Page 11 of Damian
“Almost,” I said. “A few more cross-checks, then I’ll hand it off.”
He nodded, then surprised me by dropping his hand over mine for a fleeting second—one firm, steady pressure that said what his words often left unsaid.We have you.
Outside, a car rattled down the lane like a distant worry. Inside, the farmhouse hummed. I stacked the paperwork into neat piles and slid the photograph back into its place. The recorder was warm against my thigh.
I had a thread now—Caldwell Logistics, the charity lists,Hub 9. It felt like progress. It felt like I was doing more than reaction; I was forcing pieces to make sense.
But as the safehouse settled into the kind of hush that precedes a storm, the thought that Luthor could pick anyone—rich, poor, soldier, writer, child—kept climbing into my head like an unwelcome chorus. It meant no one was safe. It meant every ordinary place could be a mask.
And it meant the only weapon I really had was the one I'd always had: the way I saw story in the margins and refused to let silence take it back.
I turned the recorder on, thumb trembling, and spoke. “Hub 9. Caldwell. Charity donors. J. Hemsley. Follow the receipts. Don’t trust the smiles.”
Then I closed my eyes for a moment and pictured Ruby’s grin—small, stubborn, humming through the dark. The files would have to be enough until we found her. The files would have to be the map that led us back.
10
Damian
Hub 9 was the kind of place you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking.
A corrugated metal warehouse squatting by the docks, paint flaking, floodlights humming against the fog. Too quiet. No signage except a weather-beaten number stenciled on the side. If Morgan hadn’t circled those manifests, we would have driven past without a second glance.
“Looks like every other shipping hub down here,” River muttered from the passenger seat, binoculars pressed to his eyes.
“Not every hub reroutes three charity shipments to the same bay,” I said. “Not every hub shows up on Morgan’s lists.”
Cyclone parked the van a block away, engine idling low. He didn’t speak, didn’t need to. His eyes scanned the perimeter, already calculating cameras, angles, shadows.
I slid my rifle across my lap and studied the building. Patterns. Movements. Always the same drill. Two guards by the loading dock, not dockhands — posture too stiff, eyes too sharp. Another at the side door, trying to look bored, hand never straying far from his jacket pocket.
They weren’t amateurs.
“Tell me this doesn’t smell like Luthor,” River said.
“It reeks of him,” I answered. My gut had known the moment Morgan whisperedHub 9into that recorder of hers. Luthor’s kind of arrogance — hiding filth in plain sight.
I checked the clock on the dash. 0200 hours. Good. The city slept; only predators moved at this time.
“We’ll run a slow circle,” I said. “River, eyes on cameras. Cyclone, note entrances and blind spots. No contact, no noise. In and out.”
We moved like shadows, boots silent on the cracked pavement. The air smelled of salt and diesel. I kept my head low, eyes sharp.
Through a break in the fence, I spotted pallets stacked too neat, shrink wrap glistening under the floodlights. On the side of one, a faded logo half-scrubbed off:Caldwell Logistics Ltd.
My chest tightened. Morgan had been right.
I crouched, signaling River over. He swore under his breath when he saw it. “Frigging charity shipments. What’s in those boxes?”
“Not biscuits for an orphanage,” I muttered.
Movement caught my eye. A forklift hummed, carrying one of the pallets toward a truck idling in the bay. Men in plain clothes guided it, clipped, professional. One of them glanced up, and for a heartbeat, his face turned to the light.
I knew him.
Cold recognition sliced through me. “Hemsley.”
River’s head whipped toward me. “The name from Morgan’s file?”
