aside. He knew the gun.
Single-action. Delayed trigger reset.
He plunged a hypodermic blade into the soft space under Vance's chin.
Paralytic. Immediate vocal cord shutdown.
Not fatal. Not yet.
Vance collapsed, gurgling, but alive. Terrified.
Derik sat beside him on the floor, opened the black case, and began laying out everything.
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04:29 A.M.
"I know about Romania. The girls in Bucharest. The cartel case you buried in exchange for oil contracts.
I know who you paid. Who you sold. Who you let walk free.
And most of all, I know how to erase you."
Derik clicked a remote.
All the room's monitors blinked black.
Then one by one, they flickered to faces.
Children. Teens. Testimonies. Pain.
Then came Elena.
Footage from her death scene. Her final breath. The table she died on.
Vance's eyes widened—he knew that table.
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The Death Was Not Quick
Derik didn't want Vance to vanish.
He wanted him to be remembered for who he truly was.
He amputated two fingers—clean, clinical.
He stitched his mouth shut with surgical thread.
He tied him to the same chair used in Fray's clinic.
He covered him in hundreds of printed child abuse reports—each one connected to a bribe Vance approved.
"When they find you, they'll think it was rage," Derik whispered.
"But I don't hate you, Simon.
I just think you were the wrong kind of virus.
And I'm the cure."
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Final Execution
He opened the gas valve in the back room.
Lit a match.
As the flame crept toward the sealed door, Derik walked into the rain and disappeared.
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News Report – December 6th, 20XX
HEADLINE: "Corrupt Ex-Prosecutor Dies in Explosive Fire — Classified Evidence Leaked"
• House burns to ash.
• Vance's body identified by dental records.
• USBs with federal documents anonymously delivered to media outlets.
• Two investigations reopened.
• Three judges removed.
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Derik's Journal Entry #2
Vance – Erased. Evidence delivered. Files released.
Case now under public scrutiny. Chain of power destabilized.
Elena's protector gone. Her sins exposed.
The system just lost its handler.
Pattern is forming.
Now they'll whisper.
Now they'll look behind them.
⸻
And Then…
He receives a message.
Unmarked. Anonymous server.
Just one sentence:
"We see what you're doing. We've been watching too."