Chapter 738
Only then did I turn toward the remaining screens.
Arthur Vance.
The name appeared in the search bar. I didn’t search the public internet first. That would’ve been useless. Men like Giovanni buried the truth long before newspapers ever saw it.
Instead, I started with medical licensing archives. Old university records, state licensing boards, hospital employment databases, conference attendance, research papers.
Everything.
Lines of code rolled across one screen while another quietly copied decades of archived files into
temporary storage.
Nothing.
It was too clean, far too clean.
Doctors left trails, publications, photographs, medical journals, interviews, grants. Arthur Vance barely
existed.
That wasn’t normal.
I leaned back. I opened another terminal. This time I searched for Giovanni Toricelli, business photographs, political fundraisers, charity galas, hospital donations, hundreds of pictures flooded the
screen.
Most were useless.
I wrote a quick facial-recognition script and let it isolate recurring faces standing near Giovanni over the
years.
The program worked in silence.
Then, a folder appeared.
MATCH FOUND.
I opened it.
The first photograph looked almost thirty years old. Giovanni stood outside a hospital during a ribbon- cutting ceremony. Beside him, was a man in a white coat-dark hair, round glasses, stupid fucking smile.
Caption:
Dr. Arthur Vance.
I opened another.
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Five years later, the same man was standing beside Giovanni again. Then another, another and another.
For almost twenty-five years…
The same doctor appeared beside Giovanni and no one else. Meetings, fundraisers, private dinners, medical conferences.
Always there.
Always close.
I enlarged the newest photograph but something about it felt wrong. I placed the oldest picture beside the newest one. It had the same height, same hairline, same beard, same smile.
Twenty-five years and not a wrinkle worth mentioning, not the natural aging I’d expect.
I zoomed in, then again, skin texture, ear shape, jawline, eyes. The algorithm highlighted differences, tiny ones that were almost invisible, like someone trying very hard to become another person.
My fingers started moving faster now. I searched for death certificates, burial records, historical archives, hospital obituaries.
But there was nothing.
What the fuck?
Then, one corrupted county archive surfaced, deleted… and that made me smile. I recovered it but it was partially damaged and then I repaired it.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then forty.
My eyes drifted back to Gianna.
Somewhere in her sleep, she’d shifted again. The tiny tank top had ridden even higher, the soft swell of her breasts pressing against the thin fabric, leaving very little to the imagination.
Feral little fox.
Even unconscious, she somehow managed to test the limits of my self-control.
A scanned document slowly appeared, forcing me to look back at it.
Death Certificate.
Name: Arthur James Vance.
Date: Twenty-five years ago.
Cause of death: Classified under restricted judicial order.
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Chapter 730
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My eyes narrowed. Judicial? Not medical?
I dug deeper into the court archives, restricted criminal records, expunged files, deleted newspaper scans. Half the files had been erased.
Which only made me want them more.
Deleted information was never truly deleted for someone like me. It simply became harder to reach.
Three minutes later…
Fragments started coming back. Headline after headline rebuilt themselves from damaged backups.
DOCTOR CONVICTED IN MASS CHILD MURDERS
Another.
SERIAL KILLER SENTENCED TO DEATH
Another.
NEARLY THREE HUNDRED CHILD VICTIMS IDENTIFIED
I stopped typing, and the room became completely silent. He was exactly the kind of man I preferred to put in the Void to be hunted. The articles never mentioned Arthur Vance. It was a different face, different name, different doctor.
opened the execution records. The Death sentence had been carried out. He was officially deceased, no surviving identity, no appeals, no release.
Executed.
Officially.
I looked back at the photographs beside Giovanni, then at the execution file, then back again.
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