Chapter 67 Chapter 67
The moment General Zachariah and Tasha disappeared from view, Vincent's legs simply gave out beneath him.
He did not stumble, he did not catch himself.
He just went down, both knees hitting the floor with a dull, heavy impact that seemed to echo the collapse happening inside him simultaneously.
He stayed there, staring at the direction they had walked, his eyes unfocused, his mouth slightly open, his entire body carrying the weight of a man who had just watched his world dismantle itself in real time.
Around him, the crowd had thinned somewhat, but enough people remained to witness his undoing.
Nobody helped him up, nobody said anything comforting.
They simply watched.
And Vincent knelt there, his mind spinning in frantic, desperate circles.
“What the hell is going on?”
He said it quietly at first, almost to himself, his voice barely above a murmur.
“What the hell is happening?”
He shook his head slowly, his hands pressed flat against his thighs.
“Why is everything just why is all of this just falling apart? My career. My marriage. Everything.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word.
“All of it. Just going upside down. All at once.”
He looked down at the floor, his jaw working silently for a moment before the words came again.
“Who did I offend? Where did I go wrong?”
The questions tumbled out of him in a low, broken stream.
“Could somebody be behind this? Could somebody be deliberately doing this to me? Could somebody have vowed to destroy everything I have built?”
He looked up suddenly, his eyes scanning the remaining faces around him as though the answer might be written on someone's expression.
“Is somebody trying to make me regret something? Is somebody trying to—”
“Brother Vincent.”
Jessica's voice cut through his spiral sharply.
Them he turned to look at her.
She was standing with her arms folded, her expression no longer carrying the shock it had worn earlier. Something had replaced it. Something calculating. Something that had been quietly assembling itself behind her eyes while everyone else had been falling apart.
“You should already know the answer to every single question you just asked,” she said.
Her tone was flat. Certain.
“It's Megan.”
She said the name like it explained everything.
“Of course it's Megan. Who else would it be?”
She stepped slightly closer, lowering her voice but not softening it.
“Did you see what just happened in there? Did you see General Zachariah a military general, a man of that rank and reputation—go down on both knees in front of everybody?”
She raised her eyebrows pointedly.
“In public. In front of a crowd. Without hesitation.”
She shook her head.
“You think that is normal? You think that just happens? Something is very wrong here, and it has Megan written all over it.”
Vincent stared at her.
Jessica continued, her voice dropping further, taking on the tone of someone piecing together a theory they were becoming more convinced of with every word.
“I don't know what lies she must have told General Zachariah. I don't know what she must have on him, what kind of relationship they have, what kind of hold she has over him. But think about it.”
She paused deliberately.
“She just came back from prison.”
The words landed with quiet weight.
“And you know what prison does? It puts you in contact with information. With people. With secrets that powerful men spend fortunes trying to keep buried.”
She glanced briefly at Deborah, then back at Vincent.
“All these men of influence—General Zachariah, Mr. Oliver, even Liam men like that always have things they don't want the world to know about. Things they have done in the dark. Decisions they have made that would destroy them if they ever came to light.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Who knows? Maybe she knows something. Maybe she found out something while she was away. Maybe she belongs to some kind of circle, some kind of network, and she was able to gather information on all of them.”
Her voice hardened with conviction.
“And now they are all doing her bidding because of it. Because she has something on every single one of them and they cannot afford for it to come out.”
She straightened.
“I am very, very sure that she is blackmailing them. All of them.”
The silence that followed was brief.
Because Deborah, who had been listening with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, suddenly nodded.
Firmly, repeatedly.
“Yes,” she said, her voice regaining some of its old sharpness. “Absolutely yes.”
She looked at Jessica with the expression of someone who had just found solid ground after sinking.
“You are right. You are completely right, Jessica.”
She began to pace slightly, her mind visibly accelerating.
“This is not ordinary. None of what happened today is ordinary. General Zachariah does not kneel for anyone. Mr. Oliver does not speak about anyone the way he spoke about her. None of this makes sense unless she has something—something powerful—that she is holding over all of them.”
She stopped pacing and looked at her children with fierce, renewed determination.
“Megan must have something on them. She must have had it before she even walked in here today. And she is using it.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“This is blackmail. I am certain of it.”
She looked between Jessica and Vincent, her voice dropping to something urgent and conspiratorial.
“We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to find out exactly what she has, exactly what she knows, and exactly who she has been talking to.”
She straightened her shoulders.
“And we need to act swiftly.”