Chapter 3 - The Shadow Market
Selene did not sleep.
She spent the night pacing the length of the penthouse guest room, watching the rain wash down the glass walls. At 4:00 a.m., she slipped out of her room and checked on Ivy. The younger woman was breathing softly, her bruised face pale against the white silk pillowcases.
As Selene stepped back into the hallway, she heard low voices coming from the main living room.
She crept down the carpeted hall, keeping close to the stone wall.
Damen was sitting at a large glass table surrounded by three men in dark suits. On the table lay satellite maps of the Chicago industrial district, printouts of shipping manifests, and several hand-carved silver tokens.
"The Syndicate moved four containers into Slip 14 at midnight," one of the men said—a tall, scarred man named Viktor whom Selene recognized as Damen's chief enforcer. "Preston signed the customs clearance himself using a stolen corporate seal."
"And the contents?" Damen asked, leaning forward, his gray eyes narrowed.
"Seventy-two women from Western Europe," Viktor replied, his tone heavy. "They're holding them at the old grain silo near the river until the exchange at dawn."
Selene gasped softly behind the wall.
Damen's head snapped toward her location instantly. "Who's there?"
Knowing she was caught, Selene stepped out of the shadow of the hallway. She looked at the four men gathered around the table, her face pale with horror.
"Seventy-two women?" she repeated, her voice trembling. "They're holding human beings in a grain silo?"
Viktor reached for his suit jacket, but Damen held up a single hand, stopping him instantly.
"Go back to your room, Selene," Damen said, his voice quiet and firm.
"You knew about this," she said, ignoring his order and stepping up to the glass table. "You knew they were moving people through your docks, and you're sitting here looking at maps like it's a chess game!"
"It is a chess game," Damen replied coldly. "And if I make a wrong move, those seventy-two women end up at the bottom of Lake Michigan before the sun comes up."
Selene looked down at the satellite photos. She recognized the grain silo—it was three miles from her clinic, a derelict concrete structure that had been abandoned twenty years ago.
"They'll die in there," Selene said, her professional instincts kicking in. "It's thirty degrees outside. If they've been trapped in metal shipping containers without heat or medical care, half of them will be in severe hypothermic shock right now."
Damen looked up at her, studying her face with that unsettling, absolute stillness.
"You know emergency trauma," he observed.
"I spent four years in the county ER before opening Mercy Street," she said, her jaw tightening. "I know what cold and dehydration do to a human body. If you go in there with guns blazing without medical support, you're going to lose half of them anyway."
Viktor frowned. "Boss, we don't bring civilians on tactical breaches."
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"She isn't a civilian," Damen said, his gray eyes locked onto Selene's. "She's a doctor who doesn't know how to mind her own business."
Damen stood up, buttoning his jacket. "Get your medical bag, Selene. You're coming with us."
