CHAPTER FOUR — THE ROOM WHERE THEY BUILT THE LIE
The air in Williamson County never really leaves you.
It settles in your chest the first time you breathe it in—cold, metallic, stale—and it stays there, like the aftertaste of blood when you bite your lip too hard. Even now, long after the walls are gone, I can still feel it sitting behind my ribs. That same air filled the room where they sat. The room where they built me into something I wasn’t.
It wasn’t a courtroom.
It wasn’t even an office.
It was a war room.
A place where men in uniforms and pressed suits gathered around a table and called it coordination. Where every word carried weight, even the ones that weren’t spoken. Where truth didn’t matter—only outcome. A bunker without walls, sealed not by concrete, but by silence and mutual understanding.
That’s where it started.
Gleason sat at the head of the table.
He always did.
Not because he demanded it—but because no one would take that seat from him. He leaned back slightly, one arm resting on the chair, eyes scanning the room without ever appearing to focus. The kind of posture that says everything without saying a word.
He didn’t need to speak.
He had people for that.
His silence wasn’t absence. It wasn’t hesitation.
It was authority—compressed, controlled, deliberate.
The District Attorney sat across from him, pen in hand, tapping it lightly against a legal pad. Over and over. A small movement, but it gave her away. She was nervous. Not enough to lose control—but enough that it bled through the cracks.
“We don’t have enough evidence,” she said finally.
The words landed heavier than she expected.
No one moved.
“The best I can do…” she hesitated, just for a second, “…is stack charges and hope he doesn’t take it to trial.”
Hope.
That was the word that shifted the room.
Nathan moved first.
He leaned forward slowly, elbows planting on the table, eyes narrowing like he’d been waiting for that exact sentence.
“Aren’t you on our team?” he asked, voice low but sharp. “We’re trying to fry this motherfucker. Every time we bring you something, you shut it down. You want him to walk?”
The DA swallowed. Looked down. Then forced herself to look back up.
“It’s not about wanting him to walk,” she said, quieter now. “It’s about what will stick.”
Wrong answer.
Dalton leaned back in his chair, smirk already forming before he even spoke.
“Easy, Nathan,” he said casually. “Don’t scare her off. She’s got her job. We’ve got ours.”
He let the moment breathe—then twisted it.
“Besides… you’ve been spending a little too much time talking to his ex. You sure you’re not compromised?”
A ripple went through the room.
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“Fuck you, Dalton,” he snapped. “I’ve had very intimate conversations with her. She says he’s a dumbass. Not half as smart as he pretends to be.”
Dalton grinned wider.
“Yeah? You hitting that?”
Nathan leaned back, a slow grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“No, man. You know I’m married.”
The room broke.
Laughter.
Quick. Sharp. Comfortable.
Everyone laughed—
except Gleason.
He didn’t even crack a smile.
He just watched.
That was the rhythm of the room. Gleason’s silence. Nathan’s aggression. Dalton’s jokes. The DA’s hesitation.
And then there was Derek.
Derek didn’t sit.
He moved.
Back and forth. Slow. Measured. Like he was tracing the edges of something only he could see. His hands stayed loose at his sides, but his eyes never stopped working—calculating, measuring, deciding.
He wasn’t there to argue.
He was there to act.
And when he finally spoke, the room shifted.
“I’ve got a trick up my sleeve.”
No humor. No hesitation.
Just certainty.
“We’ll dose him.”
Silence fell instantly.
“He hasn’t had vaccines,” Derek continued. “I talked to Davis—EMT Davis. He’s in. We push fifty cc’s of the antivirus. Load it with COVID.”
He paused, letting it settle.
“He gets sick. Real sick. Maybe he stumbles. Maybe worse. If it breaks him, good. If not…” he shrugged, “…we’ve got other plays.”
The DA went pale.
“That’s insane,” she said. “You can’t do that.”
For the first time all night, Gleason moved.
Just slightly.
“How are you going to get COVID into him?”
Derek didn’t blink.
“We inject it.”
No reaction.
“It comes through Houston. Facility’s already on board. Our doctor moves it. And if anyone asks—nobody knows.”
Gleason smiled.
Barely.
“Our doctor,” he repeated.
The words lingered.
From the far end of the table, the U.S. Marshal’s rep leaned forward, chuckling under his breath.
“We’ll add something,” he said. “When we bring him into court, we surround him with women. Good-looking ones.”
He tapped the table lightly.
“He hasn’t seen a woman in years. Let’s see how he handles that.”
The laughter came easier this time.
Colder.
More deliberate.
And then the FBI stepped in.
Ramirez.
Calm. Controlled. Surgical.
“We’re already tapping his accounts,” he said. “Cash App. Facebook. Email. We’ll pull what we need.”
The DA shook her head.
“That’s not how it works.”
Ramirez didn’t even look at her.
“That’s exactly how it works. You just need it to land on your desk.”
Behind them, the screens flickered alive.
Shaw.
Walsh.
Two cities. Same expression.
“This won’t hold,” Shaw said flatly.
“He knows too much,” Walsh added. “You push too hard, you expose yourselves. He’ll see the NITs.”
The DA frowned.
“What are NITs?”
Ramirez sighed.
“Network Investigative Techniques. Malware. Tracking tools. He knows how to find them.”
Nathan slammed his fist down.
“He’s just a guy,” he snapped. “A dumbass.”
Shaw shook his head slowly.
“We’ve been watching him since 2012,” he said. “Every time we thought we had him, he slipped. Accounts untouched. Flights that don’t line up. Appearances at conferences that don’t make sense.”
He leaned closer.
“You’re underestimating him.”
That’s when Derek cut in again.
“Doesn’t matter.”
The room stilled.
“My ISF guys will make sure he never makes it to trial.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Understanding.
And that’s when it locked in.
Not a case.
Not justice.
A plan.
A blueprint.
Not for conviction—
but for elimination.
They thought they were building something solid.
What they were building was a coffin.
And they expected me to climb into it.
That was Chapter Four of their playbook.
But they made one mistake.
They thought I wasn’t paying attention.
They thought I wasn’t learning.
They thought I wasn’t watching.
They were wrong.
Because while they were writing their ending—
I was already rewriting mine.