Chapter 55 (The Mortal Multiverse : Liam Raven Harper)

Chapter 55 - Liam vs Marcus Hale Part-3

Liam PoV

I closed the file and felt the paper whisper against my palm like a verdict.

Cross and Ruiz sitting opposite to me, faces raw with anger — not the bored, shirt-and-tie irritation of precinct life, but the kind of fury that makes you want to move the world yourself.

Cross was the first to break the silence. “How the hell did you find this?”

His voice wasn’t accusatory, it was the stunned curiosity of a man who thought he’d seen every angle of crime in the city.

I laid my hands flat on the table and met his eyes. “It started with your DUI arrest,” I said.

“Everyone saw one more drunk celebrity and no one took the lactose powder in his possession seriously but my gut told me it was more than what the eye can see, so I followed the thread and the trail led where it led.”

Cross listened, slow, like he was weighing each word.

He gave a small, almost reluctant nod. “Liam, this is—this is something else. You’ve built a high profile case with strong evidence without any help from the department. Nobody in the department could have dug this deep.”

I let a half-smile come, stripped of pride. “I’m fighting for justice as that’s the job but I need help to finish it.”

Cross shifted, conflicted.

The idea was obvious: take the case, run the warrants, make the arrests. It would read to the outside like a standard operation. “You built this by yourself. If we step in now, it’ll look like we’re taking some credit for your work.”

I shook my head. “This began when you and Ruiz took action on the street. I don’t care who gets the press clipping. I picked you because I trust you two to see it through. No politics. No leaks.”

Ruiz’s usual sarcasm was gone; in its place was an earnestness I hadn’t seen in him before. He ran a hand over his jaw and gave a tight half-grin. “If this sticks, it’s the kind of case they put on a wall,” he said. “Career highlight stuff.”

Cross leaned forward, palms on the table, the old professional settling back in. “Alright. What’s the play?”

I set the terms: we take it to Judge Harrington with the evidence package — the videos, the transaction trails, the chain linking Hale to Marino, Dorian, Vega, Kane, and Strauss.

We ask for search and arrest warrants that allow simultaneous seizures: homes, servers, labs, safehouses. No solos. Full chain-of-custody protocols. No press, no leaks, no half-measures.

Cross ran a hand over his face as he absorbed the scale. “Proving the lactose powder—if we can’t find the original formula or the R&D stuff, this will be a stretch,” he said. “Labs can say what they tested, but without the source, we can be vulnerable.”

“I know,” I said. “If they destroy the labs or hide files, I have contingencies. But I don’t want to share those now.” I didn’t have to; the confidence in my voice was enough to buy the room. They read it as certainty, not bravado.

For a beat neither of them asked for proof of my backup plans.

They trusted the man sitting across from them and that faith tightened something in my chest — not entitlement, but the heavy responsibility of momentum.

I placed a fifty-dollar bill on the table for the coffees as Cross and Ruiz grabbed the files with the same hands that would soon be executing warrants.

“Let’s go,” Cross said. “We’ll meet Harrington’s clerk right now. Bring me everything you can—files, timestamps, a list of locations. I’ll start drafting affidavits.”

Ruiz pushed his chair back and stood, the motion decisive. “Before these bastards try to run, we’ll catch them.”

We left the café together, the folder tucked under my arm.

The courthouse sat across the street — an old stone face that meant paperwork could become consequence.

I felt the plan lock into place; anger had become procedure, and procedure was the most dangerous kind of force. Today would be the start.

Cross and Ruiz moved with the kind of efficiency that comes from doing this for years — they had already drafted affidavits, circled the locations, and queued the supporting exhibits.

Now we stood in Judge Harrington’s chambers, the old wood and stern portraiture doing its best to look impartial.

Harrington lifted his brows the moment we entered. “This is highly irregular,” he said, voice flat. “Jury selection is scheduled for tomorrow. The defense wasn’t notified of any ex parte meeting. Explain.”

Cross let me take the lead. He’d said as much back at the café.

I stepped forward and set the stack of exhibits on the judge’s desk — the traffic cam stills, the surveillance snaps tying Marcus Hale to a handoff, the bank transfers that curved toward offshore accounts, the photos with Marino and Dorian, the Nexor report on the lactose powder’s weird protein profile, the hospital charts.

I didn’t rush. I let the pages breathe, let Harrington’s eyes move.

“This started as a DUI,” I said. “It should have been routine. But the evidence we seized led to a chain that shows something engineered—sports, animals, betting. Lives were put at risk for profit. Marcus Hale is the surface. He’s the front of the whole operation.”

Harrington read.

His face moved through incredulity, then anger, then a tight, controlled patience.

He’s a judge who keeps his hand steady in storms, but he is not blind, the facts cut.

Cross and Ruiz handed exhibits in a timed sequence as I outlined the links between these people.

When I pointed to the pages that showed Hale with Marino and Dorian, and then to the photos where Adrian Kane and Dr. Leonard Strauss sat in a VIP room, Harrington’s mouth tightened.

“This is extraordinary,” he said finally. “But extraordinary requires extraordinary proof. Allegations of a protein-based product causing systemic harm—without the formula, without lab confirmation tying that product to the injuries, this is speculative. You’re asking me to authorize warrants on corporate R&D, home servers, Oscorp facilities, and take passports on people of significant financial standing on the basis of… conjecture.”

Cross leaned in, voice low and even. “Your honor, the exhibits include a traffic cam showing a hand-to-hand that wasn’t previously on the record. We’ve got financial flows. We’ve got evidence of the powder in Hale’s apartment tied to Vega’s shipments. We’re not asking for warrants on rumor. We’re asking for the ability to secure the proof that’s already on their systems.”

Harrington tapped a pen against his desk. “If the proof is indeed on those systems, then it needs to be preserved. If it isn’t, then these people’ lives will be badly damaged by the arrests. I have to be careful.” He looked at me with a judicial tilt. “Who will testify to the claims that the powder was used to spike athletes and animals? Where are the medical links?”

I felt the room shrink to the space between my ribs and his eyes.

I had one way to push this through — the one thing that would make the judge consider the immediate risk of evidence destruction as greater than the risk of a wrongful flash point.

I had to sell the immediacy: the likelihood that, if given hours, the targets would erase servers, move cash, and scatter archives.

I forced my voice to stay steady. “Your Honor, what I’m asking for is not a prerogative to ruin men on claims. It is a narrowly scoped, simultaneous seizure. We present probable cause that the evidence will be destroyed if not removed immediately. The labs, drives, notes — they’re the only things that will prove this beyond reasonable argument. If those items exist, we need them now. If not, you’ll see the evidence in court and will be dismissed.”

Harrington’s eyes searched mine.

The skepticism was a wall and I had one more—and riskier—move.

I let my vision narrow. I felt the familiar power behind my eyes as the sharingan’s subtle pulse started to thread the air between us.

There are people who know what it looks like when a man is trying to persuade; there are others who only ever hear words.

The upgraded version I had learned to hold silent was a scalpel — small, precise, and, crucially, designed to leave no obvious ripple in the immediate.

I caught Harrington’s gaze and let the red thread weave through. The others didn’t have a vision of my eyes so it was perfect and I didn’t need to say anything out loud as my thoughts were enough to get the job done.

I pushed nothing dramatic, only the quietest nudge towards to focus on the risk of evidence being lost, remember the hospital files, weigh the lives at stake. It’s enough. It’s surgical.

[Conserve exertion. I’ll keep an eye on your stamina] Eve’s bracketed whisper in my head, businesslike and urgent.

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t speak as it was the judge’s chambers.

For a breath I felt the strain like cold iron through my temples.

Harrington’s shoulders loosened, his eyes glazed very briefly as if he’d blinked through a haze.

When he came back, his face had smoothed into judicial resolve.

“All right,” he said, voice firmer. “I will sign full warrants for others but only limited emergency warrants: home and office searches for Strauss and Kane, immediate seizure authority for any R&D materials, and temporary passport retention for the suspects named. I will require independent forensic mirroring on any seized servers and an immediate sealed affidavit presentation. No public announcements until after seizure.”

Cross and Ruiz exhaled visibly beside me.

The relief that washed through them was immediate and human.

I let go of the control with ease as Harrington’s eyes refocused, and for a moment he looked confused—had he been… moved? He shrugged the feeling off, rationalizing the intensity of the case.

He must have told himself, judges make heavy decisions every day.

We left the chamber with the warrants in hand, the paper already inked.

Outside, Cross’s face had that locked, professional set; Ruiz’s jaw still trembled with something like adrenaline-tinged righteousness.

[Not bad, you pulled one over the judge’s head] Eve’s voice in my head was dipped in sarcasm.

Cross clapped me on the shoulder—brief, grateful. “We’ll plan and move right away” he said. “We get the tech involved, we coordinate tactics and make sure there are no leaks.”

I nodded, the noise of the courthouse swelling around us.

I felt both powerful and exhausted—like someone who’d lifted a weight that left a mark.

We were out now of the court house and the takedown was on the clock.

I mounted my bike and rode toward the DA office to brief Cameron.

The city looked ordinary as we passed—untouched by what we were about to break open which will make big news…

The End