Chapter 40
Emily Windsor's POV
Those distant lights drew closer, multiplying and brightening—over a dozen black SUVs emblazoned with FBI insignia, alongside several SWAT armored vehicles. Like a pack of silent predators, they soundlessly encircled the entire Kingsley Chemical Plant.
The factory gate was violently breached. Fully armed federal agents and SWAT officers flooded in like a tidal wave.
Moments later, muffled gunshots echoed from inside the facility, followed by brief shouts. Then—dead silence.
Jade and I held our breath, hearts hammering against our throats.
After roughly half an hour, the factory gate opened again.
I spotted Sawyer—the man who'd been so smug and contemptuous that afternoon—now reduced to a cowering wretch. His hands were cuffed behind his back, two towering agents roughly hauling him forward.
Terror distorted his features.
He seemed to sense something and suddenly whipped his gaze toward our hiding spot.
I met his eyes steadily, watching in silence as they shoved him into a vehicle.
Next came the workers—those hollow-eyed, zombie-like figures—led out one by one. Medical personnel took custody, loading them into ambulances.
The boiler room, its fire extinguished, was sealed with crime scene tape. The entire factory was shut down completely.
By the next morning, Preston District's local news—and media outlets across New York State—exploded with the story.
[Century-old enterprise Kingsley Chemical Group's Preston District facility raided by FBI last night on suspicion of severe human trafficking and forced labor. Plant manager and multiple supervisors arrested.]
The news photo showed Sawyer pressed against a car hood, his once-oily face twisted with humiliation and fear.
Jade clutched her phone, crying and laughing simultaneously. "We did it! Emily, we actually did it!"
I stared at that photograph and smiled faintly.
Luke's words echoed in my mind once more.
Different enemies require different weapons.
In that moment, watching Sawyer's pitiful face on the screen, I felt for the first time that the law—this blade—when wielded properly, could truly cut deep.
Sawyer's arrest was like a stone dropped into stagnant water, sending massive ripples through Preston District's landscape of despair.
The FBI's intervention had merely lifted the curtain's edge.
A cunning fox like Sawyer wouldn't confess easily.
Behind him stood the Lowe Family—endless money and means to secure his freedom.
Last night's raid had sealed the factory and made arrests, but the core evidence—proof of illegal dumping and the Lowe Family's involvement—remained buried beneath the surface.
"Emily, what do we do now?" Jade's voice pulled me from my thoughts. She'd clearly reached the same conclusion, her joy quickly morphing into tension.
I closed my phone, my gaze settling on the blurry video she'd captured last night.
"Mr. Lee must be convinced we have ironclad proof of his document destruction," I said slowly, a bold plan crystallizing in my mind. "The more guilty he feels, the more likely he'll slip up."
"But this video..." Jade hesitated. "We can't even see what he's burning."
"He doesn't know we can't see." I met Jade's eyes, my lips curving into a cold arc. "In an interrogation room, a piece of ambiguous evidence paired with a sharp lawyer is enough to make him spill every last truth himself."
I needed official credentials, so I called Carl again. This time, his attitude bordered on obsequious.
When I requested to serve as special legal counsel to the FBI assisting with the Kingsley Chemical Plant case, he agreed without hesitation, promising to mobilize every firm resource to smooth the way.
He assumed I was chasing glory—another gleaming achievement for the firm.
In reality, I didn't want fame. I wanted Sawyer's head.
The next day, I entered the federal detention center where Sawyer was held, bearing my special counsel credentials.
The interrogation room was cold as a freezer. Sawyer wore prison-issued clothing. Overnight, he'd aged twenty years. The cunning smile had vanished, replaced only by haggardness and panic.
When he saw me, his pupils contracted sharply, his gaze filled with undisguised venom and fear.
I ignored him, sitting directly across and sliding a tablet toward him. I played the secretly recorded video.
Shaky footage. Roaring flames. A file box rapidly disintegrating to ash.
Sawyer's face went ashen instantly. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His hands on the table trembled uncontrollably.
"Mr. Lee, recognize this?" My tone was flat, as if discussing the weather.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about!" His lips quivered, eyes darting. "This... you can't even see what it is!"
"No?" I chuckled softly, retrieving the tablet. Leaning forward slightly, my gaze sharp as a blade, I carved away at his last psychological defense. "That's fine. You can't see it clearly, but others can. For instance, your subordinate—Zachary, correct? Before his arrest, he very cooperatively disclosed everything to us."
I gambled he didn't know his subordinate was also in custody, held separately. I bet a selfish man like him never believed in loyalty.
"He testified that you ordered him to destroy Kingsley Chemical's actual pollution discharge records from the past five years, along with a secret equity agreement you signed with the Lowe Group subsidiary Everprosper Global Capital. The agreement explicitly states the Lowe Family would pay you a substantial annual sum to help dispose of certain... unsavory matters. And they'd guarantee that no matter what scandal erupted at the factory, they'd make it disappear."
With each sentence, Sawyer's complexion paled another shade.
The details I cited came partly from Luke's materials, partly from my own deductions based on available clues.
But to Sawyer, it sounded like nothing less than Zachary's complete confession.
"No! It wasn't me! It was him! He did it!" He leaped from his chair, emotions completely unraveling. Pointing at the blurry figure in the video, he shrieked hoarsely, "Miss Windsor, he's deceived you! I'm not even the legal representative of this facility—Zachary is! He signed that agreement with the Lowe Family on his own initiative to curry favor! When things went south, he destroyed the evidence himself! None of this has anything to do with me!"
I watched his desperate flailing coldly, my heart ice.
"Zachary is the legal representative?" I raised an eyebrow with feigned skepticism. "Mr. Lee, do you honestly think I'd believe such an obvious lie?"