Vance's voice roared from the phone's receiver, a cascade of furious curses and threats. "You listen to me, you pathetic little worm! You will be ruined! You will spend the rest of your—"

"I'm sorry, good night," Brown interrupted, his throat tight with dry nerves, preventing him from saying anything further that might compromise himself. He hung up the phone.

The private dining room in the 'Aurelian' plunged into a shocked, terrified silence as the dial tone cut the connection.

Ethan slowly lowered the rifle, the metal clicking softly. He reached out and condescendingly patted Director Brown on the head, as one would a dog.

"Good boy, good boy," Ethan said, his voice mocking.

"Now," Ethan continued, stepping back and looking down at the utterly defeated man. "Do you understand which side is the winner now?"

Director Brown slowly shook his head, looking around at the armed guards and the unwavering face of Director Hayes.

"What the hell did I get myself into..." Brown whispered, the question hanging heavy in the silence of the office.

-------------------

The private dining room remained frozen in terror after the abrupt silence from the phone. The associates and Vincent Halbert stared at Congressman Vance, who still clutched the receiver.

"Vance! What happened?" Prosecutor Carter demanded, grabbing his shoulder. "What did he say? Why did he hang up?"

"He hung up," Vance whispered, his voice thin, staring into the middle distance. "The bastard... he abandoned us. Everything... how did everything go to hell?"

In that moment of total panic, Vance's personal phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. The contact name on the screen made his eyes widen in fresh horror: 'Dog Shit.'

Vance lifted the phone, pressing it against his mouth. He bit down hard on his lower lip, drawing blood, the metallic taste of his own failure filling his mouth.

"Who is this?" Vance managed to ask, his voice thick with fear.

"You know perfectly well who this is, Vance," Congressman Thompson's smooth, cold voice answered from the other end. "Did you miss me?"

"Thompson," Vance hissed, his bloodied lip trembling. "You bastard, how dare you—!"

"Dare to do what? Expose your filth?" Thompson interrupted, his voice laced with patronizing amusement. "Or what exactly do I dare?"

"What do you want?" Vance asked, defeated.

"We have two ways to fix this mess, Vance," Thompson laid out the terms, the confidence in his voice absolute. "Option one: I ruin you in court. I expose the conspiracy, the financial trail, the assassinations. You spend the rest of your life in federal prison."

"Or...?" Vance prompted, clutching the phone with both hands.

"Or we settle it privately, and you avoid prison."

"Tell me what you desire," Vance demanded.

"It's very simple. You will publicly resign from your candidacy immediately and declare your full support for me and my entire legislative agenda," Thompson demanded.

"You know I can't do that," Vance pleaded, looking wildly at Carter. "They would destroy me politically!"

"I will destroy you first, believe me," Thompson said simply. "And I'm not finished. You will resign your congressional seat for any convenient excuse—health issues, family time—and you will flee the country. You take your money, and I will not pursue you."

"You are killing me," Vance whispered. "You are basically exiling me."

"An exile with money, or a lifetime being shanked in a federal prison cell," Thompson countered. "You don't have much time. Call me when you decide. But you know my friend, L. Wilson. If he smells that something is going wrong, I won't be able to stop him, and he will track you to every dead body you have inside the closet."

"You're a son of a bitch, Thompson! How dare you? This is all a trap!" Vance screamed into the phone, his rage spiking one last time. "Don't think you'll get off clean! I'll screw you—"

Thompson cut him off before he could finish the threat. "I just want you to know one final thing before you keep ranting. Director Brown does not control the prison; it's still in Hayes' hands. Brown has already agreed to work for us, so he will sell you out. We have the papers detailing your authorization to illegally reduce the inmates' sentences. We have your communications and the payment accounts used to bribe the guards. Oh, and I forgot to tell you: the men who attacked the convoy? Most of them are dead, but we captured three or four, including the leader. He's also in our hands. Finishing you off will be easier than crushing a fly. You have very little time left. Tic toc, tic toc."

The line went dead.

Vance's hand dropped the phone. He slowly sank to his knees, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He looked at the floor, appearing to age twenty years in a single, agonizing second.

Prosecutor Carter stared down at the broken Congressman. He knew the game was over.

"You better think carefully about what you are going to do, Vance," Carter warned, his voice low and dangerous. "If you betray me, don't think you can escape me."

Carter roughly shoved the bodyguards aside, grabbed his coat, and walked out of the opulent room, leaving the shattered Congressman behind.

Congressman Vance did not even raise his head to look at him.

He remained on his knees, his political career and personal freedom crushed by Thompson's final ultimatum.

Panic gripped the remaining associates and political sponsors at the table. Just an hour ago, they were celebrating with expensive food and wine; now, they felt the cold steel of prison handcuffs closing around their wrists. They were not merely attendees at a dinner; they were federally indicted co-conspirators.

In a flurry of desperate movement, the associates quickly made their apologies.

"I... I am so sorry, Congressman, a family emergency has come up," one stammered, grabbing his briefcase.

"This is truly awful, Vance, but I need to consult my counsel immediately," another rushed to say.

In seconds, they scrambled to their feet and fled the private dining room, eager to distance themselves from the catastrophic scene and the defeated man.

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