Page 137 of Peak Cruelty

And I am reminded that his death wasn’t the end, just another beginning.

That it hurt like hell and I got up anyway.

Because men like Vance—they don’t leave behind graves.

They leave behind blueprints.

He started something brutal.Righteous.Incomplete.

I’m finishing it.

Not just because I owe him.

Not just because I miss him.

Because he was wrong.Some thingsdodeserve to end in blood.

Now they die for real.

No theatrics.No confessions.

The kind of justice that doesn’t need a hashtag.

I used to think I was the footnote.

His mistake.His exception.

But the last thing he said to me—back when we still believed we had time—was that I wouldn’t be just a footnote in his life.

He was wrong about almost everything.

Except that.