Chapter 11 Morgan
Morgan
The safehouse was too quiet without them.
I sat cross-legged at the kitchen table, pen tapping against my notes, the hum of the fridge my only company. Damian, River, and Cyclone had slipped out hours ago, leaving me with instructions: Stay. Work. Don’t move.
Easy words to say. Impossible to follow when every cell in my body screamed to go after Ruby.
So I drowned the panic in paperwork.
Cyclone had left me access to a secure feed — manifests, invoices, scanned receipts. I scrolled until my eyes blurred, whispering into my recorder the way I always did.
“Hub 9. Caldwell Logistics. J. Hemsley. Not sloppy. Not coincidence.”
The words steadied me. They turned fear into narrative, and narrative into control.
Then I saw it — a line in the donor list that snagged like barbed wire.
Benefactor: Raine and Carter.
Donation: Private transfer.
Charity: Bright Shores Foundation.
My heart stumbled. Raine Carter — I knew that name. Damian had mentioned her once in passing, low-voiced, like the words were fragile glass. She was one of theirs, a soldier.
And according to this file, she’d donated to a charity Caldwell had funneled through Hub 9.
I grabbed the folder, flipping back three pages, four, cross-checking. The Bright Shores Foundation wasn’t just a shell. It was a front directly tied to shipments rerouted through Luthor’s hub.
And Raine’s name was on their books.
I pressed the recorder close, whispering, “Raine Carter. Tied to Bright Shores. Not willingly — forged? Stolen? Or worse?” My throat closed. If Luthor knew who she was, he’d go after her. He’d go after Carter, too.
Panic threatened to drown me. Carter and Raine were already in hiding — Damian had said as much. If this trail touched them, it wasn’t a coincidence. It was a trap designed to flush them out.
I shoved back from the table, nearly spilling coffee across the files. My hands shook as I grabbed the sat phone Damian had left for emergencies.
One number was programmed. His.
I pressed the button, held the phone to my ear. One ring. Two. The line clicked, his voice a whisper through static.
“Morgan?”
I swallowed hard. “Damian, you need to hear this. It’s not just Ruby. Luthor’s reaching further. Bright Shores Foundation, Caldwell, Hub 9… and Raine Carter’s name is all over it.”
Silence. Then a curse, sharp and low.
“Bloody hell,” he breathed. “Stay put, love. We’ll be back soon.”
But I could hear it in his tone — the storm had already shifted, and I’d just handed him the match to light it.