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A Toast to Nothing (Final Chapter) – The Last Word
By Thomas Miller
I knew I was being watched.
The black sedan wasn’t even subtle anymore. It sat parked outside my apartment, engine idling, the shadow of someone inside barely visible through the tinted glass.
They wanted me to feel it.
To know that my time was running out.
To know that no matter what I did, I wasn’t walking away from this.
But they underestimated me.
They thought I was weak.
They thought I was just a writer.
They didn’t realize that a man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous kind of man.
And I had one last story to tell.
The Final Move
The night before I made my move, I wrote my last words.
A full confession.
Everything about Mercer. Everything about the people who hired him. Everything about the shadow network that lurked beneath the law.
I didn’t care if no one believed me.
I just needed the truth out there.
I scheduled it to publish automatically at midnight. If I was still alive, I’d take it down. If not… well.
Then the whole world would know.
It was my insurance policy.
My last gamble.
And then, I made the call.
The Meeting
I told them I was done running.
I told them I wanted to talk.
And like all predators, they couldn’t resist.
The meeting was set for an abandoned warehouse near the docks. Classic. Predictable.
A place where bodies disappear, where men are erased without a trace.
I went anyway.
Because this wasn’t just about survival anymore.
This was about ending it.
For good.
The Devil in the Dark
Three men were waiting for me.
Suits. Cold eyes. The kind of men who kill without blinking.
And standing between them?
The man who sent the letters.
He wasn’t what I expected.
No scars. No deep voice. Just an average-looking guy in his forties, crisp suit, steel-gray hair, and an emptiness behind his eyes that made my skin crawl.
“Mr. Miller,” he said, voice smooth. “You’ve been causing quite a bit of trouble.”
I didn’t answer.
He smiled. “You’re wondering why you’re still breathing.”
“Figured I’d be dead by now,” I admitted.
He chuckled. “Oh, you will be. But we need something from you first.”
I tilted my head. “And what’s that?”
The man took a slow step forward. “The story.”
I frowned. “What?”
“The one you wrote about Mercer,” he said. “We want it. The raw draft. The one you haven’t shown anyone.”
I smirked. “What makes you think I have an unpublished version?”
He didn’t blink. “Because you’re Thomas Miller.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You don’t just write the truth,” he continued. “You bury things in your words. A sentence here. A metaphor there. You hide messages between the lines, and you don’t even realize you’re doing it.” He smiled. “And somewhere in your writing, you already uncovered something we don’t want anyone else to see.”
I let out a breath. “And if I don’t give it to you?”
His smile never wavered.
“We kill you, Thomas.”
I nodded slowly. “Figured.”
Silence stretched.
Then I said, "Check your phones."
One of the men frowned, pulling out his phone. Then another.
I watched as their faces twisted.
The gray-haired man’s expression finally changed.
Because he saw it.
The article.
The story.
The full truth.
Already published.
Already out in the world.
Thousands of views.
And climbing.
His smile faded.
“That,” I said quietly, “is my insurance policy.”
For the first time, he looked at me with something that almost resembled respect.
Then, without hesitation—
He pulled a gun.
The Shot Heard Nowhere
I moved before he did.
Bang.
The warehouse echoed with the sound of gunfire.
I hit the ground, rolling behind a crate as bullets tore through the air.
They weren’t playing games anymore.
They weren’t trying to negotiate.
They were trying to erase me.
I pulled my own gun—the one I took off Mercer’s dead body weeks ago—and fired back.
The first man went down.
The second grazed my shoulder before I got him between the ribs.
That left just me and him.
The gray-haired man.
The man who had watched me from the shadows.
The man who had set all of this in motion.
He aimed his gun.
I aimed mine.
And for a moment—just a moment—he hesitated.
Because for the first time, he had no control.
And he knew it.
He exhaled. “You should’ve taken the money.”
I smiled. “You should’ve stayed in the shadows.”
Then I pulled the trigger.
One shot.
Straight to the chest.
He staggered, eyes wide—more surprised than afraid.
Then he collapsed.
And just like that…
It was over.
The Aftermath
The police arrived an hour later.
I made the call myself.
Self-defense. Evidence of their crimes already in the public eye.
No charges. No questions.
Just a cleanup.
The black sedan disappeared.
The shadows went quiet.
Whoever else was part of this? They weren’t coming for me anymore.
The story was out.
The secret was spilled.
And in their world—that was a fate worse than death.
The Final Toast
A week later, I visited Richard’s grave one last time.
Still unmarked. Still forgotten.
But this time, I wasn’t just mourning him.
I was mourning who I used to be.
The man who thought writing was just about telling stories.
The man who believed words couldn’t kill.
I pulled out a bottle of whiskey, took a slow sip, and poured the rest onto the ground.
A toast.
To the dead.
To the forgotten.
To the monsters that never make it to history books.
And most of all—
To the writer who finally learned that some stories don’t just change lives.
They end them.
The Last Line
As I walked away from Richard’s grave, I realized something.
I had spent my life writing tragedies.
But this time?
This was the first story where I got to live.
And that, I decided—was the best ending of all.