Chapter 8 - The Sabotage at the Shop
Despite his new corporate title and the chaos unfolding at Kensington Towers, Julian Vance refused to completely abandon the South Side auto repair shop he had spent fifteen years building from the ground up. Vance Automotive & Diagnostic wasn't just a business to him; it was a sanctuary of honesty where hard work produced tangible, undeniable results. Every Saturday morning, before the sun rose, Julian still drove down to the brick garage to work on project cars and mentor the young apprentices he employed from the neighborhood.
On the Saturday following Clara’s confrontation at the penthouse, Julian arrived at the shop at 5:30 AM, a thermos of black coffee in his hand. The moment his headlights swept across the brick facade, he knew something was wrong.
The heavy steel security gate had been rammed and forced off its tracks. The front glass office door was shattered, glittering shards of tempered glass scattering across the asphalt parking lot.
Julian’s jaw tightened. He didn't panic; his heartbeat remained steady. He reached into his truck, retrieved a heavy Maglite flashlight and a tire iron, and stepped silently into the darkened garage.
The interior of the shop had been systematically ransacked. Tool chests had been overturned, expensive diagnostic computers had been smashed with sledgehammers, and gallons of waste oil had been deliberately poured across the concrete floor and over the upholstery of a customer’s restored 1968 Mustang. Spray-painted across the white cinderblock wall in jagged red letters was a clear, unambiguous message: GET OUT OF THE TOWER OR NEXT TIME IT’S YOUR HOUSE.
Julian stood in the center of the destruction, his boots resting in the spilled oil. His face didn't register fear; it registered the cold, calculating focus of a man who had just been handed the exact piece of evidence he needed.
He walked over to the corner of the ceiling, where a small, unassuming black junction box was mounted near the rafters. When Julian had built the shop, he hadn't relied on cheap commercial alarm systems. As a mechanic who understood electronics and wiring, he had custom-installed a hardwired, high-definition, infrared security camera system with an off-site cloud backup running on an independent battery relay that couldn't be disabled by cutting the main breaker.
Julian pulled out his smartphone, connected to his private server, and pulled up the footage from 3:00 AM that morning.
The high-definition infrared video was crystal clear. It showed an unmarked white cargo van pulling into the alleyway. Three men in dark hoodies and face masks jumped out, using a tow strap hooked to the van's hitch to rip the security gate off its tracks. They spent eight minutes smashing equipment and pouring oil.
But Julian didn't focus on the vandals. He focused on the driver of the van, who stepped out for barely ten seconds to check the alleyway before the thugs finished. The driver lowered his face mask to light a cigarette, looking directly toward the street lamp.
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Julian zoomed in on the high-resolution still frame. The face was unmistakable. It was Marcus Vance—no relation, but a well-known private security fixer and "problem solver" frequently retained by Richard Kensington’s commercial acquisitions division for handling difficult tenant evictions.
Julian saved the video file, exported the timestamped images, and forwarded the entire package directly to Arthur Kensington’s chief legal counsel, Elena Rostova, with a simple text message: Tell Richard he owes me forty thousand dollars for diagnostic equipment. And tell him the police are on their way to Marcus Vance’s apartment.
