When I went to my daughter’s parent-teacher meeting, I came face-to-face with the man who bullied me all through high school. The next day, the school called—my daughter had collapsed during PE, her body covered in bruises. As I arrived, he leaned close and whispered, “This is only the beginning. Just wait.” He thought I’d still be the scared kid I used to be. He had no idea who I’d become.

But the final file Marcus sent me was the kill shot.

Because Vance was desperate to pay off his gambling debts, he had gotten sloppy. As the head of the Physical Education department at Oakwood, he had access to the athletic booster club’s bank accounts. Marcus’s forensic trace proved, unequivocally, that over the last fourteen months, Jason Vance had embezzled exactly $42,500 from the booster club, funneling the money through a fake vendor LLC directly into an offshore betting account.

I didn’t just have a case for aggravated assault on a minor.

I had a bulletproof, federally prosecutable case for wire fraud, grand larceny, and systemic endangerment.

I spent Wednesday night compiling the files. I printed everything on heavy, legal-grade paper, organizing them into three thick, terrifyingly comprehensive red folders.

I didn’t sleep. I didn’t need to. The anticipation of the slaughter was all the fuel I required.

4. The Teacher’s Lounge

Thursday morning arrived with a crisp, cool autumn breeze.

At 8:30 AM, just as the first-period bell rang, Jason Vance swaggered into the main teacher’s lounge. He was holding a styrofoam cup of coffee, wearing his red windbreaker, a bored, slightly annoyed expression on his face.

He had received a vague summons from the principal’s office to attend a “brief disciplinary review meeting.” He likely expected a minor slap on the wrist, a boring lecture about “proper hydration protocols during PE,” and perhaps a tearful, helpless meeting with me where he could flex his dominance one more time.

Vance pushed the door open and stopped dead in his tracks.