2. The Darkest Front #2
“Solace was working inside the system,” Jan says, reading through her file again. “Counseling families, processing claims, distributing supplies. She saw women disappearing and followed the paper trail.”
“Brave,” Cole says.
“Brave and exposed,” Liberty replies. “Once she reported it to the wrong person, she had no cover.”
Dimitry studies the map without speaking. There are names on it now, companies, vehicles, docks, island crossings, and places where the records stop making sense. Every route feels like a vein carrying poison through the Aegean.
Crew taps one of the port markers. “If they’re moving women by water, timing matters. Weather, harbor traffic, patrol patterns, ferry schedules. A small vessel can vanish fast if the crew knows the gaps.”
“And Nikolai knows those gaps?” I ask.
Dimitry nods. “Better than most of the men using them.”
That’s why Victor sent for him. Not because he’s easy or that he’s one of ours. Because Solace Montgomery has been missing for five days, and the women she tried to save may already be on the move.
Jan’s hand finds mine between the seats. I close my fingers around hers and look at the map again.
Athens first. Lesbos after that.
Then we start hunting.
Lesbos, Greece. 1900 hours
By the time we reach Lesbos, the light has started to soften over the water.
The island looks peaceful from a distance, all hills, scattered buildings, and the Aegean stretching blue and silver beneath the evening sky. It’s the kind of place postcards lie about, pretending beauty can cancel out what people do to each other.
Our vehicles are parked on a narrow road above the shoreline.
Across the water and beyond the fence line, the refugee camp spreads in rows of temporary shelters, utility buildings, portable toilets, aid tents, and floodlights that haven’t switched on yet.
People move through the lanes in small clusters.
Children chase each other between tents while adults queue near a distribution point. From here, it almost looks orderly.
It isn’t.
A breeze shifts off the camp, carrying the sour bite of raw sewage and chemical toilets. I catch one breath of it and stop breathing through my nose.
The evidence Solace sent to her colleague in London is already in Victor’s system, routed through Renzo and Adrian’s UK contacts.
Jan sits beside me in the back of the lead vehicle, reading the summary on Victor’s secure tablet while Jax, Cole, Liberty, Crew, and Dimitry gather around the open rear door. None of us interrupts her. As her voice grows quieter, every word seems to carry farther.
“Eleven women missing in under three weeks,” she says. “All from the south section. Mostly young, mostly traveling alone or separated from family. Files marked as voluntary transfers, but the destination fields are blank or overwritten.”
Cole’s expression hardens. “Transfers to where?”
“That’s the problem. Solace couldn’t confirm their final destinations, but she matched the vehicle IDs to late-night port movements.
” Jan scrolls to the next page. “She also photographed a blue shipping container at the port. Chain on the doors. Air holes drilled through the side. At least eight women inside.”
The sound of the waves below us feels wrong against that information. Too calm. Too ordinary.
Crew leans closer to the map. “Mytilene commercial side. Service access near the freight yards. That gives them truck access and water access without touching the main ferry traffic.”
Jan nods. “That’s where Solace’s photographs place the container.”
Crew studies the satellite image for several seconds. “That’s close enough to move them by truck or boat. If they’re using smaller vessels, they don’t need much time.”
Dimitry’s gaze stays on the camp. “They won’t keep women there long. Holding cells near ports are for staging, not storage.”
“Solace reported the pattern to her supervisor,” Jan continues. “Giannis Petrakis. Regional director for Meridian Global Aid Foundation. Her colleague doesn’t know what happened in that meeting, only that Solace sent one final warning after it.”
“They know I copied the records,” Liberty says quietly.
Jan nods. “That was the last message anyone received from her.”
“Then she disappeared,” Liberty says.
“That night,” Jan confirms.
Jax looks toward the camp again, his face unreadable. “So, Petrakis is either involved or protecting someone who is.”
“Both,” Dimitry says.
No one argues.
I take the tablet when Jan passes it to me and look at Solace Montgomery’s photograph again.
She came here to process asylum claims, distribute food, counsel families, and help people who had already survived more than most could imagine.
Then she saw the pattern Meridian expected everyone else to ignore.
South section. Night transfers. Port records. Container.
Solace didn’t run from it.
She followed it.
A message comes through on Dimitry’s phone. He reads it once, then looks up. “Nikolai is on the island. He’ll meet us in twenty minutes.”
Good. This place has too many roads, too many boats, and too many desperate people for us to walk in blind.
I look back across the water as the first floodlights come on over the camp. White light spills across tents, fences, aid vehicles, and people with nowhere else to go. Somewhere inside that system, Meridian has built a pipeline for women who believed they’d reached safety.
The view changes something in me.
This is what evil looks like when it wears a charity badge.