Chapter 394

The next morning, pale sunlight filtered through the barred windows of the police station, scattering across the long table in fractured squares of light and shadow. Luis sat at its center, his hands steady, his long fingers fanning out the documents as though laying bare a man's sins one sheet at a time.

He gathered the stack with measured care, sliding the thick bundle into a weathered manila pouch and looping the twine shut with practiced precision.

Across from him, steam curled lazily from the commanding officer's chipped mug,yet it did nothing to cut the heaviness pressing down on the room.

"These are the money-laundering records from Sherwood's company," Luis said, pushing the pouch across the table. "Five years of transactions-every cent funneled through at least three shell corporations. The most recent, an eighty-million deal,was tied directly to arms smuggling."

The officer slid his glasses higher on his nose and thumbed through the files. From between the papers,a faded photograph slipped free. He studied it with quiet intensity: Sherwood in his youth, raising a glass with a foreign businessman at the docks two decades earlier.

Behind them, half-hidden by stacked crates, a container bore a faint skull emblem.

Luis drew another piece of evidence from his side-a videotape, its casing mottled with mold. He nudged it forward. "This came from Howe Adams, one of Sherwood's men. It's a backup of the surveillance from the port warehouse back then. The footage is grainy,but you can still see him-Sherwood, giving orders,containers moved, large sums of cash exchanged."

"Quite the empire he built," the officer muttered,taking off his glasses to rub them clean with a handkerchief. "No wonder we couldn't break that smuggling case back then. He wasn't just involved-he was orchestrating everything."

Luis reached into the evidence stack again and brought out a sealed bag. Inside lay a yellowed scrap of paper, its ink smeared with age. Yet a few words still bled through: "the Sampson newborn", "hush money,"

His fingertip tapped once on the pastic. "This came from intermediaries-Reginald Todd, Howe Adams,Bohumil Navarro. They all pointed to Sherwood.He orchestrated my sister's kidnapping twenty-five years ago."

The officer adjusted his glasses again, his clouded gaze softening as it swept over the spread of files,photos, and relics of corruption. Relief settled over his features like a weight finally released.

Removing his gloves, he began filing the evidence by year,his voice thick with memory. "With this... we can finally close the case. The one that's haunted us all these years."

Back then when Verena was taken, he had been a rookie fresh out of academy. He could still see the Sampsons rushing into the station that night-Joseph and Marisa nearly collapsing from grief as they begged for help. The whole city had been thrown into uproar,police combing every street corner, interrogating hundreds of witnesses. And yet, after months of searching, the only thing they'd produced was a thin file marked with the cruel stamp: "No Evidence Found."Now, a quarter of a century later, the truth lay before him at last.

The officer slid the last file into its folder and raised his eyes to Luis. There was something unreadable in the older man's gaze-pride, sorrow, resolve, all layered in the fog of time.

"Mr. Sampson," he said gently, "rest assured.Sherwood will face justice. Twenty-five years is long enough. The time has come for him to answer."

Luis' eyes lowered to the table, to the evidence stacked neatly like gravestones of the past. His throat moved as he swallowed, thelight striking across his features in sharp angles. He looked stone-cold.

"May I see him with my father?" he asked quietly."There are things he needs to hear face-to-face."

For a moment, the officer simply looked at him, and in that face he glimpsed the echo of a boy who had once stood here weeping, begging for his baby sister's return.

After a long pause, he nodded. "By regulation,suspects awaiting trial can be visited only once a month, no longer than thirty minutes each time.But given the weight of this case, I can arrange a visit with Sherwood soon. Just remember-officers will be monitoring every word. That's procedure, and it's for your safety as much as ours. I trust you understand."

Luis inclined his head and nodded. "Thank you. Half an hour will do."

The commanding officer wasted no time and made the arrangements. Soon, a younger officer led Luis and Joseph down the narrow corridors of the detention center. The air grew heavier with every step,until they reached one of the stark interrogation rooms.

When the guard pulled open the iron door,the hinges wailed with a piercing groan. The sound jolted Joseph;his knees buckled, and he nearly lost his balance.

Luis caught him at once, steadying the older man's stooped frame, his hand brushing against Joseph's trembling arm.

Only last night, Luis had spread the damning evidence across Joseph's desk.

Joseph had sat in his study for hours, unmoving,the ashtray filling with cigarette butts as he stared at the endless list of Sherwood's crimes.

Not once had he spoken. He had only smoked, chain after chain, as if each drag might burn away the disbelief tightening his chest.

Now, in the sterile glare of the interrogation room,Sherwood raised his head at the sound of the door.

His cuffed hands rested with casual arrogance on the chair's metal armrests.

His hair was a tangled mess,his shirt wrinkled from the night, yet that sinister trademark smile still clung to his lips. He looked less like a man cornered by justice and more like a host awaiting guests in his parlor. His gaze flicked lazily from Joseph's pale face to Luis ' tense jaw. A chuckle rumbled out of him, low and taunting.

"I knew you'd come," he drawled, the jangle of his handcuffs only adding to his insolent poise.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes gleaming with amusement, as though he were a spectator at a play whose ending he had scripted long ago. "So," he mused, stretching out his words,"you came to watch me tumble from my throne? To savor the spectacle?"

The lines of exhaustion carved into his face only deepened the mockery in his smirk, as if twenty-five years of crime and the suffering of others were no more than dust on his shoulders.

Joseph's eyes widened, bloodshot and glassy. The veins along his neck coiled upward like withered vines,his chest heaving with unspent rage.

"Why?" The word scraped from his throat, raw and broken.

Then fury broke loose. He shook free of Luis' hand,staggered toward the table, and drove his fist into the reinforced glass with a crack that rattled the room."Sherwood Kirk! How can you still laugh?"

His voice tore through the room, ragged with twenty -five years of pent-up bitterness. "I treated you like my own brother-and you stole my daughter! You tried to sell her to traffickers like she was nothing!After Verena vanished, you even sat beside me and wept!"

Spit sprayed across the glass as Joseph's rage consumed him. His hand clawed at his collar,yanking it open to reveal a jagged scar running across his chest. "Do you remember this, huh? I earned this scar saving you from that crash! I risked my life for you,and all the while you schemed to sell my daughter into hell!"

His knee struck the table's edge, but he didn't even flinch. He bent over, trembling, eyes burning into Sherwood's mocking calm. Tears cut down the creases of his face as his voice broke apart. "Tell me,Sherwood-don't you have a guilty conscience? Do you really sleep soundly at night? All these years? Or did my daughter ever come to you in your dreams,demanding your life?"