The weight of the secret was gone, but in its place was a new, sharper tension. William knew. He had always known. As I sat in the library with him, the door locked and the curtains drawn, I felt like I was seeing my brother for the first time. He wasn't just the quiet, intellectual Thompson; he was the one who had been erasing my footsteps for years.
"You've been sloppy, Andrew," William said, tapping a pen against a digital map of the city spread across the mahogany table. "The note on the Detective's car? That was emotion, not strategy. You're lucky Ethan managed to keep her from checking the dashcam footage before he could 'accidentally' corrupt the file."
I leaned against the bookshelf, my arms crossed. "She went after Emily, Will. I had to let her know there's a line."
"And now she knows that 'Hotdog' has a heartbeat," William countered, his eyes sharp behind his glasses. "To defeat a hunter like Vance, you have to stop being a ghost and start being a legend. We need to give her a 'Hotdog' that she can't possibly link to Oliver Thompson."
I stepped toward the table. "What are you suggesting?"
"Vance expects you to hit the rail yards tonight. Ethan told us she's already setting up a sting operation there," William explained, zooming in on a warehouse district five miles away from the docks. "If you show up there, you're walking into a trap. So, we change the game. We give her two 'Hotdogs' at the same time."
I looked at him, surprised. "Two?"
"Distraction is the best defense," William said, his fingers flying across his laptop. "I've hacked into the precinct's dispatch system. I've created a series of false alarms. While Vance is waiting for you at the rail yards, a 'Hotdog' needs to be spotted at the East Side Power Plant, and another at the old Brooklyn library. Both locations where the Obsidian Circle used to have dead drops."
"I can't be in two places at once, Will. And I'm not putting you in a mask."
"You won't have to," William replied, a small, cunning smile playing on his lips. "I've spent the last few months working on a drone prototype—small, quiet, and equipped with a holographic projector. From a distance, in the dark, it looks like a hooded figure moving across the rooftops. It won't stand up to a close inspection, but to a patrol officer with a flashlight, it's a ghost."
I stared at my brother. He had been planning this for months. He wasn't just supporting me; he was engineering a myth.
"So, I hit the third location?" I asked.
"No," William said, looking me dead in the eye. "Tonight, Oliver Thompson hosts a high-profile charity gala at the Aegis Center. You will be on camera, in front of the Mayor and the press, for four straight hours. You will be the most visible man in New York."
"Then who hits the real target?"
"Ethan," William said simply. "He knows the layout. He has the tactical training. He'll wear the mask, hit the shipment, leave the note, and be back at the precinct before the 911 calls even stop ringing. While Vance is chasing drones and you're sipping champagne with Emily, 'Hotdog' will be miles away, proving once and for all that he couldn't possibly be you."
The plan was perfect. It was cold, calculated, and brilliantly deceptive. For the first time, I realized that William was the architect, and I was just the soldier.
"And Emily?" I asked, my voice softening. "She knows the truth now. She won't just sit by."
"She's the key," William said. "She'll be your date to the gala. If she's smiling on your arm while the city is reporting sightings of Hotdog in three different boroughs, even Vance won't be able to make the math work."
I thought about the kiss, the secret, and the danger we were all walking into. This wasn't just about justice anymore. It was about survival.
"Let's do it," I said. "Tell Ethan to get the gear ready. Tonight, we give the Detective a ghost she'll never catch."