Chapter 10 Damian
Damian
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 whispered Hub 9 into 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?”
“The same.” My jaw locked. J. Hemsley wasn’t just ink on a manifest — he was here, flesh and blood, pulling strings for Luthor.
Cyclone’s voice came through the comm, low and even. “We can tag the truck. Let it roll, follow the signal.”
“Do it,” I ordered. “We don’t spook them until we know where the road ends.”
We slipped back before the guards could sweep the lot. My pulse hammered, but my stride stayed measured. The van swallowed us again, doors shutting out the hum of the dock.
River exhaled, long and sharp. “Morgan’s got instincts. I’ll give her that.”
I stared out at the fog curling over the water, Hemsley’s face burned into my mind. Morgan wasn’t just circling names anymore. She was circling predators.
“Instincts are good,” I said grimly. “But instincts get people killed if we don’t move fast enough.”
Because if Hemsley was here, Ruby could be closer than we thought. Or already slipping further away.