By the time the car cut through the city and reached Dodge’s estate, it was well past midnight.
The lavish mansion, perched halfway up the mountainside, blazed like a beacon.
Vincent could see purple laser beams slicing through the sky behind the villa, sweeping across the sprawling lawns.
A loud, chaotic midnight party was clearly underway.
Given enough cash, you can enjoy endless luxury in Gotham’s nightlife.
On paper, Oswald and Dodge held similar ranks within the syndicate, both reporting directly to Maroni.
In reality, their finances, manpower, and actual weight in the underworld were worlds apart.
A broke, desperate Oswald couldn’t even compare to one of Dodge’s low-level runners.
The man escorting Harvey wore a classy black suit without a single speck of dust, a gold watch gleaming on his left wrist.
It was a serious luxury timepiece.
After verifying his identity, Harvey was taken in a golf cart.
They drove past manicured vineyards, wide pastures, and stables before arriving at the private pool behind the main estate.
The midnight party was in full swing.
Hundreds of people packed the three-hundred-square-meter backyard, and a single glance was enough to spot a crowd of supermodels in hot bikinis.
Seeing a mid-level crew captain living in such absolute luxury made Harvey realize exactly how much blood money the bastard was pulling in from the narcotics business.
In the middle of the pool, surrounded by a dozen women, a fat man sat astride on an inflatable duck.
This was Dodge Bourbon.
Although he had allowed Harvey onto his property, he had no intention of playing host.
He gave Harvey a quick, dismissive glance before turning his attention back to entertaining his guests.
He was deliberately giving Harvey the cold shoulder, trying to deliver a classic Gotham-style reality check to the rookie prosecutor from New York.
Harvey was not about to stand on the edge and stare like an idiot.
He took off his trench coat, dove straight into the water with a loud splash, and swam directly toward Dodge.
Dodge completely froze, caught off guard by the aggressive move.
His reflexes kicked in quickly, however, and he waved the women away before signaling the DJ to kill the music.
Reaching underneath the inflatable duck, Dodge pulled out a small, heat-sealed plastic bag containing two white pills.
“Want a taste?” Dodge asked.
“No,” Harvey said, wiping water from his face.
“I am here for business.” “Business?
to me, pleasure is the only business that matters.” Dodge tore the packet open and swallowed one of the pills.
Within seconds his face turned a sickening, unnatural flush red.
His eyes rolled back, his heavy breaths accompanied by twitching fat on his cheeks.
He looked like an infected dead body that was about to change.
“Narcotics are illegal in New Jersey,” Harvey noted coldly.
“Taking drugs right in front of a prosecutor?
You have some balls, don’t you!?!” “Oh, come the fuck on, Harvey Dent.
I have seen plenty of guys exactly like you.” Dodge laughed, a wet, guttural sound, and snapped his fingers.
Two heavy, weatherproof tactical cases were brought over by his men.
When the cases popped open, stacks of hundred-dollar bills poured out, floating across the surface of the pool.
Dodge smirked.
“Go on.
Take whatever the fuck you want.
Just promise to keep your nose out of my business, and I will make sure there is always a spot saved for you at these parties.” The ripples in the water pushed a hundred-dollar bill right up to Harvey’s chest.
Benjamin Franklin’s face looked swollen and twisted under the water, as if it were mocking Harvey with an ugly smile.
Harvey looked right past it, letting the wet bill slowly sink to the bottom of the pool.
Dodge’s smile faded into a hard scowl.
He paddled his inflatable duck to the edge, threw on a silk bathrobe, and pulled a cigar from his pocket.
“Listen to me, Harvey Dent.
You just got into town, which means you are only worth this much to me right now.
If you want a real partnership, you need to start bringing some actual value to the table.” “You completely miscalculated,” Harvey said calmly.
“I don’t give a fuck about your money.” Dodge looked genuinely confused.
He had dealt with dozens of cops and prosecutors, and every single one of them was driven entirely by greed.
In Gotham, every living soul had a price.
It was just like those gorgeous models.
During the day, they walked the high-fashion runways, but at night, they came to these parties, sleeping with anyone who could cover their fee.
They looked beautiful with their clothes on, but stripped bare, their messy, naked reality was entirely different.
He did not buy Harvey’s righteous act for a second.
“Harvey Dent, exactly how much green is it going to take to make you drop the mask?” “I don’t want your cash,” Harvey said.
“I want the evidence to take down Maroni.” With a sharp click, Dodge cut the end of his cigar, pulled a gold revolver from his robe, and aimed it straight at Harvey’s face.
“You have balls, kid.
But you are going to die right here.” “Am I?” Harvey let out his signature, brilliant smile.
“If you pull that trigger, my colleagues will surround this entire estate within minutes.
They won’t be doing it for justice, and they certainly won’t care about avenging me.
But they will asset-freeze every single piece of property inside this mansion.
Even if Maroni finds a fall guy for you by tomorrow morning, you will never get that dirty money back.” Harvey opened his arms wide, looking directly into the barrel of the gun.
“You know exactly how corrupt the Gotham Police Department is.
To kill me, are you truly prepared to lose everything you own?” Harvey knew perfectly well that this unofficial operation had zero backup.
But he stood his ground without a hint of fear, betting everything that Dodge lacked the balls to go all-in.
A rat crawling out of a sewer might be drawn to a rich piece of cheese on a dining table, but it will never risk its life if it can simply ran away.
Dodge laughed suddenly, dropping onto a lounge chair and pulling the trigger of the revolver.
A flame came out from the barrel, lighting his cigar.
The weapon-shaped lighter was meant to break Harvey’s act, but the prosecutor hadn’t flinched.
“We have nothing left to talk about,” Dodge muttered, puffing heavily.
“Get the fuck off my property.” Dodge delivered the eviction notice, still under the delusion that he held the leverage in this game.
He had no idea that the moment he agreed to meet Harvey Dent, his death warrant had already been signed in the dark.
Sitting in the back of the golf cart, Harvey finished typing a message.
With a quick flick of his wrist, he tossed the phone deep into the vineyard while the driver was looking away.
The unsent draft, framing Dodge for turning against the family, would serve as the exact fuse Maroni needed to get rid of his top captain.
Returning to the Senate, Harvey returned the clothes to the pale corpse.
Together with Vincent, they drove across the Brown Bridge toward the empty outskirts of the city, tossing the heavy black plastic bag into the rushing currents of the Gotham River.
“It is over,” Harvey said.
“Yeah,” Vincent muttered, leaning against the warm hood of the sports car to catch some heat.
“Let’s hope it stays that way.” Though Vincent did not smoke, he suddenly found himself wishing he had a cigarette.
The empty outskirts, a sinking full moon, and two men carrying their own dark secrets.
A thin line of smoke would have fit the atmosphere perfectly.
“Helping us dump a body makes you an accomplice, doesn’t it, Mr.
Prosecutor?” Vincent asked.
“A corpse inside a sealed bag will eventually decompose, build up gases, and float to the surface,” Harvey replied smoothly.
“It will drift down the river straight to the docks where someone will eventually find it.
Since we already know it will be found, this is just moving a body.
Besides, the man accidentally fell down the stairs.
What does that have to do with me?” The absolute coldness in Harvey’s tone made Vincent’s skin crawl.
He hadn’t known the man for long, but Vincent was beginning to realize that the future District Attorney was fundamentally unstable.
Unlike Jim Gordon, Harvey did not give a shit about procedural justice.
To achieve his personal version of balance, he was willing to commit any crime.
*The White Knight.* *If I can stop Maroni from throwing that acid in your face, will you actually change the timeline, or are you always destined to break?* Vincent turned his head to look at Harvey, only to find the prosecutor staring right back at him.
At that exact moment, the moonlight split Harvey’s face perfectly down the middle, leaving one half bathed in pure white light and the other completely swallowed by the dark.